Signpost: The highs and lows of cattle weighing

Richard Long: "Despite looking healthy and appearing to thrive well, I was a little bit disappointed with the weights of the calves – with both males and females averaging 0.6kg/head/day since birth." Picture: Dan Linehan

As the old saying goes, the weighing scales doesn’t lie and this proved to be the case here in Ballymacarbry last week when a mid-season weighing was completed.

Despite looking healthy and appearing to thrive well, I was a little bit disappointed with the weights of the calves – with both males and females averaging 0.6kg/head/day since birth. This puts the heifer calves by about 15kg/head and the steers back by 14kg/head when compared to the Teagasc weight gain targets.