I housed 30 cows on 22 September to ease the pressure on grazing ground. Cows were unsettled and starting to poach the land, so we felt they would be better off inside.

Also, with wet ground conditions, we were unable to get calves started on a creep feeder.

With rotational grazing, it was not possible to move the feeder every couple of days without causing damage to the ground.

However, once the cows were housed, we were able to introduce a starter ration (£199/t) to the calves in the group.

While cows are penned on slats, calves have access to an indoor creep area. Calves can also creep outside and have access to grass during the day.

Once the starter ration is finished, the calves will move on to a growing ration consisting of barley, gluten, soya hulls, wheat and maize distillers, sugar beet pulp, molasses and minerals. The ration is 16% protein and 12.8 Mj ME.

Bulls will then move onto a finishing ration which will be lower in protein and higher in starch to help bulls reach the desired fat cover when slaughtered.

Scanning

From the 30 housed cows, one cow is being culled due to poor performance in terms of calf weaning weight and has been removed from the group. The remaining 29 cows were scanned at the weekend.

There were 27 animals confirmed in-calf and, based on scanning results, most cows are between two and four months in-calf, putting most cows calving in March and April.

Along with this group, I have 18 replacement heifers, 11 of which are scanned in-calf. These animals were on a synchronisation programme in May and served once to AI.

There were four heifers holding to AI, with the remaining seven holding to a Limousin stock bull.

The other seven heifers were bred in June, again to AI, and a stock bull as a sweeper. All 18 heifers are still at grass, so the remaining seven heifers will be scanned at housing.

There are 16 homebred heifers in this group and two purchased Limousin-cross-Friesian animals.

Late-calving group

My suckler herd consists of 60 cows and is split in two groups for breeding and management purposes.

Along with the 30 cows that are housed, there is another group of 30 cows at grass and they are still with the bull.

All of the cows in the shed calved in March. The cows at grass calved from April to July.

Although the cows are still running with the stock bull, I have seen very little breeding activity of late. Cows will most likely be housed inside the next fortnight and scanned.

We will make a decision on what to do with the later-calving cows once they are scanned. It will depend on the projected calving dates and the number of cows that may be calving late next year.

I am aiming to have 70 cows calving in spring, so hopefully culling numbers won’t be too high. One option I am considering is to winter the cow and calf, then sell the cow after weaning next spring.

Ideally, any such cows would be replaced with either a homebred or bought-in heifer, or potentially an early spring-calving cow with calf at foot.

The good thing is I have options at the moment.

Focusing on cow efficiency

One thing I have been discussing with programme adviser Francis Breen is whether I would benefit from bringing in a different breed of stock bull to get more hybrid vigour and better maternal traits into the herd. My cows are Limousin-bred animals, with a big majority of the herd being purebred.

The 29 cows scanned were also weighed at the weekend, as were their calves. It was an interesting exercise to do, as it gives me a good insight into the weaning percentage of every cow.

While it is only one year’s data and there are other things to consider in terms of calf quality, cow condition and age of cow, over the next few years it will build up performance data and help me to make better breeding and culling decisions.

There were 17 cows with bull calves. These cows averaged 699kg liveweight, while their calves had an average date of birth of 28 March and weighed 249kg on 7 October. Correcting the calf weight and age to a standard 200 days brings the calf weight to 257kg.

This gives a weaning percentage of 37%. This means cows are weaning calves that are approximately 37% of cow body weight. Calves had an average daily liveweight gain of 1.07kg/day, ranging from 0.73kg to 1.59kg/day.

A good target for bull calves is 1.3kg/day while on the cow. While it is one year’s data and it has been a difficult grazing period since mid-August, it does show that some cows are lacking in milk.

Next year, to get calves on to meal earlier, I am planning to forward-creep graze calves by raising the electric wire from turnout. This way, calves can be offered meal in a moveable trough ahead of the cows.

Finishing bulls earlier

All male calves are finished as bulls under 16 months of age. I killed 21 bulls from 7 July to 1 September. They averaged 398kg at just over 15 months of age.

Ideally, I would like to get bulls away by late April to early May at 13 to 14 months of age, but the slip in calving pattern and a long store period meant I had bulls to kill over the summer.

This winter, bulls are being pushed that bit harder from weaning. The March-born bulls will be offered 3kg/day of the growing ration from October, 4kg/day in November and 5kg/day in December plus good-quality first-cut silage.

After this, they will be built up on to ad-lib meals for the final 120-day period to slaughter. Hopefully, this will greatly reduce the meal bill for the farm also, improving the margin on bulls.

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All reports from the BETTER farm NI programme