Autumn calving started on 28 July, and out of 32 cows I have five animals left to calve. One cow which was scanned in-calf aborted in late pregnancy and was culled.

This leaves me with 26 cows and 27 calves on the ground. Thankfully, calving has gone well and there has been no mortality to date.

Cows are calving to a mixture of Simmental and Limousin sires through AI, with Angus used on heifers.

At the start of the calving period cows calved outside at grass, but as weather conditions became more unsettled during August I decided to house the remaining cows prior to calving.

Some of the cows that calved indoors did get the opportunity to go back to grass and at the minute there are 15 out of 26 cows grazing.

Housing

Normally all of the autumn cows would be housed on 1 October in preparation for the start of the breeding programme in mid-October.

However, ground conditions are getting harder to manage and to avoid cows causing any damage to grazing swards, I am planning on housing cows this week.

The cows are being quickly moved around paddocks to try and keep them settled.

There is grass ahead of cows, but once animals enter a new paddock they can start to spoil grass even after the first day.

As a result cows become unsettled and there is increased walking activity, which further spoils grass. As such, cows are not cleaning swards out fully in this rotation.

Supplementation

The autumn-calving cows which are currently grazing are on a grass-only diet, with minerals provided through lick buckets.

The autumn-calving cows which are housed are on good-quality silage plus 1kg of a 16% general purpose ration.

Autumn-born calves will receive concentrates and good-quality silage in creep areas

Once all cows are housed, concentrates will be offered at a rate of 1.5kg to 2kg/day, depending on body condition.

Breeding will start around 15 October and finish up by Christmas, at which point concentrate levels will be reduced in line with silage quality.

Autumn-born calves will receive concentrates and good-quality silage in creep areas.

Sire choice

Cows will be served to a combination of Simmental and Limousin sires, with heifers being served to Salers and Angus bulls.

Most of the sires selected for breeding have been used previously and produce good-quality calves with little calving difficulty. Although breeding will not start until mid-October, there has been some breeding activity among the cows at grass.

Spring-calving cows scanned

As all cows are bred to AI on-farm, I have a good handle on which cows are settled in-calf based on service dates.

Breeding animals have now been scanned and there are 22 cows and 10 heifers set to calve down next spring. Calving should get under way at the end of February.

Cows have been served to Simmental, Limousin and Stabiliser sires. Salers and Angus sires were used on heifers.

Spring-calving cows are all at grass for the moment. However, I have plans to start weaning calves shortly, so cows will be housed for a week to dry off.

Heifer calves will most likely be weaned first. If ground conditions do improve the plan is to let the heifer calves back to grass to clean off grass covers before closing paddocks up for the winter.

The heifers were much heavier and better developed when served to AI back in May

Cows will remain housed for one week to dry off. Ideally, they will be put back to rougher grazing which is out of sight from their calves. Once weanling heifers are housed they will be offered 2kg/day of concentrates and good-quality silage until turnout time.

I did this with heifer calves last winter and it was money well spent. The heifers were much heavier and better developed when served to AI back in May.

As I calve all replacements at 24 months, it is important that heifers are well developed to cope with the demands of calving and producing milk at a younger age.

An additional bonus was that the heifers that were surplus to breeding requirement were heavier when sold live as yearling stores this spring.

Bull calves

Concentrates have been introduced to the spring-born bull calves. There are 12 animals in total in this group.

These animals will be weaned shortly and once housed they will be intensively fed over the winter and finished next May.

Autumn bulls

There are 10 bulls from last year’s autumn calf crop and these animals were housed on 15 August for intensive finishing.

Bulls are currently on 6kg/day of a growing ration, along with high-quality silage made from surplus grass on grazing paddocks.

Spring-born calves have received the first shot of a pneumonia vaccine and are now due their booster shot

The group was last weighed on 10 September and averaged 521kg liveweight, with individual weights ranging from 463kg to 596kg.

Bulls will shortly be built up towards ad-lib levels, with a target slaughter weight of 650kg liveweight.

Spring-born calves have received the first shot of a pneumonia vaccine and are now due their booster shot.

Calves have also been wormed, as have in-calf heifers. The autumn cows have been treated with an oral drench that targets worms and fluke, as I find treating animals prior to breeding helps with conception.

Silage

Second-cut silage was ensiled on 26 August with 25 acres harvested. Silage reserves are good and should be more than adequate for the winter period. In the past few years additional silage was purchased from neighbouring farms to boost fodder reserves.

Second-cut has yet to be analysed, but first-cut silage was sampled earlier in summer. Harvesting date was 10 June and results were 20.7% DM, 11.3 ME (energy), 12.7% crude protein and 70.7% D-value.

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