Cant get excerpt() to appear

Trying to pull content into the flex slider from wordpress

<?php the_excerpt(); ?> will not working even if I define a text limit value

Php

<?php $id=247;
$post = get_post($id);
$content = apply_filters('the_content', $post->post_content);  ?>

			<div class="da-slide">
				<h2><?php the_title(); ?></h2>
				<p><?php the_excerpt(10); ?></p>
				<a href="<?php the_permalink(); ?>" class="da-link">Read more</a>
				<div class="da-img"><img src="<?php echo catch_that_image() ?>"></div>
			</div>

endforeach;
?>

Custom functions added works fine everywhere else

function  strip_shortcode_gallery( $content ) {
    preg_match_all( '/'. get_shortcode_regex() .'/s', $content, $matches, PREG_SET_ORDER );
    if ( ! empty( $matches ) ) {
        foreach ( $matches as $shortcode ) {
            if ( 'gallery' === $shortcode[2] ) {
                $pos = strpos( $content, $shortcode[0] );
                if ($pos !== false)
                    return substr_replace( $content, '', $pos, strlen($shortcode[0]) );
            }
        }
    }
    return $content;
}

function catch_that_image() {
  global $post, $posts;
  $first_img = '';
  ob_start();
  ob_end_clean();
  $output = preg_match_all('/<img.+src=[\'"]([^\'"]+)[\'"].*>/i', $post->post_content, $matches);
  $first_img = $matches[1][0];

  if(empty($first_img)) {
    $first_img = "/path/to/default.png";
  }
  return $first_img;
}

function content($limit) {
 $content = explode(' ', get_the_content(), $limit);
 if (count($content)>=$limit) {
 array_pop($content);
 $content = implode(" ",$content).'...';
 } else {
 $content = implode(" ",$content);
 }
 $content = preg_replace('/\[.+\]/','', $content);
 $content = apply_filters('the_content', $content);
 $content = str_replace(']]>', ']]>', $content);
 return $content;
}

function excerpt($limit) {
 $excerpt = explode(' ', get_the_excerpt(), $limit);
 if (count($excerpt)>=$limit) {
 array_pop($excerpt);
 $excerpt = implode(" ",$excerpt).'...';
 } else {
 $excerpt = implode(" ",$excerpt);
 }
 $excerpt = preg_replace('<code>\[[^\]]*\]</code>','',$excerpt);
 return $excerpt;
}

Works fine in my news section

<!-- start: Latest News -->

		      		<div class="row">

					<?php
$posts = get_posts('numberposts=3&order=ASC&orderby=post_title');
foreach ($posts as $post) : setup_postdata( $post ); ?>	<div class="span3">
<div class="picture">

								<a href="<?php echo catch_that_image() ?>" rel="image" title="<?php the_title(); ?>">
									<img src="<?php echo catch_that_image() ?>">
									<div class="image-overlay-zoom"></div>
								</a>

							</div>
							<div class="item-description">
								<h4><a href="<?php the_permalink(); ?>"><?php the_title(); ?></a></h4>
								<p><?php echo excerpt('25'); ?></p>
							</div>
        				</div>

                    <?php
endforeach;
?>