200 day weights

This week we have been weighing our Mar/Apr born calves and administering pre-housings treatments. The calves have been dosed with Dectomax and Rispoval RS in preparation for housing at the start of November. 17 pure breed Beef shorthorn calves were weighed. 11 heifers averaged 189 days old with a weight gain of 0.97kg/day. Heifers were sire by 4 different bulls Cavans Pole Star, Cavans Appalachian, Sutherland Bundaberg and Dunsyre North Star. 6 Male calves averaged 196 days old with a weight gain of 1.2kg/day all were sired by Cavans Pole Star. No creep feed has been fed to the calves. The dams including first calved heifers averaged 696 kg.

So what does this tell us? On its own not a lot. When we can compare the data to previous years the weights are slightly up on the average. Perhaps this reflects the excellent grass growing summer we have just had or alternatively the progression of our genetics.

To help determine if we are making genetic progress or if the quantity and quality of grass is solely responsible for giving us faster growing calves I will be sending away this data to Breed Plan.

For an up to date list of EBVs for our 2009 calf crop click here