Ruairi Cummins September/October Update 2024

Farm walk
- ‘Getting Winter Ready’ walk held on 1st November
- Topics discussed
- Booklet from farm walk


Media
Ruairi held a farm walk on ‘Getting Winter Ready’ on Friday, 1st November at 11am.
The topics discussed included:
- - Housing requirements
- - Winter nutrition
- - Animal health
- - Water quality and the new Farming for Water EIP
The booklet from the walk is available here.
Figure 1: Some of the attendees at Ruairi’s farm walk
Animal Nutrition
Ruairi took silage samples from this year’s bales. He didn’t expect the quality to be great from the samples he took, but was pleasantly surprised.
The first cut silage was growing around 10 days longer than planned and it came into 65.5% DMD with 11.92% crude protein at 27.38% dry matter. While this is unsuitable for the weanlings or growing bulls, it will be perfect for the dry cows over winter.
The second cut silage tested at 75.82% DMD with 14.3% crude protein at 40.23% dry matter which Ruairi was delighted with. Based on this he is feeding 4kg of a 14% crude protein ration per head per day.
Figure 2: Second cut silage sample results
The red clover silage was 74.9% dry matter with 15.84% crude protein at 41.39% dry matter which was excellent. Research from Teagasc Grange that feed intakes on red clover silage can be higher than on grass silage because the feed is so digestible. The weanlings can be fed 0.5kg of a 14% crude protein.
Figure 3: Red clover silage sample results
Performance
The 2024 born bulls were weighed on 21st October and averaged 383kg. They had gained 1.75 kg/head/day on average since 20th August and averaged 1.34kg/day since birth. This means that they are well on target to be 500kg at 12 months of age.
They remained at grass after weaning and at housing, Ruairi moved them into a straw bedded shed before they’ll be brought across to the slatted shed. He put them on haylage for a week after housing to help their stomach’s settle and thankfully they haven’t suffered any setbacks. They were vaccinated against IBR, RSV, Pi3 and mannheimia and dosed for lung and stomach worms with an albendazole drench pre-weaning on 20th September. They were also eating ration.
Figure 4: The bulls were housed on straw