They're off.
Left off 15 heifers yesterday. They weight from 365 to 565. Heaviest a Sim, lightest an Frx. They have been gaining about 0.5kgs per day inside on silage and minerals. They went out to a scarfice paddock last Tuesday and ate two bales to yesterday when I left them off to grass. Hope to start feeding them mid April and send them off late May early June. 5 FRx, 2Fr,4HEx, 2AAx, a Chx and a SIx
I bought some continental stores this spring who when let out went completely crazy despite our usual quiet handling & escaped an extremely well fenced field causing me unbelievable stress in retrieving the mad whooers,very strange as they were very quiet in the shed prior to being turned out,I resold them in a different mart a few days later & got on very well price wise,turn them out with a few quite lads & have a shake of meal in a trough if they are still acting the fool get rid of them,regarding there castration I have no idea why anyone would castrate a store as this should be done no later than 7 months.
There hand reared stock from last year there not wild there just hyper is a better word for them but I don't think they ever seen a fence before and that's where the issue is so not sure how long they will take to understand how it works but Id say after today they will become fast learners. I was thinking of letting a cow out with them but not sure that be a good thing or they just spend the whole time chasing her around trying to ride her
If you let them in the gate & have a narrow strip fenced across to the far ditch & a bit of meal this can be great way to keep cattle from going mad altogether in a big field if this is practical,after a few minutes open up the srip considerably for overnight & take it down altogether in the morning,I'd say you are right about the cow they would probably torment her,I would try & turnout new arrivals with a few quiet residents.
Soil moisture defecits heading for between 25 and 40 ml on most soils by the end of this week, growth rates will be impacted if they haven't begun already. It's a very awkward time of year for it to happen too coming into the first cut silage season for many.
have noticed the wet spots starting to dry
Will lads have to cut early if the grass starts to stress?
Yeah that's the question, would it be worth leaving it a few weeks to bulk up a bit and hope for a later second cut or cut the usual time and have a smaller harvest but higher quality. Not really sure what I'd do in that position, but probably would leave it bulk up a bit but I'm not cutting that early anyway so it wouldn't affect me.
Depends what's being fed I'd say, some lads want quality and others want quantity.
I was always aiming for around the 12th of May weather dependent, so mine is just about ready to go.
with the cold night last night fields that had good cover look alot poorer today, it's taking alot of balancing to keep grass ahead of stock at the moment, lads on wetter ground must be in good shape
Had a fine drop of rain with thunderstorms passing through in North Clare earlier today, with the way the forecast looks it might be the only bit we get for a while.
Out of interest what sort of rotation are you guys running at?. Is 30 days rest optimum?.
At presit might be as high as that to allow covers to be good enough for grazing. Tain will drive on growth so rotations will shorten. Had a bunch of yearling following one finishing bunch and had a bunch of stores in a paddock with silage and two kgs to get covers goid enough for finishing bunch. Priorising finishing cattle to get some of them slaughtered
What level of cover do you take them out?. am i best to skin it or leave a bit and move on?. Finding when i graze it tight it struggles a little bit but drought may have affected it too. (Sheep not cows)
don’t skin it- takes grass to grow grass.
As Dunedin said above definitely don't skin, the shorter the plant the longer it will take to grow back. Skinned grass puts more pressure on the root to bring up minerals and stalls regrowth. I work with 8 paddocks, with a 4 - 5 day per paddock rotation.
In a perfect world all my paddocks would be the same size but obviously they aren't, so a couple of smaller paddocks won't last longer than three days and the bigger paddocks might go to 5 or 6 days but no longer than that. By day 5 or 6 some grasses will already be beginning to regrow. Aim for a minimum of 25 day rest but ideally it should be 30+.
What about when it comes to topping, how low would you go?
5cm is the recommended height. Topping gives an even cut whereas cattle if left grazing won’t graze around dung paths but will skin the areas in between.
How are lads finding growth the past two weeks? I feel it’s very poor here at the moment compared to 4 or 5 weeks ago, starting to get tight on grass as I took out fields about 3 weeks ago that were gone strong
I’m sure the IFJ will be saying grass is flying this week but I’m the same as you. Two neighbours I was talking to said they’re the same as well. The ground is like iron and the few showers here and there aren’t doing much good.
I took out a few extra paddocks for bales 2 weeks ago and I’m short of grass now.
I gave the cows silage yesterday morning and it’ll be another few days before I’m back on track with grass.
Not the end of the world at the same time.
A lot of headed out grass in the paddocks, but cattle seem to be grazing away.
I've a few paddocks to take out once the weather settles and second cut silage.
Are you back on cattle or is growth just really good for you?
I got fertilizer on before the heat and it just took off.
I'm stocked ok, just need to start replacing the lads that will be leaving.
I'm sure it'll even out.
Is all your soil good as in index 3 and 4?
Yea, it's all fairly bang on.
I try keep the lime on when needed and farm yard manure where it's wanted during the autumn.
How many times in the grazing season is a paddock topped? I would assume twice would be sufficient.
Twice is usually the most I’d go
I usually only top once. Very rare I’d top a field twice in one grazing season
Same here
Got away with once last year but I think it's looking like twice this year
Once a year for topping but in a good year for grass like this year twice, I was away last week for 3 days, when I came back it was like a different farm altogether, I never seen grass growing that well
