Advice for beef farmers: Plan now for profitable finish
Housing stock next winter is obviously a long way off, but you need to plan ahead to have stock on target for your intended market.
Decide if stock are to be housed for finish, or for further storing, with a view to selling them next spring.
Or are stock to be sold before the winter?
At this stage, whether you have cut silage or not, you have already determined the quality of the base feed that you will feed for all of next winter.
The quality of what is or will be in the pit is determined by your sward quality, fertiliser application, weed control, soil fertility and cutting date etc.
Attention must now be turned towards the stock that will eat this silage over the winter. Grass silage tends to make up the base of almost all diets on Irish beef farms, and I would suggest that many need to up their game, with regard to silage production.
A large proportion of beef farm silage is only a maintenance feed, with very little weight gain when fed on its own.
Steers and heifers to be finished indoors in October or November need to be a suitable weight when entering the shed. Aim to achieve optimum weight gains between now and housing.
Gains will be determined by sex, breed, age, grass quality, parasite control and weather conditions. Make sure you take control of the elements on this list that you can influence, namely grass quality and parasite control.
Targets for your stock
Feeding cattle next winter does not begin the day they are housed. You must first reach target housing weights.
Target daily live weight gains of 0.8 to 1.2 kg per head per day for bulls or steers, and 0.7-0.9 kg for heifers on grass, between now and housing.
Many farms now have a weighing scales or have access to one locally, so establishing accurate weights should not be that difficult.
Something else worth considering is the target market you wish to supply, if finishing cattle. Establish the age, grade and weight to optimise returns from your stock. Gather this information before any finishing planning.
If grass quality is poor, you need to address it quickly, or it will be poor for the rest of the season. Continental types will eat about 2% of their body weight in dry matter each day, while Angus and Herefords will eat a slightly higher percentage, up to 2.5%.
Weanlings and stores on grazed grass will not need supplementation, if the grass quality is 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 grass quality is poor, and perhaps you are also short of grass, you may need to feed meal to achieve target weight gains. If you don’t feed during a period of energy deficit, it will be very hard for stock to catch up to targets.
Grouping stock for
performance
Where you have animals of varying sizes, weights and ages, but intend feeding them all the same diet indoors, 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 that are too small to finish on a finishing diet. Animals must be grown properly before they can be finished.
If the grass is wrong, try to correct this as soon as possible. If the weather is wrong and cattle can’t eat enough grass, then supplement it.
