Future Beef and Signpost Programme participant, Eamon McCarthy takes a closer look at his silage test results, using the information provided to build winter diets.

We got our silage analysed and we are very happy with the results for the first, second and third cuts. All the silage made on the farm in 2025 had high DMDs (Dry matter digestibility).

The first and second cut had a DMD of 75% while the third cut had a DMD of just over 71%. Best practice was adopted when putting in place a plan for silage making on the farm. The silage ground was grazed early in the spring and then received 2,500 gallons of cattle slurry and nitrogen in the form of protected urea plus sulphur. The silage was harvested seven weeks later. For the second cut, 2,500 gallons of cattle slurry was applied per acre plus a top-up of nitrogen in the form of protected urea to make up 80 units of nitrogen in total.

The second cut was harvested 8 weeks later on the 5^th of July. Fifteen units of sulphur per acre was applied for each cut. The third cut received chemical fertiliser only as all of the cattle slurry had been spread earlier. The period of low grass growth delayed the cutting of the third cut until the 11^th of September.

Table 1: Results of the 2025 silage analysis

High quality silage – the benefits

The benefits of making high quality silage for us include shorter days to finish, less concentrates fed to achieve target daily gains, and lower fixed costs such as slurry, labour etc. We see the same benefits when higher DMD silage is fed to weanling cattle. The weanlings on the farm include the young bulls which will be targeted for finishing at 16 months of age. These animals will not benefit from compensatory growth next spring after turnout so it’s important that these animals continue to gain 1kg+ per day after housing. We are feeding the weanlings 2 kg of a 50:50 mix of home-grown rolled barley and a 13% crude protein high energy beef ration plus ad lib silage.

Because we operate a split calving herd, the autumn calvers also require good quality silage. On the flip side, spring calving suckler cows in good BCS require lower DMD silage. This means that straw may be fed to dilute the energy of the diet for the spring calving herd. This sometimes suits us as, although we made enough fodder for a 4.5 month winter, the silage stocks can be saved by feeding some straw to the well-conditioned, spring-calving herd. This can be important when the housing period in longer than planned.

Breeding

As we said in the previous article, the breeding season commenced with the heifers on the 4^th of October and the cows on the 13^th of October. The heifers were served to the Angus bull, Westellen Boss (AA9860). ‘Boss’ was chosen on the heifers as his calving difficulty on beef heifers is 4.6% (73% reliable) and he has a high carcass weight PTA of 19.5kg. Calves off this bull would also be suitable for breeding as his Replacement Index is €185 with a strong emphasis on milk (PTA 5.60kg) and fertility (PTA -4.50days calving interval).

For the cows, the sires selected for their maternal traits include the Simmental bull, Rathlee Pirate (SI1434: Carcass weight 26.8kg, milk 10.6kg) and the Limousins, Erebos (LM6172: Carcass weight 23.5kg, milk 8.10kg) and Shannon Stan (LM9379: Carcass weight 33.8kg, milk 4.8kg).

Sires selected for terminal traits are the Charolais bulls, Lapon (CH4321: Carcass weight 42.7kg) and Recif, (CH8571: Carcass weight 46.2kg).

Our 3-week submission rate for the cows was almost 94%. Cows that had not cycled were placed on a CIDR based synchronisation programme. The breeding period will take place over 6 to 8 weeks and no longer to maintain a compact calving period for both the spring and autumn herd.

Eamon McCarthy and his son Donnchadh farm in Carrigeen, Glendine, Youghal, Co. Waterford and are part of the Teagasc Future Beef Programme and Teagasc Signpost Programme.

The above article first appeared in the Farming Examiner as part of a Signpost Programme update.