Most cows have been dried off for a while now, with the exception of the empty cows and late calvers, which were dried off just in advance of Christmas on John Twohig’s dairy and beef farm in Bandon, Co. Cork.
The farm is one of the eight ABP Monitor Farms that are finishing cattle in a variety of systems and are based across the country on a range of different land types.
Cull cows will be penned separately and will be fed on for finishing at a later stage. With cows dried off, things are beginning to wind down for the end of the year on the farm.
This year, the Twohigs used selective dry cow therapy so only used dry-cow tubes on cows where necessary.
Silage supplies are in a good position for the time of year as the pit has yet to be opened and overall, the weather conditions this autumn made farming much more straightforward than last autumn.
The bullocks are currently doing a great thrive and John hopes to have the first of them slaughtered in early January which is earlier than expected.
They are on a diet consisting of 6kg of concentrates, 5kg of beet and the remainder good quality first-cut baled silage.
The silage bales were sampled and came back with a dry matter digestibility (DMD) of 72% and a crude protein (CP) value of 13.75%. These bales were cut on May 8.
The pit will be sampled once opened, which is looking likely to be into January.
The heifers are doing well and the plan is to have these finished by late January/early February. The level of concentrates in their diet has been increased to 5kg of meal and 5kg of beet with the remainder composed of silage.
Weanlings have been housed since November 20 and are on 2kg concentrates and 3kg of beet with the rest of the diet made up of silage.
The weanlings are doing well and will be treated with Closomectin once they’re housed a month. They had an average weight of 255kg at housing which John is happy with.
Early in the new year, the calving pens and the calf shed will be cleaned, disinfected and prepared for the upcoming calving season.
Other than that, the next few weeks will be geared towards finishing stock and making arrangements for the calving season which will kick off on February 1.