Will you feed cattle this winter.

mf240

Just wondering if many plan on finishing cattle this winter, with the ammount of silage and the poor price will lads just store over winter. What about bulls will many lads chance them again after last spring.

mf240

Looks like not too many.

White Clover

mf240 wrote: »

Just wondering if many plan on finishing cattle this winter, with the ammount of silage and the poor price will lads just store over winter. What about bulls will many lads chance them again after last spring.

I have a share of HEX and AAX heifers that'll probably fatten on silage, I don't have it tested but I think it's good enough stuff.

Fine Day

I think no matter how good the silage is its not going to get the flesh on an animal without meal. As the old saying goes cattle will fatting on grass in the summer with the sun on there back. In my opinion you need meal for winter finishing.

Danzy

Have a dozen Aax heifers that are going to be near it, will give ration for the push, shouldn't be long.

Won't be driving anything on.

squinn2912

Going to keep last years heifers that aren’t sold and this year’s calves will all go back to grass. Keeping bulls last spring messed up grazing pattern and we ended up not doing too well and also under stocked so keen to keep as many as possible

Muckit

Theheff wrote: »

I think no matter how good the silage is its not going to get the flesh on an animal without meal. As the old saying goes cattle will fatting on grass in the summer with the sun on there back. In my opinion you need meal for winter finishing.

If you have 70+dmd silage it should be very possible esp with heifers and esp if left till up on 30mths.

There's going to be a shift towards more easily fleshed cattle.

Meal feeding also means extra work and management which isn't paying. You are tied to feeding once a day. Silage only leaves options. No point being tethered to a sinking ship.

We're all going to have to change our mindset if we're going to stick at this beef lark.

Danzy

Muckit wrote: »

If you have 70+dmd silage it should be very possible esp with heifers and esp if left till up on 30mths.

There's going to be a shift towards more easily fleshed cattle.

Meal feeding also means extra work and management which isn't paying. You are tied to feeding once a day. Silage only leaves options. No point being tethered to a sinking ship.

We're all going to have to change our mindset if we're going to stick at this beef lark.

And putting put a bag and a half of 18 6 12 an acre at 27 Euro an acre.

Input costs for a "drive on" system no longer make sense.

Muckit

Danzy wrote: »

And putting put a bag and a half of 18 6 12 an acre at 27 Euro an acre.

Input costs for a "drive on" system no longer make sense.

John Heney in Indo finishs all his Fr cattle off old pasture with zero fertiliser and meal.

Iodine1

Very difficult as no one has a crystal ball. I'm thinking it might be ok if near finished and aim to get them off early in new year. But without a price increase it doesn't really add up, whatever way I do the figures. ??

Birdnuts

Muckit wrote: »

John Heney in Indo finishs all his Fr cattle off old pasture with zero fertiliser and meal.

Rock of sense that man

20silkcut

The feed mills must be taking a right hammering this year. I personally never bought as little meal as I did this year.
Has anyone else here cut it to the bone?
Most lads I talk to have drastically cut back on it.
But then the grass was pretty good this year.

Bass Reeves

I be sceptical if you can finish heifers off silage only unless it's high 70's DMD. Even then I think you would need some ration and you would need minerals as well. In general you be targeting easily finished heifer's. These would be AA and HE. The majority of these are March/April born and are still only 18 months at present. Even if well grown I think you would be disappointed with the K/O weights. Your silage would want to be 24%P as well as high DMD.
While I expect you would get a long way there I think you would need 2-3kgs over the last 40-50days

patsy_mccabe

I'd be careful about cutting back on fertiliser. You might stop spreading from next year, but initially you will be living off the P & K already in the ground. After a few years when indexes fall to 1, the amount of grass you will be growing will be way down. That means a far lower stocking rate. Fixed costs will still be there and get diluted across less cattle.
At the end of the day, growing grass is what Ireland is all about.

Muckit

I've done it Bass with pit silage only. 70dmd. They were thick fat. Now they were up on 28-30mths.

Some of my silage in reality could be better than a lot of my grazing ground as the silage is made off the best ground with PRG and cut late May. Silage does cost more than grass though. I wouldn't be advocating winter finishing but l wouldn't rule it out if cattle have time on their side and beef price is poor in the Autumn.

memorystick

No. Going to let Fr bullocks back to grass and sell next summer. If forward stores are a good trade, might sell on scales.

Robson99

Folks. Am I right in saying 500kgs rolled barley and 100kgs of soya bean will give 16% Protein??

500 x 10% = 50
100 x 48% = 48

98÷6=16%

wrangler

Robson99 wrote: »

Folks. Am I right in saying 500kgs rolled barley and 100kgs of soya bean will give 16% Protein??

500 x 10% = 50
100 x 48% = 48

98÷6=16%

That's right, it's the way I always worked it out anyway

1373

Muckit wrote: »

John Heney in Indo finishs all his Fr cattle off old pasture with zero fertiliser and meal.

John Heney in Indo is usually disappointed with their performance

bogman_bass

I’ve finished limo bullocks off 73DMD silage only.
It amazes me how much poor to middling silage is made by beef farmers especially when most are making bales. Baled silage lends itself to making quality.

lalababa

RE high DMD baled silage in an old sward( almost no ryegrass), how much wilting should be done if you cut at say 5% heading out? Or what kind of heading would you do it at as well?