Breeding
- 17 spring cows scanned
- All bred to LM stock bull
- Suffolk ewes due to lamb in January 2025
Oliver O’Hara September/October 2024
- Fodder budget completed
- 700 bales needed for the winter
- Store lambs are being finished on ad lib ration
Animal nutrition
- Weights for autumn born heifers and bulls
- Spring weanlings also weighed for SCEP
- Weaning efficiency of 40% for the cows
Performance
Breeding
Some of the spring calving cows (17) were scanned on 7th October to determine if they were in calf. Twelve proved to be in calf, with one cow expecting a set of twins. They are ranging from 6 weeks to 4.5 months in calf, which means they are due to calve between late February and the end of June next year. The 5 empty cows were in good body condition and will be sold from the farm after weaning.
Photo 1: 17 cows were scanned 7th October
All of the cows were bred to a 2023 born pedigree Limousin bull, who was sired by Tomschoice Lexicon. He has a calving difficulty figure of 4.5% on cows at 72% reliability which is high, and Oliver is looking forward to seeing the calves that he produces.
The pedigree Suffolk ewes will be early lambing in 2025. They were sponged to synchronise them for lambing and 8 are due to lamb. There is one pedigree ram in the flock that cost €1850 and two pedigree rams were sold at €700 and €850 each.
Nutrition
Oliver expects to have 30 cows, 32 weanlings, 9 store cattle and 110 ewes for this winter. He budgets for the cattle having at least a 6 month winter cattle and if the sheep have a 4 month winter, he will need 700 bales of silage. This includes feeding 1.5kg of ration to the weanlings.
The store lambs are currently on ad lib ration and good quality silage. They will be sold to either a butcher or mart over the coming month.
Photo 2: Store lambs being finished
Performance
The 2023/2024 born weanlings were weighed for the SCEP scheme on 9th October. The autumn 2023 bulls (3) averaged 495kg and gained 1.28 kg/day since birth.
Photo 4: Some of the autumn 2023 born bulls
The autumn 2023 heifers (2) averaged 362kg and gained 0.94 kg/day since birth.
The spring 2024 bulls (10) averaged 301kg and gained 1.34 kg/day since birth.
Figure 1: Weights for 2024 spring born bulls
The spring 2024 heifers (10) averaged 259kg and gained 1.19kg/day since birth.
Figure 2: Weights for 2024 born spring heifers
The ICBF weaning performance report shows that the average cow weight is 742kg and the weaning efficiency was 40%, just below the target of 42%.