Building covers, breeding and weaning at Kildalton
Noeleen Brereton, Beef Technician at Kildalton, provides an update on the college’s herd, focusing on building covers for the autumn, animal performance and weaning, and the sires used over the course of the breeding season.
Grassland management
Work is ongoing to build covers on the farm and this week’s cover was 777kg DM/ha, with a growth rate of 26kg DM/ha, a demand of 21kg DM/ha, and 37 days ahead. Tightening up cows after weaning will also help reduce demand further.
On August 23, we spread 50kg/ha (18 units of N/acre) of 46% protected urea on our non-clover paddocks, and 25kg/ha (9 units of N/acre) on the clover paddocks (clover paddocks received half rate of N all summer). We also spread 0-10-20 on the reseeded ground at 250kg/ha (two bags per acre). This reseeded ground got 75kg/ha of protected urea, which is approximately 28 units of N/acre.
We are trying to build average farm cover (AFC) up to 1,000kg/ha, which is the target for early September. AFC is currently sitting at 777kg and needs to be higher to ensure stock are kept out grazing into November. There will be one final application of fertiliser before the closing date in mid-September.
Noeleen Brereton
Breeding season
We are privileged to remain in the 10% of Euro-star herds in the country. The Replacement Index of the herd currently stands at €126. The 2024 breeding season started on 5th April and we finished up after 11 weeks on 27th June. We completed our pregnancy scan on 7th August, the results indicate that we will have 55 cows calving down in spring with nine of those being first-calvers. Calving is due to commence 20th January 2025 and finish in just under 10 weeks.
Sires used on cows in 2024 include: LM9577; SI4147; CH4159; CH7503; BB7638; and BB9725. Sires used on replacement heifers in 2024 include: AA4303; LM4407; LM2014; and EBY.
Performance
We weaned the calves this week, the bulls averaged 287kg with ADG from birth 1.1kg/day and the heifers averaged 261kg with an ADG of 1.0kg/day. Ahead of weaning and as part of the Beef Welfare Scheme, we have creep grazed the calves and supplemented them with concentrates for the past month, they are currently on ~2kg/day. We find by having the permanent creep gates in each paddock the calves are more mature when it comes to weaning, as they are used to grazing ahead of the cows. As part of the SCEP scheme, we weighed all cows and calves and weaned on the same day.
A bull calf sired by SI4147 at Kildalton
The suckler calves are all up to date on vaccines for RSV, PI3, pneumonia and black leg.
We faecal sampled all suckler calves, dairy beef calves, replacement heifers and finishing steers in June. The results from the vets indicated an issue with worms in both lots of calves. We treated them using an Albendazole oral dose product and the dairy beef calves also required a dose for coccidiosis (Toltrazuril product). We treated both lots of calves as required and we then re-sampled all calves, replacement heifers and finishing steers in August, the results were all under the threshold for concern.
This article first appeared in the Future Beef newsletter for September. For more information on the Future Beef Programme, click here.