Like all farms across the country, the continued wet weather is causing many additional challenges on the ABP Demo Farm this spring.
Speaking to Agriland, ABP Food Group’s Advantage Beef Programme farm liaison officer, Sean Maher explained that in a normal spring, most – if not all – of the cattle would be at grass by March 17 (St. Patrick’s Day).
With the earlier housing date last autumn and the delay in getting cattle to grass this spring, additional bale silage have had to be purchased in and is currently being fed to the remaining cattle that are still housed.
These cattle are being fed silage mixed with straw and are currently being fed no concentrates.
Approximately 200 or 50% of the 400 yearling dairy-beef cattle on the ABP Demo Farm are still housed with the other 200 (50%) at grass.
Sean said: “Farmers in many parts of the country on heavier soil types still have not been able to get any cattle out to grass, so we are thankful to have even some of our cattle currently at grass.”
40 cattle that were grazing a part of the farm with slightly heavier soil type had to be rehoused last week as conditions simply would not allow grazing to continue.
Sean is hopeful weather conditions will improve next week additional cattle will hopefully get out to grass.
Grazing on the ABP Demo Farm
The cattle that are currently at grass are in batches of 20 which is half the size of the batches of 40 cattle that generally graze the farm.
Sean said: “We have halved the number of cattle in each grazing batch and are allocating each batch a larger area to minimise poaching.”
Good graze-outs of paddocks are naturally enough not a key focus on the farm at present, but Sean said the aim is to try to get batches of cattle to graze-out paddocks as well as possible without doing any damage to the ground.
Cattle are being moved on to the next paddocks timely to minimise the risk of poaching.
“The cattle that are at grass are doing well and are happy enough at present,” Sean added.
Calves
Over 380 calves have been purchased by the ABP Demo Farm this spring, with just a few more still to arrive.
Sean said: “The calves have been managing well this spring, considering the conditions outside” and added that “while straw supplies are scarce on many farms, a deep bed of fresh straw is essential in helping to minimise the risk of disease outbreaks in the calves”.
The calf pens also have straw canopies at the rear to help minimise any risk of draughts and to create a warm micro clime for calves to lye.
Calves are on once-a-day (OAD) feeding and receive 3L of milk containing 600g of milk powder/calf.
Calves also have access to an 18% crude protein ration that is offered to calves in a pellet form as well as constant access to fresh drinking water and feeding straw, offered to calves from racks in the pens.