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Spring-calving got underway three weeks ago and things have been progressing fairly well. When the herd was scanned last autumn, we had 102 cows to calve down.
However, a few cows lost their calf over the winter, so we have 98 animals calving down this spring.
To date, we have calved 43 cows, which is approximately 44% of the herd, so it has been a busy three weeks.
Breed type
The earliest cows were served to AI using two Simmental bulls, Auroch Deuter and Popes Grandslam. These bulls were chosen to try and get a greater choice of replacement heifers.
It’s my second year using Deuter and he is breeding good calves. The remainder of the cows are now calving to our Limousin and Charolais stock bulls.
This is the first crop of calves born to the Charolais bull, who was purchased back in autumn 2018 at a society sale in Dungannon.
The cows calving to him were selected and this was a good decision. So far, he is calving ok, but I have had to step in and assist a few cows. That said, the bull is breeding great calves.
Calves on the ground
Of the 43 cows that had calved at the start of this week, there are 40 animals with a live calf at foot. We lost three calves for various reasons.
Thankfully, we managed to foster three bought-in calves on to these cows. Purchased calves were sourced from a local dairy farm.
I have been buying calves off them for a number of years and know the disease status well. All calves bought in were Limousin bulls and the cows have accepted them with little trouble.
Pre-calving diet
The cows were outwintered on forage rape and kale up to a few weeks before calving, at which point they were housed for closer observation.
Cows were drafted for housing as they started to fill out the udder and scan date. All cows are now housed as the forage rape has been grazed off.
Since they were housed, cows have been fed second-cut silage and pre-calving minerals. Once they calve, cows are kept in individual mothering pens for 24 to 48 hours to bond with the calf.
Post-calving
Once the calf is sucking properly, it is turned out to a sheltered paddock around the yard. To date, all cows with calves are at grass.
As the weather has been extremely poor lately, I am putting coats on the calves as they go out to grass and this has worked well. Calves are lively and when handled, you can feel the heat under the coat.
Cows are getting a small quantity of barley along with a high magnesium mineral. The barley is more to bulk out the minerals being offered.
However, grass growth is low and I may start to supplement cows with silage, and possibly 1kg of barley, to stretch grass supplies if conditions do not improve shortly.
Housing
In-calf cows are mostly housed on straw-bedded courts, but there were 20 cows bedded on slats. I noticed a big difference in the fitness of the cows on straw bedding compared to those on slats.
The cows that came off slats were a lot stiffer and were heavily soiled. With housing space being freed up as cows went back to grass, all cows are now on straw bedding.
Calving spread
The majority of cows will be calved by late April, with the last cow scanned for 3 May. It this animal calves on time as expected, calving will be completed in an 11-week period.
Rain delaying turnout of weanlings
The wet conditions are delaying last year’s calves from going out to grass. Normally, I would be aiming to slip all of the yearling stores out in late February to early March.
I cut the meal off these animals last month in preparation for grazing, so housed animals are just on second-cut silage at the moment.
There are 64 males and 63 heifers to graze this year, which includes animals from my dairy calf-to-beef enterprise.
I did manage to get 40 of the heifers turned out to the last of the forage rape this month, before moving them to grass.
Within this batch are the replacement heifers that will be selected for breeding, so it is important that they went to grass as early as possible to boost weight gain.
These heifers have a minimum target weight for breeding, which is around 420kg. They are also getting 1.5kg/day of barley to keep them settled. The remaining heifers and bullocks will be finished next winter. The aim for these cattle is to get as much weight gain from grass as possible, so as to shorten the indoor finishing period next winter.
Finishing cattle
There are still six bullocks to kill, with these animals being a mix of Charolais, Simmental and Limousin breeding. All of the heifers have been killed.
There were 15 Angus bullocks slaughtered with a carcase weight averaging 354kg at 21 months of age, up from 344kg last winter.
Eight Charolais bullocks averaged 402kg deadweight at 24 months of age, up from 390kg last winter, although these animals were killed closer to 23 months of age.
Five Limousin bullocks averaged 372kg deadweight, with four Simmental bullocks averaging 380kg. I also killed a group of 13 dairy-bred bullocks. They averaged 389kg at 26 months of age.
Heifers
The Angus heifers were killed at 21 months of age and averaged 305kg across 12 animals, with eight Charolais heifers averaging 341kg at the same age. Two Limousin heifers averaged 336kg deadweight.
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