Good morning everyone!
Wow – it is very cold at the farm this morning (and most of NZ). Last week’s comments about Spring arriving were definitely premature! When the soil temperature drops it takes some time to warm back up again. Grass only grows when the soil temperature is warm enough. Currently our overnight temperatures are very low, so we won’t see any changes for a while.
On the Farm:
We weighed our herd last week, and, in our opinion, their growth rate (even in winter) is a little lower than we would want. So we have upped the silage feed out from 1 bale per day to 1.5 bales per day. Normally this would be no problem from a handling perspective. BUT the silage we purchased won’t unload off our bale feeder, so I have to do it by hand. Feeding out is genuinely exhausting but knowing the cows are happier makes me happy, so I’m pretty relaxed about the extra work.
Feeding out 1.5 bales per day means we won’t have enough baleage to get through the winter. Our neighbour has advised us that they have a surplus of bales, and we can buy some. This will get us through the winter OK. In fact it will actually be a double bonus. We will have as much feed as we require, and this extra lot will be able to be fed out with no physical stress issues.
The fencers haven’t returned to complete the fencing, but we are hopeful it will happen this week. It’s the yards that I am keen to get upgraded, so that it is easier to work with a large herd in the yards at one time. I would like to weigh all the growing ones once per month, to make sure they are all doing well enough. Sometimes its not noticeable if an animal is struggling a little. The regular weighing will pick up earlier any animals not doing as well as their peers, and enable us to give the animal some special attention.
Magills Butchery in Te Awamutu have built a micro abattoir to supply their own butchery with beef that they hand pick. There were a lot of MPI hurdles to overcome – and it is overdue, but is being commissioned next week. We are keen to supply our finishing animals to Magills, so we know where our animals are going. It is not too far from our farm, so we are hoping that any animals that go through there will have a low stress finishing. We will visit them over the next few weeks to ensure that they can provide a low stress environment. We won’t have any animals big enough to send until December. This should give time to fine tune the operation.
Spotlight on:
This week’s spotlight is a guy I am embarrassed about. A week or so ago I noticed one of our little guys wanting to ride one of the cows on heat. Once I yarded the herd last week, I checked all the boys and found one that we had missed steering one weaner.
This is Uber. He should have been steered, but was missed. I am embarrassed! He is too big to steer now, without a vet. So we have changed herds for him, and he is now running with Mt Vernon’s little bull herd. His breeding is not good enough to keep for breeding, but he can stay with this bull herd, until he is ready to finish. If there is a bonus, he will grow faster than a steer, and also the meat processors often pay more for bulls than steers. Nevertheless, I am embarrassed that I missed him!
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Cheers
Colin and Keryn