Shane Keaveney November/December 2023
Performance
- The bulls are on red clover silage plus meal and are performing very well
- Shane purchases 5 weanling bulls to slaughter at u 16 months
- The store heifers and the purchased Angus are also weighed
Performance
Shane weighs his 15 bulls on a monthly basis over the winter as he wants to closely monitor their performance. In a bull system , daily weight gain of 1.3-1.5kgs/day is required.
The bulls were weighed at the beginning of November and they averaged 369kgs meaning an average daily gain of 1.26kgs since birth- which is very good The bulls were housed in October so were only settling into their new housing environment and feeding regime.
This year Shane is using a high quality red clover silage as the fibre source and the bulls are on 5 kgs of meal/head/day including 1kg of the finishing ration . This will be increased after Christmas. The target is to have the bulls weighing at least 500kg at 12 months of age.
The next weighing at the beginning of December tells a lot on how the bulls are performing indoors. They are gaining 1.51kg/day which is excellent and are hitting 416kgs at 9 months of age. Shane is very happy with the performance of the bulls to date.
The 21 CH homebred heifers were weighed at the end of December.
They are averaging 327kgs on Dec 29th meaning an average daily gain of 0.94kgs which is very close to target. Shane is front loading the meal at 2kgs/head/day and they are on top quality silage also. This year Shane has kept the 21 heifers at home rather than in the shed on the outfarm. He can keep a closer eye on them and make sure that there is feed in front of them at all times.
Picture 1: The CH heifers weighted 327kgs on the 29th December
In spring, Shane purchased and reared 10 angus heifers to add to the output of the farm. Once reared they were grazed with his own calves and he found them easy to manage.
He weighed these also on the December 29th. They are currently on 2.5kgs of meal/head/day plus top quality silage. The average daily gain since birth is 0.78kgs which is on target on these type of stock.
Shane has 15 homebred bulls for finishing in 2024. To bring the number up to the normal 20 , he decided to purchase 5 . The requirements were that they would be spring born in 2023 and weigh approximately 300kgs. Shane wasn’t too concerned about breed . The 5 came in at an average price of €1030 or €3.50-€3.85/kg. They were vaccinated, dosed and isolated to a pen of their own.
Picture: New arrivals- the bulls purchased in November
Breeding
The ICBF report for 2023 highlight excellent performance with Shane hitting all the breeding KPI’s and is in the top 10% across all beef farms. Firstly, the calving season lasted just 10 weeks which is very compact. Mortality was zero and 100 % of his heifers calved at 2 years of age.
For an efficient profitable herd these are the targets that must be met.
Table: Hitting the breeding KPI's