Calving is well under way and things are getting extremely busy on farm as we are now moving into the period of peak activity with cows.

The first calves were born in mid-February with heifers calving down to the Limousin bull, ZAG. Cows started a little later and have mainly calved to the Charolais bull Fiston and a Simmental bull, Auroch Deuter.

Cows are calving with ease, but there were a few heifers needing assistance, with one caesarean section required.

The herd has been expanding since joining the programme, and this spring there are 101 cows to calve down, which includes 16 heifers.

So far, we have a total of 47 cows and heifers calved, with 44 live calves on the ground. Of the three calves that were lost, one was born premature, one was dead at calving and the third calf, the cow lay on.

As I buy in beef-sired dairy calves to rear as herd replacements, I was able to source calves for these cows and they have accepted them.

All bought-in calves come directly from the same farm, so I have a good understanding of herd health on the unit, which reduces the disease risks posed to my herd.

Turnout

The cows with the strongest calves have been turned out to grass and, although the weather has taken a turn for the worse in recent weeks, cows are being grazed in smaller groups on drier paddocks, with plenty of shelter areas.

Calves have also been fitted with calf coats, which is something we found to work extremely well last spring when we experienced a lot of changeable weather.

There are currently 30 cows with newborn calves at grass.

To ease management and minimise handling at a later date, cows are being put into their breeding groups as they are turned out to grass.

The remaining cows with calves were turned out to forage rape earlier this week to ensure that these crops are grazed off before the field is planted in spring barley.

Calving management

In-calf cows are still grazing on forage rape and housed once their udders really start to fill out.

At the start, we were moving cows off the forage crops and on to slats.

Cows have been out-wintered on forage rape and housed shortly before calving. Once housed, cows are fed ad-lib silage and pre-calving minerals.

However, animals were becoming dirty and heavily soiled from the changeover in diet to third-cut silage, which has a low dry matter.

Therefore, as cows are now being moved off forage crops, they are penned on straw bedding in loose houses.

This is helping to keep cows much cleaner in the run up to calving.

Diet

Once housed, cows are on a silage-only diet and pre-calving minerals. Cows have been offered third-cut silage on an ad-lib basis, but as it was made late in the season, silage is wet and feed value is lower than I would like.

Therefore, I started to offer cows 1kg/day of home-grown, rolled barley once they are housed to increase the overall energy levels in the diet.

Once calved, cows are moved on to ad-lib silage and concentrates until they can be turned out to grass. At this point they are on a silage-only diet.

Grazing season interrupted for store cattle

As we are fortunate to work with drier land, we turned last year’s spring-born calves out to grass in mid-February.

The dairy-cross heifer calves purchased last year were turned out at the same time. In total, there were 117 animals put to grass and they were quick to settle.

They were rehoused on 4 March as heavy rain unsettled cattle and I wanted to prevent them from poaching swards.

All being well, these animals will be turned back out to grass in the coming days, as soon as ground conditions improve.

To prepare yearling store cattle for turnout, I stopped feeding concentrates in late January and offered them silage and minerals only.

Since cattle were rehoused, they have only been offered silage.

At the same time as store cattle were going to grass, I took the opportunity to get some fertiliser out on grazing ground with a half-bag per acre of urea being applied to 100 acres.

Urea cost £330/t when purchased and it seems to have worked well, as sward covers have increased significantly, providing good covers for store cattle to resume grazing.

No slurry has been applied as yet, but it is likely that slurry will go on to silage ground in the coming weeks using the splash plate.

Final few slaughter cattle remaining

We are down to our last seven heifers to kill – four Charolais-bred animals and three Angus heifers. Both sets of heifers should be ready to kill before the end of the month.

Over the winter period, we had 32 steers and 19 heifers to finish and, other than the beef price falling, things have gone well.

The last group of cattle were slaughtered on 15 March – five continental cross steers averaging 377kg at 24 months of age.

Steers were mainly R grading, with two animals at fat class 3+ and three animals running into fat class 4-.

Along with the steers, there were six heifers killed. Heifers averaged 325kg carcase weight and again, these animals were mainly R grade in conformation with a fat class of either 3+ or 4-.

Two cull cows were slaughtered on the same date and averaged 337kg carcase weight.

Across all steers this winter, carcase weights averaged 362kg in comparison to the previous winter when steers averaged 372kg across 28 steers.

Continental steers have averaged 389kg this winter with Angus steers averaging 344kg, compared to 400.3kg and 332.8kg respectively for last winter.

Heifers slaughtered this winter have averaged 329kg, with Charolais animals averaging 337kg and Angus heifers 312kg. Last winter, the same groups averaged 328kg and 284g.

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