The farm is one of eight ABP Monitor Farms that are finishing cattle in a variety of systems, based across the country on a range of different land types.

ABP farm liaison officer Sean Cassidy recently visited Pat Carthy's farm to see how cattle have been performing.

He said that the year has been largely positive for the farm so far with cattle performing better than other years, mainly due to the phenomenal grass growth in the north-west.

"The young bulls are well settled into the shed now and have been housed from July 20. They were started on 3kg concentrates/head/day in the few weeks beforehand at grass and have been built up to ad lib since then," Sean said.

The bulls are being fed silage and straw also and the silage was tested by the ABP farm liaison team.

The silage being fed is 72% dry matter digestibility (DMD) and has a protein content of 13.5%, which would indicate the silage is of "excellent quality," Sean said.

The aim is to finish these bulls at under 16 months-of-age through the Advantage Beef Programme and the first few will be drafted within the next month. 

The bullocks and heifers are being fed concentrates daily at grass and are performing well.

The bullocks were weighed in the first week of September and averaged 583kgs, while the heifers averaged 550kgs.

Sean said: "These are good average weights considering they are only on meal for the last three weeks."

Pat recently purchased a new solar-powered meal feeder for feeding concentrates to cattle at grass. He said that he is very impressed with it so far.

The feeder has a capacity to hold 4t of meal and will feed approximately 20 cattle.

It can be set up to automatically feed the cattle a set number of kgs at certain times of the day. For example, cattle have been started on 2kgs/head twice a day.

This means every animal is accurately fed, making the feeder very much a labour-saving device that is ideal for Pat, who works full-time off farm.

It is solar-powered and can be easily hooked on and towed to the next field.

The youngest dairy-beef calves on the farm are averaging 205kgs. They will receive a dose and vaccinations in the coming weeks.

These calves are being fed 2kg/head/day concentrates. The meal feeding will also allow the calves to stay out at grass for as long as ground conditions and weather allow. 

Finally, the suckler cows and calves are still out grazing. A close eye is being kept on the calves due to the changeable weather this week.

Although there is plenty of grass on the farm at the moment, no third cut will be taken and surplus grass will be grazed by store lambs into the autumn.