Cattle thrive 2013

Muckit

I know bob has mentioned it previously, but how have other people found it overall this year?

I personally think it was sh*t. Cattle are showing poor enough weight for age. Talking to a few lads headin' around the marts they've noticed the same, scales not showing it.

Poor fodder, late spring, nutrients leeched out of the ground after 2012.... anyone any other plausible explanations or perhaps ye think I'm raving! :pac:

bob charles

terrible, hope it wasnt as bad everywhere else. Anyone killing cattle of grass maybe in for a shock compared to usual. one of the worst beef years I can remember, grass never grew properly around here till the 20th of August

Sharpshooter82

thats what the elders are saying around here, poor thrive

Blue Holland

Crap here too, they are goin take some finishing inside to make up for it. Thing is they done very well last year despite the weather while cows did'nt milk at all an this year cows milking better than ever an cattle not doin. Reckon here anyway there was ground lost in the spring, they were last to go out, so much for compensatory growth.

joe man utd

Sold cattle today off grass alone... aa X heifers weighed 385kg and got 880 for them.... delighted with the price.....

Sharpshooter82

joe man utd wrote: »

Sold cattle today off grass alone... aa X heifers weighed 385kg and got 880 for them.... delighted with the price.....

good stuff im hoping for the same myself as ive 3 to sell, what age were they

reilig

It was a great summer for weinlings. I never saw them pile on as much condition with as little meal. Hopefully the prices will reflect that. In these parts, we haven't seen such good grass growth in 20 years. I was doing up my grass budget tonight and I have 9 weeks of grass in front of my cattle and that's not countiing any growth that comes on already grazed paddocks for the next 6 weeks - only problem will be ground conditions not holding up. One paddock that I currently have cows and calves in would normally last 5 days and today was their 7th day - they won't need moving till tomorrow. All paddocks are performing the same way!!

However I can see yer point for cattle that ye are trying to finish. I can see it in my cows - they are still suffering the effects of watery grass last year, poor silage all winter, straw, and fodder stretcher ration. While they got us over the hump, they did not match the feeding of proper summer grass, the vitamins and minerals from proper grass, good silage etc. No amount of substitute bolus', licks or bags of minerals can replace what they lost.

paddysdream

Dont know re. cattle as havent any here this year but do know that lamb thrive was poor this year.

Not just me(thought it was for a while!).Lambs being killed off grass ie no meals, have not been doing the same as previous years.
Know that I have 150 plus lambs extra left this year compared to other years.

In my opinion ,my lack of thrive comes down to a few things;

(a) complete lack of grass from the begining of the summer ie most of my land even the heavier bits grew nothing all summer.For example last year I had a surplus of fodder of about 200 silage and hay bales (could have had more but topped some instead of letting it get strong) whereas this year was under pressure to get enough yield to cover myself for the winter.All this with the same acres and similar amounts of stock.

(b)the heatwave.Lambs were lying around and not grazing.First couple of weeks of hot weather they jumped out of it but after that they werent grazing enough.Left weaning them 3 weeks or so later than normal because was afraid that the lambs would just lie around at the gates looking for the ewes for too long in the heat and really go backwards(plus waiting for the aftergrass that never really came from meadows that were left later than normal in the vain hope of getting them to bulk up.

(c) coccidiosis. dung samples taken in August(I know it was late but had no worm problem all year )showed up a bit of this.Think the measurement was 50.Dont know what this number represents but anyways the vet advised not dosing for it unless it was 100 plus.He reckoned the lambs were growing out of it and at this stage too late to dose.Havent had this problem in years.

(d)Breeding stock, whilst scanning well ,suffered from all the wet weather and werent able to put as much into the lambs as other more normal years.

Have no worm or fluke problems this year and hope to keep it that way

So thats my tale of woe for 2013

joe man utd

Sharpshooter82 wrote: »

good stuff im hoping for the same myself as ive 3 to sell, what age were they

Feb/march calves... I was surprised they came on so well n d last 3 months... cattle were making great money today

Sharpshooter82

joe man utd wrote: »

Feb/march calves... I was surprised they came on so well n d last 3 months... cattle were making great money today

mine are the same age. trying to figure when to sell

TUBBY

where were ya selling Joe. What was the run of it for beefy anug/ hereford

nashmach

Apt that this came up, noticed a bunch of cattle sold earlier this week which I had been bidding on back in April.

My father and I only had a rough idea of their weight at the time but needless to say they had only gained around 100kgs.

Must admit I'm happy enough with our stock but we do have a vast mix of grazing land for our area from good dry land to peaty soils .

Sold cattle off grass earlier in July and very pleased with them but they had top quality grass right from May onwards.

Silage yields way back but nice leafy stuff and not like the rubbish last year.

Sharpshooter82

Only 100kg since April, not great results there

keep going

Noticed that some animals in the area are not as good as others sowe were talking about it and we reckon it all came downto the spring.many cattle missed out on early grass and were on silage when they were streching a bit in the spring and have not made up that bone growth.calves are flying it this year

Going forward...

Disappointed with my heifers. They're fine but considering the good grass and weather since they went out, they could be better. Partly due to the late spring and the fact they never got out last year as calves and despite being dosed several times, still coughing.

bob charles

keep going wrote: »

Noticed that some animals in the area are not as good as others sowe were talking about it and we reckon it all came downto the spring.many cattle missed out on early grass and were on silage when they were streching a bit in the spring and have not made up that bone growth.calves are flying it this year

dont think so, I had heifers out the 20th of Feb on very good grass and we rehoused them the 1st of May as they were going backwards at an alarming rate and they always had plenty of grass and were getting grain. Once rehouse they throve like mad. Cost me allot of money letting them out to cheap grass

manjou

bob charles wrote: »

dont think so, I had heifers out the 20th of Feb on very good grass and we rehoused them the 1st of May as they were going backwards at an alarming rate and they always had plenty of grass and were getting grain. Once rehouse they throve like mad. Cost me allot of money letting them out to cheap grass

Had my cows on good grass in may also and first sign of rain they roared all day had to put in shed twice.there was no feeding in grass.Can see it in 2 year old heifers calves smaller than they should be but filled out since june. Also heifers were slow to go to the bull aswell.Will know full extent of last year when scanning next week expect ci to bee all over the plcace

Dunedin

Muckit wrote: »

I know bob has mentioned it previously, but how have other people found it overall this year?

I personally think it was sh*t. Cattle are showing poor enough weight for age. Talking to a few lads headin' around the marts they've noticed the same, scales not showing it.

Poor fodder, late spring, nutrients leeched out of the ground after 2012.... anyone any other plausible explanations or perhaps ye think I'm raving! :pac:

it's called paying the price for 2012.............

To be fair, this summer was as good as we could ever hope but 2012 was what everyone knows and then coupled with the late spring and fodder shortage meant that cattle that were for finishing were playing a huge catch up by the time the grass finally came. i.e. June 2013.

then we had the heatwave which put huge pressure on stock - don't underestimate teh stress that put on cattle. however, that was only 3 weeks or so, so in bigger scheme of things it was from June 2012 to June 2013 which done the harm to cattle thrive.

Any cattle i have killed so far this year have been very disappointing but not unexpected given all of the above.

tis a bad year when you cannot even get the turf - that was 2012:(:(:(