Newford Farm Notes Week Beginning 08/09/2025
General detail
- To date weather conditions are only holding its own at the moment, with most days the farm is getting 3 to 5 mms of rain resulting in paddocks beginning to get sticky and not as good clean outs as the farm would like.
- All cattle are thriving well at grass with no health issues to report.
- The farm has sign up to the Beef Welfare Scheme for 2025 with the following actions.
- Meal Feeding
- Vaccinations
- 3 silage samples to be tested.
- All of the beef animals were weighed on the 28th of August 2025
- The average weight for the (46) bullocks was 584 Kg at an average of 18.1 months ( 550 days)
- The weights range from 680kg – 467 Kg.
- The top 20 bullocks weighed 628 kgs ( Ranging from 680Kg to 594 Kg)
- The bottom 25 animals weighed 548 kg ( Ranging from 594 Kg to 497 )
- The weights of the beef heifers at 17.9 months ( 545 days ) were 534 Kg.
- The top 20 heifers average weight was 574 Kg ( Ranging from 644 Kg to 536 Kg)
- The bottom 20 heifers average weight was 495 Kg ( Ranging from 536 Kg to 434 Kg)
- With beef prices being so good at the moment Newford is concentrating on getting more weight onto the finished carcass
- At the moment 35 beef animals are getting 4 kg of meal at grass of a 50% Maize Super Blend costing €280 per ton at 10.2 % crude protein.
- While meal feeding started at grass on the 18th of August , it left the farm manager to make decisions regarding grass growth and farm cover on the farm as to whether to pushed forward with meal feeding or to keep animals grazing paddocks so the farm would not end up with a large cover of grass ungrazed going into the winter months .
- So, the decision was made to reduce the amount meal feeding in August and keep the grass covers down as 2025 was a very good year for grass growth in the west.
Figure 1: Summary of yearling weights
Save the Date
- The Future Beef Programme will be holding an farm event on Newford on the 8th October @ 6 pm
- Topics to include
- Health -Vaccinations & dosing
- Shed environment
- Nutrition
- Economics of finishing cattle
Figure 2: Cattle at Newford
