Track weight to maximise performance
Monitoring of stock at key stages is critical to achieving best results, writes Gordon Peppard
WHEN Teagasc Green Acres Calf To Beef programme was set up over two years ago, one of the key aims was to measure and monitor performance on the farms.
Regular weighing of cattle was one of the tasks the farmers were asked to complete a minimum of three times throughout the year. Weights of cattle were taken around turnout in the spring, mid-season during the summer months and again at housing in the winter.
Having completed these weighings, we now take a look at Conor Greene’s performance over the winter period.
Farming outside of Rathowen in Westmeath, Conor runs the a 26–28 month Friesian steer system where the majority of the spring-born calves are slaughtered off of grass in the third grazing season. The best performing 10pc of animals are generally slaughtered out of the shed at two years of age.
The adjoining table outlines Conor`s target weights and average daily gains required at each stage along the lifetime of the Friesian steer.
Target
From the table, you can see the target at housing around the middle of November is to have an eight to nine-month-old Friesian steer weighing 225kg.
Last year, Conor weighed his animals on October 22 when they averaged 205kg — allowing another 25 days to housing in
Identify fields for reseeding
mid-November at 0.75kgs gain per day would have his cattle coming in at 224kgs, which is exactly on target.
These animals were fed 65pc DMD (dry matter digestibility) silage and 2.5kgs of an 18pc concentrate over the winter period, with the aim of achieving an average daily gain of 0.6kgs. The protein in the silage was low at less than 10pc.
In any system where animals need to be growing all the time, the value of a high quality silage, greater than 72pc DMD and 12pc–13pc protein cannot be over emphasised. Feeding a 72pc DMD silage would reduce the concentrate level required to 1kg per head per day.
Feeding a large number of animals over a four-month winter has the potential for Poor performing fields should be targeted. Grass measuring or counting making good savings based on making high quality silage. Shortly after turnout, Conor reweighed the cattle on the first of April, where they averaged 311kgs. At this stage, they were just shy of 14 months of age. As they gained 106kg over a 160day period, the average daily gain for Conor over the winter period was a very respectful 0.66kg per day, which is well above the target of 0.6kg.
Given they were gaining 0.66kg per day, the animals