Ger McSweeney May/June Update 2024
Season has ended
- Breeding is now finished
- 47 females bred in total over 9 weeks
- Bull and heifer weanlings separated
-1-180x180.png)
Over sowing white clover
- White clover smothered out over winter
- Three paddocks over sown with small leaf variety
- Seed spread with manure spreader & cows walked it in
Bull performance
- Last pen of bulls finished
- Improved grade versus 2022
- Less ration fed to this year’s bulls
Breeding
Breeding finished on Ger’s farm on 24th May. He started AI’ing on 24th March which resulted in just over 9 weeks of a breeding season. Eight heifers and 39 cows (47 total) were bred over the period. Seven females repeated once, 4 repeated twice and 2 cows repeated three times. From the Sensehub system Ger knows that at least 6 cows have repeated which will be culled, but his plan was always to calve 40 cows next spring so hopefully it stops there. He does not plan to scan the herd but will monitor activity through the Sensehub collars and tags.
The heifers were all bred to Angus bulls which included AA4089, AA4743 and AA6682. Terminal bulls included CH4159, CH4160, CH4321, LM2117, LM5443, LM8259 and LM8622. Maternal bulls included LM4407, LM9655 and SI2152.
The cows with bull calves have been separated from the cows with heifer calves to avoid any unplanned matings.
Figure 1: Breeding is now finished on Ger’s farm
Clover
Ger over sowed 5 grazing paddocks with a medium white leafed clover in 2023. While it struck well and was easily visible last summer, the bad weather at the end of the year caused an issue with it. Two paddocks were beside the yard and were grazed off before the winter and the clover is visible, but the other 3 were too wet to graze. They carried a grass cover of over 2000 kg DM/ha over winter and Ger knew in spring 2024 that it out-competed the white clover which didn’t get enough light over winter.
In addition to this, the wet spring made it very difficult to graze the 3 paddocks and they were close to 3000 kg DM/ha at grazing. However not one to miss an opportunity, Ger decided to take advantage of the slow re-growths on the 3 paddocks and spread a small leaf clover variety called Galway across it. He did this by mixing the seed with a bag of muriate of potash in the manure spreader in the field and drove across it. The clover seed was spread at a rate of 2kg/acre. The herd were then let back into the paddocks for 1 day to help walk the seed into the ground.
Figure 2: The paddocks that were over sown with clover just before it was spread
Ger expects that the small leaf clover will minimise any issues with bloat as the cattle won’t be able to graze it as easily as the medium leaf varieties. While it means that he will forgo any animal performance benefits, he expects to be able to reduce his nitrogen applications in those paddocks. They were selected as suitable for white clover due to their pH of 6.5, index 4 for phosphorus and while they are only in index 2 for potassium, Ger spread muriate of potash with the seed to help correct this.
He will have to graze paddocks at less than 100 kg DM/ha for the next 3 grazings to help light get down to the clover and prevent the grass from over taking it until it gets established.
Performance
The last of the under 16 month bulls were drafted for finishing on 31st May. 22 were finished in total between 23rd April and 31st May. The average age at finish was 15.1 months and the average carcass weight was 382kg. The average grade was U-3= and they made €2024/head.
Ger is happy with this year’s bulls in comparison to last year’s bulls that finished at 15.1 months of age also. They had a carcass weight of 381kg and graded R+3= so this year’s group have gone up a grade.
It is expected that this year’s bulls eat less ration than in 2023 as the first group were finished off 8kg ration plus ad lib silage. The last 2 groups were eating 10-12 kg/head/day for the last 4-6 weeks. Despite the poor weather in 2023, the bulls were a similar housing weight at 409kg on 17th November 2023 to 21st November 2022 where they weighed 411kg. Ger found that they did not take as long to settle into the shed at housing and he fed them hay for the first few days to help dry them up which seems to have helped as they were very loose after housing in winter 2022.
Figure 3: The last group of finishing bulls