Even the best beef farmers have little or no profit to show for their efforts, when market prices are falling and producers have no control over what they are paid. Last Wednesday’s farm walk at Hillsborough concentrated on the things that are within the control of producers. Fine weather provided a positive atmosphere as the potential for improvement of performance in beef production on many farms in Northern Ireland was highlighted.
There is potential to reduce calving age and calving interval in many suckler herds. Along with increased animal performance (carcase gain), these improvements can reduce costs of production and reduce emissions of greenhouse gas (GHG).
Fertility
The calving interval in NI suckler herds is averaging 415 days, with over 50% of calving intervals at least 380 days. The average age at first calving in suckler herds in NI is over 30 months. Only 12% of first calvers are at 24 months of age.
A calving interval of anything more than 365 days is ‘‘pouring money down the drain,’’ said AFBI beef researcher Denise Lowe. The best herd fertility has been found on farms where:
There is a herd health plan in place, with regular vaccinations and other health monitoring procedures.Body condition scores are monitored.Sires are selected using estimated breeding values (EBV) rather than visual appearance.The Hillsborough feeding information system (silage analysis) is used and/or CAFRE benchmarking.The farmer aims to have heifers calve at younger ages.Senan White from CAFRE outlined the financial benefits of reducing the calving interval and reducing age of heifer at first calving.
His figures may overlap a bit but they illustrate the point.
Moving from the NI average 415 days to a calving interval of 380 days for a 50-cow herd saves feeding empty cows for 1,750 days (35 days per cow) and, at an estimated 80p/day, that’s £1,400.
Calves that are an average of 35 days older at the weanling sale would be worth an estimated £3,080 extra (calculated at £2/kg and 1kg gain per day per calf for 44 calves).
With a calving interval of 415 days, there is an overall output of 44 calves per year, but a calving interval of 380 days would see a 50-cow herd produce 48 calves per year. An extra four calves means £1,000 extra value (at birth, before rearing).
Comparing first calving at 24 months versus 36 months of age, White arrived at a gain of £675 per heifer. That is £135 per cow per year, assuming a replacement rate of 20%.
The £675 per heifer figure was made up of gains of £700 for one extra calf, plus £280 saved from one year of less feeding for a dry heifer, minus costs of £125 for meal feeding the heifer and calf, and overwintering costs of £180 for the extra calf.
Experiences in the AFBI herd and the CAFRE hill farm herd with first calving at 24 months, have shown that calving difficulties are minimal when the heifers are served by a bull with proven easy-calving traits. This information is available in estimated breeding values (EBV).
If the females are well managed after first calving, there is no significant reduction in cow size nor any problem getting them back in calf.
Rearing replacements
Steven Morrison of AFBI indicated the target weights for replacement suckler heifers and said they are relatively easy to achieve.
The key is to monitor performance and condition score. For the first six months, a target gain of 1kg per day can be obtained from suckling the mother and eating grass.
The target for the next 12 months is to gain 0.7kg/day. Good grass silage, plus 1kg to 2kg of concentrates, should be sufficient over winter, but it is important not to get caught in a ‘‘store’’ period. After turnout, grass can take the animal through to 485kg at 18 months of age.
The weight at 14 months (ready for bulling) should be around 400kg, 60% of the mature weight. Calving at 24 months, the heifer should have reached 590kg, 90% of her mature weight.
Selection criteria for rearing replacement heifers at Hillsborough include:
Good temperament – any female with unsuitable temper must not be retained.Health status – vaccinations for just about everything completed before breeding. An easy-calving sire is also regarded as essential.
Body condition
Alistair Calvin of CAFRE urged farmers to get ‘‘hands on’’ cows to assess body condition scores (BCS) at calving, service and weaning. One unit of BCS is equivalent to 70kg of weight on a 600kg cow, which requires one tonne of silage or 250kg of barley to put on.
BCS can affect fertility, with optimal BCS of 2.5 at calving linked to fewer days to first heat and shorter calving interval.
Ideally, cows should be batched and fed according to BCS. Having adequate pens and feeding facilities is a problem on many farms. Adequate feeding space is crucial. Parasite control is important. BCS can be deliberately affected by weaning early or weaning late, autumn grazing or forward creep grazing.
Relative to Limousin/Holstein suckler cows, the females of the Stabiliser composite breed at AFBI have:
Similar maternal traits.Similar grass intakes.Higher body condition scores (by around 0.6), which allows for potential savings in winter feed costs.Less milk and lower calf weights at weaning BUT similar liveweights at similar ages after weaning.The key message from the comparison so far is that if you sell weanlings, the calves from Limousin X Friesian cows averaged 32.8kg heavier than the calves from the Stabiliser cows, which would result in potentially over £70 extra value at sale. However, if you sell cattle as stores or finished animals, the value isn’t significantly different.
In relation to maternal traits, they have found no effective difference between the breeds on:
Cow temperament. Calving difficulty. Mothering ability and composition of milk.Calf vitality. The Stabilisers allow for better bio-security if the herd is self-contained, no replacements being bought in.
A current research project is evaluating mid and late-pregnancy feeding strategies for managing the BCS of spring-calving suckler cows and their subsequent reproductive performance. This is done with 42 Limousin X Holstein/Friesian cows and 43 Stabiliser cows, all crossed to Stabiliser.
16-month-old Holstein bull beef
A trial with autumn-born calves going for 16-month Holstein bull beef on a set-stocked system found no benefit from concentrate feeding at grass.
The grass was managed by topping one quarter of the area each week. This meant that there was always powerful, young, leafy grass available to the young bulls. Topping is a waste of time and diesel if it is not cut low – around 2in (5cm) is recommended.
Calves weighing 174kg at six months of age at turnout, and receiving no meals, were an average of 304kg at 10 months at housing. Calves the same age and weight at turnout that were fed 2kg of concentrates per day at grass weighed 309kg at housing at 10 months old.
Supplementing the cattle with meals at grass was not profitable.
The additional weight gain was minimal and the cost of feed reduced the margin by £40 per head. Estimated grazing costs were 90p/kg of carcase gain and there was no problem hitting target weights. So, a grazing period is recommended, without meal feeding at grass in a 16-month bull beef system with dairy origin bulls.
Placing value on sourcing healthy
dairy-origin calves
Commenting on ‘‘dairy-origin’’ beef, Francis Lively of AFBI stressed the importance of buying healthy calves. A survey by AFBI has found 14% of calves had inadequate immune status, with significant variation between farms.
Calves with low immune status required more veterinary treatments and, on average, took 17 days longer to reach target slaughter weight. At £2 per day, that’s an extra £34 per animal due to a lack of adequate colostrum. It is well proven that calves that have scour, or which survive pneumonia, will perform below average on weight gain.
Lively argued that a weighbridge at £1,100 is a good investment because it is essential to monitor performance – if you don’t measure, you don’t know. He referred to a problem with iodine deficiency at Hillsborough and said it had been identified quickly because cattle were being monitored.
Even the best beef farmers have little or no profit to show for their efforts, when market prices are falling and producers have no control over what they are paid. Last Wednesday’s farm walk at Hillsborough concentrated on the things that are within the control of producers. Fine weather provided a positive atmosphere as the potential for improvement of performance in beef production on many farms in Northern Ireland was highlighted.
There is potential to reduce calving age and calving interval in many suckler herds. Along with increased animal performance (carcase gain), these improvements can reduce costs of production and reduce emissions of greenhouse gas (GHG).
Fertility
The calving interval in NI suckler herds is averaging 415 days, with over 50% of calving intervals at least 380 days. The average age at first calving in suckler herds in NI is over 30 months. Only 12% of first calvers are at 24 months of age.
A calving interval of anything more than 365 days is ‘‘pouring money down the drain,’’ said AFBI beef researcher Denise Lowe. The best herd fertility has been found on farms where:
There is a herd health plan in place, with regular vaccinations and other health monitoring procedures.Body condition scores are monitored.Sires are selected using estimated breeding values (EBV) rather than visual appearance.The Hillsborough feeding information system (silage analysis) is used and/or CAFRE benchmarking.The farmer aims to have heifers calve at younger ages.Senan White from CAFRE outlined the financial benefits of reducing the calving interval and reducing age of heifer at first calving.
His figures may overlap a bit but they illustrate the point.
Moving from the NI average 415 days to a calving interval of 380 days for a 50-cow herd saves feeding empty cows for 1,750 days (35 days per cow) and, at an estimated 80p/day, that’s £1,400.
Calves that are an average of 35 days older at the weanling sale would be worth an estimated £3,080 extra (calculated at £2/kg and 1kg gain per day per calf for 44 calves).
With a calving interval of 415 days, there is an overall output of 44 calves per year, but a calving interval of 380 days would see a 50-cow herd produce 48 calves per year. An extra four calves means £1,000 extra value (at birth, before rearing).
Comparing first calving at 24 months versus 36 months of age, White arrived at a gain of £675 per heifer. That is £135 per cow per year, assuming a replacement rate of 20%.
The £675 per heifer figure was made up of gains of £700 for one extra calf, plus £280 saved from one year of less feeding for a dry heifer, minus costs of £125 for meal feeding the heifer and calf, and overwintering costs of £180 for the extra calf.
Experiences in the AFBI herd and the CAFRE hill farm herd with first calving at 24 months, have shown that calving difficulties are minimal when the heifers are served by a bull with proven easy-calving traits. This information is available in estimated breeding values (EBV).
If the females are well managed after first calving, there is no significant reduction in cow size nor any problem getting them back in calf.
Rearing replacements
Steven Morrison of AFBI indicated the target weights for replacement suckler heifers and said they are relatively easy to achieve.
The key is to monitor performance and condition score. For the first six months, a target gain of 1kg per day can be obtained from suckling the mother and eating grass.
The target for the next 12 months is to gain 0.7kg/day. Good grass silage, plus 1kg to 2kg of concentrates, should be sufficient over winter, but it is important not to get caught in a ‘‘store’’ period. After turnout, grass can take the animal through to 485kg at 18 months of age.
The weight at 14 months (ready for bulling) should be around 400kg, 60% of the mature weight. Calving at 24 months, the heifer should have reached 590kg, 90% of her mature weight.
Selection criteria for rearing replacement heifers at Hillsborough include:
Good temperament – any female with unsuitable temper must not be retained.Health status – vaccinations for just about everything completed before breeding. An easy-calving sire is also regarded as essential.
Body condition
Alistair Calvin of CAFRE urged farmers to get ‘‘hands on’’ cows to assess body condition scores (BCS) at calving, service and weaning. One unit of BCS is equivalent to 70kg of weight on a 600kg cow, which requires one tonne of silage or 250kg of barley to put on.
BCS can affect fertility, with optimal BCS of 2.5 at calving linked to fewer days to first heat and shorter calving interval.
Ideally, cows should be batched and fed according to BCS. Having adequate pens and feeding facilities is a problem on many farms. Adequate feeding space is crucial. Parasite control is important. BCS can be deliberately affected by weaning early or weaning late, autumn grazing or forward creep grazing.
Relative to Limousin/Holstein suckler cows, the females of the Stabiliser composite breed at AFBI have:
Similar maternal traits.Similar grass intakes.Higher body condition scores (by around 0.6), which allows for potential savings in winter feed costs.Less milk and lower calf weights at weaning BUT similar liveweights at similar ages after weaning.The key message from the comparison so far is that if you sell weanlings, the calves from Limousin X Friesian cows averaged 32.8kg heavier than the calves from the Stabiliser cows, which would result in potentially over £70 extra value at sale. However, if you sell cattle as stores or finished animals, the value isn’t significantly different.
In relation to maternal traits, they have found no effective difference between the breeds on:
Cow temperament. Calving difficulty. Mothering ability and composition of milk.Calf vitality. The Stabilisers allow for better bio-security if the herd is self-contained, no replacements being bought in.
A current research project is evaluating mid and late-pregnancy feeding strategies for managing the BCS of spring-calving suckler cows and their subsequent reproductive performance. This is done with 42 Limousin X Holstein/Friesian cows and 43 Stabiliser cows, all crossed to Stabiliser.
16-month-old Holstein bull beef
A trial with autumn-born calves going for 16-month Holstein bull beef on a set-stocked system found no benefit from concentrate feeding at grass.
The grass was managed by topping one quarter of the area each week. This meant that there was always powerful, young, leafy grass available to the young bulls. Topping is a waste of time and diesel if it is not cut low – around 2in (5cm) is recommended.
Calves weighing 174kg at six months of age at turnout, and receiving no meals, were an average of 304kg at 10 months at housing. Calves the same age and weight at turnout that were fed 2kg of concentrates per day at grass weighed 309kg at housing at 10 months old.
Supplementing the cattle with meals at grass was not profitable.
The additional weight gain was minimal and the cost of feed reduced the margin by £40 per head. Estimated grazing costs were 90p/kg of carcase gain and there was no problem hitting target weights. So, a grazing period is recommended, without meal feeding at grass in a 16-month bull beef system with dairy origin bulls.
Placing value on sourcing healthy
dairy-origin calves
Commenting on ‘‘dairy-origin’’ beef, Francis Lively of AFBI stressed the importance of buying healthy calves. A survey by AFBI has found 14% of calves had inadequate immune status, with significant variation between farms.
Calves with low immune status required more veterinary treatments and, on average, took 17 days longer to reach target slaughter weight. At £2 per day, that’s an extra £34 per animal due to a lack of adequate colostrum. It is well proven that calves that have scour, or which survive pneumonia, will perform below average on weight gain.
Lively argued that a weighbridge at £1,100 is a good investment because it is essential to monitor performance – if you don’t measure, you don’t know. He referred to a problem with iodine deficiency at Hillsborough and said it had been identified quickly because cattle were being monitored.
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