- NEWS
10% tax on junk food to tackle obesityA 10% tax on fizzy drinks, sweets, biscuits, crisps, and chocolate is to be recommended to the health minister as a way of tackling the country's soaring obesity problem.
Prayer vigil for fine weather as farmers queue for fodderA 24-hour prayer vigil for fine weather has been held on the Kerry-Cork border.
- WORLD
It’s technology, Jim, but not as we know it WHEN Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry first dreamed up the concept of a television show based in the unexplored universe of Outer Space in 1964, the world was a very different place.
Berlusconi’s party girls dressed as nuns, Obama Silvio Berlusconi's private disco featured women dressed not just as sexy nuns and nurses, but also as President Barack Obama and a prominent Milan prosecutor that the former Italian premier has accused of persecuting him.
- BUSINESS
IBRC delays loan valuations, saleThe valuation and sale of IBRC loans has been pushed out by six months to November and December of this year.
The smart money is always on SeánFounded four decades ago, its annual turnover is now €2bn.
- SPORT
The Terry Reilly Interview: The Godfather of GalwayOver the course of almost half a century, Liam Sammon has been in service to Galway football. Now he hopes a new generation can restore county pride.
Super Blues keep double in sightsJoe Schmidt's side won their third European trophy in successive years and gave Connacht reason to celebrate also as the Westerners gained entry to next season's Heineken Cup courtesy of their neighbours to the east.
- LIFESTYLE
Let in the seasonal lightYOUR wardrobe isn't the only thing that needs updating once the barometer starts to rise.
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10-13C
Breaking stories
Time to start assessing cattle
By Brian Reidy
It may seem a long way off, but next winter is only 120 to 150 days away for your cattle, depending on your location. With this in mind, you need to start assessing your stock, to see if they are on target for your intended use.
Many of you will have already cut your first cut grass silage, or plan to do so once weather allows. At this stage, you have determined the quality of the base feed that you will feed for all of next winter. The quality of what is in the pit is determined by your sward quality, fertiliser application, weed control, soil fertility, and cutting date etc, for both your first and second cuts.So the die is cast in relation to silage quality. How about the stock that will be fed this silage over the winter? As I mentioned earlier, it makes up the base of almost all diets on Irish beef farms.
Steers and heifers to be finished once they go indoors in October or November need to be of suitable weight for finishing when entering the shed. You should aim to achieve optimum weight gains between now and housing. Those gains will be determined by sex, breed, age, grass quality, parasite control and weather conditions. Make sure you take control of those elements on the list where your management has an influence — namely grass quality and parasite control.
So what targets should you set for your stock? Target daily live weight gains of between 0.8kg and 1.2kg per head per day for steers, and between 0.7kg and 0.9kg for heifers.
Live weight gain from grass
If grass quality is poor, then you need to address it quickly, or it will be poor for the rest of the season. It is worth repeating what I said here last week regarding intakes from grass — beef animals of all types will consume approximately 2% of their body weight in dry matter each day.
Weanlings/stores on grazed grass will in many cases no longer need supplementation, as long as grass quality is kept right. But if you try to get these animals to graze covers that are too strong, you will not achieve target weight gains, because total energy intake will not suffice.
If your grass quality is poor and you are perhaps also short of grass, then in order to achieve target weight gains, you may well need to feed meal. If you don’t feed them during a period of energy deficit, it will be very hard for them to catch up to target weights.
Parasite control is also worth getting right. Get advice from an animal health expert on what parasite control programme might work best on your farm. This should be based on the history of the farm and land type. If you also have evidence of infestation based on recent slaughter records, don’t ignore it.
Grouping stock
Where you have animals of varying sizes, weights and ages, but intend on feeding them the same once indoors, then you should consider splitting them. You can then push the lighter ones with some concentrate, so that the whole group will be more even at housing. There is no point in putting animals on a finishing diet that are too small to finish. Animals must be grown properly before they can be finished properly.
It should, where avoidable, never be an accident of good fortune that your cattle enter the shed in good order. If the grass is wrong, strive to get it right, and if the weather is wrong and cattle can’t eat enough grass, then supplement it.