The first of March brought the first day at grass on the Thrive demonstration farm with 43 heifers turned out to pasture on Tuesday morning.

A week earlier, we would not have dreamed that conditions would have improved so much to allow cattle to get to grass. However, with a lot of grass on farm it was important to take the opportunity to graze while it is there.

The heifers were weighed prior to turnout at an average weight of 346kg, having grown over the winter at 0.96kg/day. This is slightly above the target of between 0.8kg/day and 0.85kg/day which is being put down to the fact that the silage fed slightly better than it had analysed.

The growth target for these animals is above what would be typical for a beef animal over winter (0.65kg/day) however the reason for this is to ensure cattle are heavy enough to be slaughtered off grass next autumn.

On Wednesday 9 March at 8pm the Irish Farmers Journal will host a dairy beef webinar in the latest part of the spring webinar series.