Breeding, Grassland, and Nutrition Update with Ed Curtain, Co. Cork
Ed is securing sufficient feed for winter, while preparing dairy beef store cattle for finishing in November.
Breeding
Ed has 22 cows to calve and to date 10 live calves are on the ground with no issues. They started calving on 1st August. The rest of the cows left to calve have moved to a paddock beside the yard for ease of management.
A cow and heifer that are due to calve
The cows and calves are turned out to grass after calving and Ed plans to leave them out as long as possible before housing. They are grazing good quality after grass.
Calved cows at grass
Grassland
The reseeded field was sprayed with a post emergence spray (Proclava XL) to help protect the clover in the field. It was applied at a rate of 85 g/ha ProClova & 0.165 L/ha XL. Ed spread 54 units N/acre on it in early August, to top up the 3 bags of 10-10-20/acre that it was given when sown.
Reseeded field on 22nd August
It has since been cut for silage and yielded 45 bales which will be a help for the winter.
Fertiliser has been spread on grazing ground in Boherbue at a rate of 36 units/acre of 29% pro urea + K. Grass growth dropped back to 25 kg DM/ha/day from 29th August to 9th September but demand is down to 31 kg DM/ha/day. The farm cover was 963 kg DM/ha with 31 days of grass ahead so Ed is on track for building autumn covers. The dairy beef calves are moving to that farm while the store cattle move to the home farm for finishing.
Grass wedge on 9th September 2024
Animal Nutrition
Ed had 624 bales of silage made and decided to buy in some for peace of mind. He saw all the silage pre-harvest to make sure that he was happy with the quality. He sourced 35 bales at €40/bale and a further 18 at €35/bale which excluded €7/bale haulage.
This gave him 677 bales and a further 45 bales from the reseeded silage field, i.e. 722 in total. He still plans to make another 30 bales which would be 707 and gives him enough feed for 5.3 months of a winter, including ration. Ed has also bought a second meal bin to fill with soya hulls which are costing €210/t to help stretch out his silage over the winter.
The dairy beef stores are being housed in the coming weeks so that they will be finished out of the shed in November.
Dairy beef store cattle that will be finished this autumn