Beef industry needs to wake up to changing consumer tastes

NOW that it’s back to business as usual after Mother Nature’s total shutdown of most of our cities and countryside, it’s a good time to take stock of what’s happening on our farms.

With one of the wettest winters I have seen for a long time coming to an end, I feel really sorry for anyone who was trying to out-winter cattle in those atrocious conditions where it never seemed to stop raining day after day, week after week and indeed month after month

Sometimes you get a lucky break and this was the case for me when I got all my slurry spread during the few fine days which preceded the snow blizzards. A heartfelt thanks to James my local contractor who successfully carried out the operation

A good deal of rain water had got into the slurry tanks during January, but this was a great help during the mixing process as it makes it much easier to agitate the slurry.

Diluted slurry washes in much quicker which mean that it starts to work almost immediately, something which is particularly helpful because of slurry’s valuable nitrogen content.

After some initial concern about how my store cattle were doing in the shed, they appear to be looking much better since they started getting first-cut silage.

They appear to have grown well and seem to have put on a fair amount of weight.

However, I know from experience that this is probably just an illusion. If you go to any mart at this time of the year you will be amazed at how disappointing weights can be for store cattle who have been fed solely on a diet of silage.

My experience is that when these big store cattle who have been fed on good silage go out onto grass, they can put on an incredible amount of weight in six to eight weeks. This is a feature of finishing cattle on grass which never ceases to amaze me.

I had hoped to let out some of my cattle last week but with a forecast of more snow and frost for the St Patrick’s weekend, I decided to wait for another few days.

My big concern of course is to get my turn-out timing right. Having little or no grass available for the second grazing would certainly take the joy out of having cattle out early. Against that, an even worst scenario would be for the grass to get too strong and unpalatable.

The question we are all asking is what does the rest of the