The breeding period has now finished for my autumn-calving herd and, in total, there were 28 cows and 12 heifers served.

All breeding animals are bred to AI, which I carry out myself.

The first animal was inseminated on 18 October, with the last cow served on 26 December.

Sires used on cows were mainly Simmental and Limousin, with Red Angus and Shorthorn sires used on heifers.

All cows will be scanned around 30 to 35 days after the end of the breeding period.

I have seen one cow and one heifer repeating, so hopefully all remaining animals will be settled in-calf.

Cows were housed in advance of the breeding period and fed first-cut silage and 2kg/day of a 16% protein blend.

Diet

With breeding now finished, concentrate feeding has stopped and cows are on a silage-only diet.

Silage is being fed at a rate of 50kg/day through a feeder wagon and is meeting the cows’ requirement to maintain body condition and lactation.

Cows were also offered a high-fertility mineral from housing until the end of the breeding period.

Blood testing in previous years had highlighted cows are low in minerals.

Supplementing with additional minerals should help to increase conception rates.

With breeding finished, cows are now getting a dry cow mineral, as are the spring-calving cows.

In the past, we have had a few dwarf calves due to lower levels of minerals in winter forage.

Since I started supplementing with powdered minerals at the start of winter, there have been fewer issues with dwarf calves on farm.

Slow breeding

After a great start to autumn breeding, things started to slow up a bit and there were some first- and second-calving animals that were slow to come into heat.

As a result, I ended up synchronising 10 of these animals with CIDRS before they inseminated. One of these has since repeated.

The plan is for the autumn cows to be weaned by turnout in April. Cows will be weaned indoors, with their calves turned out to grass first.

The dry cows will then be turned out to rougher grazing, once grass supplies and ground conditions permit.

Some of the autumn cows will be used to clean out grazing paddocks behind weanlings or spring-calving cows, during late spring and summer.

Autumn bulls slaughtered

The 2017 autumn-born bulls are now finished, with animals being slaughtered from 14 November and the last two animals killed last week. Bulls were killed in four drafts.

In total, there were 11 bulls finished and they averaged 378.5kg at 15 months of age when killed.

Five bulls were classed as U-grading and the remainder being R-grading.

Conformation was pleasing, as there were a number of Angus bred bulls in the group.

Of the two bulls killed last week, one was Angus and had a carcase weight of 395.6kg.

Feed costs

Bulls were built up onto ad-lib concentrates, with animals averaging 12kg/day of ration in the final weeks just prior to slaughter.

At an estimate, bulls will have consumed around 1.5t of meal over their lifetime on the farm.

They were also getting a small quantity of silage as a fibre source, to save on straw.

At a carcase weight of 378.5kg at 15 months old, bulls would have gained approximately 0.8kg/day from birth to slaughter.

Taking an average beef price of 350p/kg, they generated a daily carcase value of 280p/day, which covers feed costs.

Spring bulls

There are 15 spring-born bulls on-farm that will be finished in May and June.

These animals are coming up on one-year-old and eating 5kg/day of growing blend plus silage.

Concentrate levels will be increased in the coming week, with bulls slowly being built up to ad-lib levels.

The group was weighed on 13 December and they averaged 398kg. Individual weights ranged from 309kg to 451kg, and nine of the group weighing more than 400kg.

Preparing for spring calving

Calving in the spring herd is due to start around 21 February, according to scanning dates.

There are 24 cows and nine heifers to calve down, with the bulk of calving to occur in early March.

Cows are in good body condition and penned together based on calving dates.

This makes it easier to manage feeding, as cows were on restricted silage all winter and are currently being fed bales of third-cut silage.

As with autumn cows, the spring herd has been getting minerals throughout winter to prevent any issues with dwarf calves.

Cows were also treated with Endofluke at housing to cover parasites, along with a lice treatment.