Beef Newsletter - March 2024

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In this month's edition:

• Getting to grass
  Teagasc research shows that every day at grass in spring is worth €2 per livestock unit. The goal of spring grazing is to get cattle to grass as many days as possible and set the farm up for summer. Spring is a time that has huge potential to increase profit if farms and farmers are set up to take advantage of it.
• Calf rearing key tips
  The primary aim of the rearing period on calf-to-beef farms is getting a calf from a pre ruminant to a ruminant as early as possible without decreasing performance.
  DairyBeef 500 participants are now calf rearing; the animal performance target now is a daily liveweight gain of 0.7kg from arrival to weaning. The focus is on ensuring the animal’s environmental, nutritional and health needs are met.
• Upcoming events
  • Suckler breeding webinars
    The Teagasc Future Beef team will host a series of webinars in March, entitled ‘A Farmer’s Guide to Suckler Breeding’. Topics to be covered include achieving key breeding targets, farmers' experience of new technologies, and where will your herd be in five years? The webinars will take place on March 20, 25 and 27, and all start at 8.00pm. Find out more or register here
  • Spring Beef Walks
    The Teagasc Beef Specialist team, along with the local advisory teams, are hosting a series of spring beef grass walks across the country. Topics to be discussed include: nutrient management planning; farmer experience on establishing and managing clover; spring grassland management; and, fertiliser for grazing and silage. Further details available here 
• Research Update - Beef-Quest
  Paul Smith, Mark McGee, Bernadette Earley, Edward O’Riordan, Paul Crosson and David Kenny of Teagasc Grange, and ALAN KELLY (UCD), outline the new Beef-Quest project. The Teagasc-led Beef-Quest project aims to investigate the effects of nutrition, health and on-farm environment factors in constraining animal growth performance and finishing age of beef cattle, and assess their impacts on GHG emissions.
• Health and Safety - Organise your workload
  March brings an increase in workload on many farms. It is important to be as organised as possible. Keep equipment well maintained and stored safely so it can be easily found when needed. This will save time and make tasks easier.