General Detail
- All of Newford farm and the two outside farms paddocks are now closed for early grass next spring.
- All the weanlings are on 2 Kg of meal and silage. The following is the summary of their housing weights
- The below table shows the comparison of the weanlings over the last 4 years at weaning and housing. With good sire selection and as the Newford herd is maturing each year the weight gain of the weanlings are increasing year on year as the below table shows along with good husbandry management.
- All of Newford suckler cows had an extended 2 months at grass this year as compared to last year when all cows were house early September 2017. This was achieved by the good back end weather and a good autumn grass wedge built up. This will eased the pressure of silage amount required as Newford goes through this winter. The last of the cows were housed on the 9th of November.
- All cows will be body score in the next few days and pen according to their score and any low body score cows will be given concentrates to build up, their reserved body conditions prior to calving next spring.
- Condition scoring the cows at this time of the year has been a critical point in farm management on the Newford Farm and each year this has shown to be very successful in good herd husbandry and easy of calving.
- The 61 steer’s bullocks are on 10 kg of meal at the moment (5kg in the morning and 5 kg in the evening) plus silage. These bullocks were weighted last Tuesday the 13th and the following is the summary of their weight. These in-spec animals were housed on the 12th of October.
- 14 steers of the above 61 in-spec bullocks was drafted for slaughter on Thursday the 14th November.
- The average weight of the drafted steers was 707 Kgs
- ADG from birth was 1.05 Kg
- Full break down of kill out will be in next week notes.
- The analysis of the second cut silage pit came back from Hillsborough ( AFBI) @ 69% DMD
Grassland Management Details
- Grass cover taken last Tuesday the 13th of November
Key recommendations for this week
- Monitored cows after housing
- Monitored weanlings for pneumonia and coccidiosis
- Body score all the cows and pen according
- Turn off all water going to all the troughs on the closed farms.
- Measure the amount of silage in the both first and second cut pits.