Yesterday, the last of our 2013 progeny met their makers. In all, there were 24 heifer calves born in the spring of 2013. Ten of the group are now due to calve next spring and the remaining fourteen were slaughtered on Tuesday at an average age of 18.2 months.

Their concentrate intake peaked at 5.5kg (plus first cut silage to appetite) per day in their last fortnight, having been built up gradually from 2kg during a short, seven week finishing period. Our laurels rest firmly upon an AI-based mating strategy. Breeding, not barley is trusted as a means to get those kilos on. Seven different sires are represented on the kill sheet, which itself makes for interesting reading.

Our ladies averaged 344kg carcase weight, ranging from 311kg to 405kg. In terms of conformation, the group averaged 9.7 on the 1-15 scale (U-). Fat-wise they came in at 9.2 (3+). I’m quite happy with how they killed; for such a simple system, weights like these at such a young age are more than satisfactory.

Some of the fat scores however are a little too healthy for my liking. A couple will be penalised for being overfat ...imagine!

Overfat

A rapidly growing animal will reach a plateau at some point where muscle deposition slows substantially and inefficient, fat deposition begins. It takes much more dietary energy to deposit a kilogram of fat versus a kilogram of lean muscle. It’s a double whammy too. Not only does our animal become inefficient, we’re also depositing free fat for the factories. Once the threshold is hit, there is no financial incentive for us to feed an animal on for fatness.

The question is when does she become economically inefficient? Unfortunately, there is no accurate, practical method to measure the carcase fat cover of a live animal as of yet. Even at research level it’s extremely difficult. Perhaps we’ll see one in the future and drafting on fat class will become a reality.

Culling

Along with the whippersnappers, three cows were culled. Two were five months shy of their 5th birthday and for one reason or another, didn’t hold this summer. Both have given two calves each having calved down at two years. It’s strange that they aren’t in calf as both were served each time they showed heats during breeding. But, weighing in at 483 and 450kg carcase weight, we’ll let them away with it this time.

The final animal killed was a Blonde X Friesian cow that had also failed to hold in calf and was slightly lame. There are quite a few of her daughters running in the herd at the moment, all excellent mothers. At 113 months, there’ll have to be a few more protests before she’ll qualify for a bonus.

Age limit

On the subject, it was quite a shade disheartening to see the age limit relaxed on the quality payments. Others have reiterated my point in their columns in recent weeks. Bonus-wise, there is now nothing to differentiate our heifers from ones nearly twice their age.

Where is the incentive for the progressive operation?