Willarah Farm Beef blogs are back!
After a years hiatus our beef blogs are back! Life gets busy sometimes and things have to take a back seat. Now that work/farm life has settled into a rhythm we have time to share with you all the things we have been doing on the farm and some things we have planned for the future. These blogs will now be season based, we will share everything we have been up to over the previous season and explore the plans for the season ahead.
Summer Update
Summer is a busy time of the year at Willarah, over December we begin weaning our Autumn drop calves, this involves splitting them off from their mothers and running them in an adjacent paddock to minimise stress. The weaned calves are mixed in with last seasons steers that we retained for our upcoming beef packs in May. The weaners and steers get our best paddocks to help them pack on the kg's over summer whilst our cows are held back so they don’t get too fat prior to calving in February.
Part of the weaning process involves running them through the yards a few times and chucking them over the scales to see how they’re tracking along. This not only teaches them some manners whilst we are handling them but it will give us a good idea as to who is performing the best with regards to weight gains.
Below is our highest average daily weight gain calf for season 23. U006 @ 1.03kg/d, a heifer calf that we have decided to keep!
After weaning, the majority of the work around the farm involves moving cattle into fresh paddocks and making sure the water troughs are full!
Towards the end of February we will begin preparing one or two paddocks for our Autumn crop. This year we have decided to use a Dryland mix from Nutrien Ag in Traralgon, look out for the Autumn blog to see exactly what goes into prepping the paddock and sowing the pasture.
Beef update
The Steers were weighed last week. T04 (pictured below) topped the scales at 578kgs for an average daily gain of 0.72kgs/day since birth. This isn’t what you would see in a feedlot, typically they would gain over 1kg/day. However, they spend 9 months of their life on either concrete or dirt with no grass under their feet. In a grass fed situation you will see slower gains but the time taken to reach ideal weight results in a more complex flavoured meat!
Willarah Dairy
In early Febuary we welcomed Hurricane (born the night of the storm that wrecked Mirboo North) a Jersey x Speckle Park calf to Willarah Farm. Our house cow Rona did a great job and has settled back into milking life quite well! We now have enough milk, cheese and butter to feed an army!
That’s all for now! Keep an eye out for the Autumn blog and enjoy the wonderful dairy outfit brought to you by Adaline below!
Will and Sarah
