The next few months are critical when it comes to keeping weanlings gaining weight in sheds over the winter. It’s an upending time for weanlings – coping with new surroundings, new health challenges and new diets – so it’s important that management is correct during this time.
All these changes can cause stress and stressed-out weanlings will generally succumb to some sort of disease, predominantly pneumonia. Too many weanlings are housed every winter and come out of the shed in spring having gained very little – if any – weight during the housing period.
Research has shown that where an animal gains very little wight (0.1-0.3kg/day), future weight gain can be put in jeopardy and animals can become stunted for life.
Testing the quality of your silage to see where you are at is the first starting point in managing winter feed. There will be thousands of silage tests taking place as part of the National Beef Welfare Scheme this year and it’s important to look at the results and use them to formulate feeding plans this winter.
Poorer-quality silage will obviously mean you need to feed more concentrates and we take a look at what feeding is required in relation to different silage qualities. Darren Carty crunches the figures on feeding store lambs, and we also have some tips on ad-lib meal feeding.
When it comes to rations, keep things simple. For finishing cattle, the most important ingredient will be an energy source and this will be best provided from a cereal source.
The tillage sector is going through a tough time and we must all put our shoulder to the wheel when it comes to supporting each other.
Ask your feed mill about the proportion of Irish grain in the ration you are purchasing, and if there isn’t Irish ingredients in it, ask why not.
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