Update: Silage, grazing and MSS trial on ABP Demo Farm

First-cut silage is now wrapped up on the ABP Demo Farm with almost 1,000 bales harvested so far.

ABP Food Group’s Advantage Beef Programme farm liaison officer Sean Maher explained that the farm aims to secure approximately 1,400 bales of silage this year and said there was “no stocks of silage left over from last winter”.

He said: “Harvesting has been tricky. Like everyone else, we’ve struggled with weather and ground conditions but we can safely say that every bale has been made in dry conditions so far.

“Yields were good and we’re definitely happy with that. We had a bumper crop on a field that wasn’t grazed earlier this spring. Despite the good crops of silage in the first cut, growth has been relatively slow.”

Sean added that the farm is “comfortable” on its grass demand but noted that there would often be “a lot more surplus paddocks removed as bale silage” by now.

Calves at grass

There are now 240 calves turned out to grass and weather conditions have been challenging for calves with “nights remaining very cold at times”.

The 2024-born calves have been averaging 125kg at turnout, which Sean says he is happy enough with.

Like many farms that are in the business of rearing calves, Sean outlined that the farm has had issues over the past number of years with summer scour syndrome in calves during their first season at grass and noticed that “it very rarely affects the first calves turned out to grass”.

He said: “We think this may be due to the fact they have time to adjust to their diet post weaning.

“Traditionally, farmers turn out calves quickly after coming off milk and this change in diet and environment may be too big of a shock to their digestive systems.”

This year, all calves on the ABP Demo Farm are remaining housed for a period of time post weaning off milk to allow them time to adjust to their new diet.

Calves at grass on the ABP Demo Farm have access to straw for feeding and are also not being grazed on recently fertilised grass.

The calves at grass are currently being fed 2kg/head/day of concentrates and will be reduced to 1kg over the coming weeks. All calves have now been weaned off milk on the farm.

The average calf arrival weight was 59kg. The average calf weaning weight off milk was 87kg with an average daily live weight gain (ADG) of 0.63/kg/head/day.

The calves on the farm have averaged 45 days on milk. Calves have averaged 125kg at turnout to grass to date this year.

ABP Demo Farm Multi species

The multi-species sward (MSS) is growing well with one batch of 40 heifers grazing the multi species sward only and another batch grazing a conventional perennial ryegrass sward only.

This trial, in conjunction with University College Dublin (UCD), began in mid-May and will involve monitoring the effects of the sward on animal performance, biodiversity and water quality.

From a farm point of view, the ABP Demo Farm will look at herbage growth, fertiliser usage and the financial gains from this. Sean will be managing this trial on the ABP Demo Farm.

Yearling cattle

The 2023-born cattle were weighed in mid-May and are behind on previous years. Sean said that this is to be expected due to the tough weather conditions this spring.

The table below gives a breakdown of the weights of the 2023-born cattle from the May weighing on the ABP Demo Farm by breed:

Sean noted that a lot of cattle were very slow getting to grass this spring and missed out on a lot of early thrive as a result of this.

Last year, the cattle were weighed the first week of May and averaged 382kg so this year, cattle are approximately 12kg behind.

Six weeks after the May weighing last year, cattle were 50kg heavier and a similar kick in growth rates is anticipated for this year’s cattle.