I’m generally just right on time for most appointments. On this occasion I turned up to the Carnahan ranch a whole day early. I think we could have turned up late and it would have been just fine. The Carnahans aren’t going anywhere – the family have been there for over 100 years.

Colorado Farm Bureau had brought me to see how Charlie and Chris Carnahan, the father and son team, run their cow calf ranch.

The Carnahans calve down 400 Angus Limousin cross cows, with a 90-day calving spread on 11,000 acres carrying one cow calf pair on 20 acres at peak grazing season. They have 15 bulls that are Angus, Limousin and Limflex (Limousin-Angus hybrid). The ranch is based in Kiowa County, on the eastern side of Colorado, where the Carnahan team run an impressive outfit, weaning 370 calves per year.

Though calves are tagged with an ID tag to match their mother as soon as they are born, they hot brand the calves at the end of May. By this time all the cows and the 50 replacement heifers are calved down.

Male calves are also castrated and all calves receive vaccinations against respiratory diseases (IBR, BVD, PI3), black leg, and pneumonia are administered at this point.

They spend a lot of money on vaccines, Charlie Carnahan told me. It’s costing about $4 (€3) per calf, and when they are weaning they give another booster shot. “$8 (€6) in total to keep a $1,000 (€740) animal alive is a small price to pay,” said Chris. The equivalent vaccination strategy in Ireland would cost in the region of €18 per calf.

The calves are handled only at branding and at weaning unless they get sick in between. If this happens, they rope them and treat them on the pasture. They hadn’t roped and doctored anything in 2013.

Given the fact that stock is checked roughly once a week, and cows are roaming pastures of blue grama grass, the weanlings lead a generally healthy and natural life up to weaning. For one reason or another, an Irish weanling will have had a lot more handling at this stage.

The Carnahans sold the majority of their weanlings through a video auction. “They come out and film the calves at pasture and show this video at the auction house. Buyers can watch the video on TV or online and registered buyers can bid for the animals over the phone,” said Charlie. Calves leaving the Carnahan ranch will be eating a small amount of concentrates to allow them to settle into the feedlot diet a lot easier.

Compared with the Irish suckler farm

The region in Colorado that I visited was considered to have a high stocking rate, running one cow calf pair over 20 acres (0.13 LU/ha). Target stocking rates of 2.2 LU/ha have been set for the BETTER farms in Ireland, which shows that our suckler cows are on top quality land.

The other side of the equation is that the Colorado ranchers have access to vast volumes of land. The average price of tillage ground is $1,790/acre (€1,325) and $680/acre (€500) for pasture land.

When the animal is weaned, the Irish farmer aims to get as much liveweight gain from grass as possible. In America, the majority of the animals go into a feedlot system where 100% of liveweight gain comes from cereals.

The Carnahans said that the feedlot buyers want Angus or Limousin stock. They breed exactly that, culling ruthlessly to ensure a healthy, hardy herd that will survive a hard winter, calve outdoors, and leave a 700lb weanling from every cow each year.

Next stop feedlot

When calves are bought from a rancher, depending on their weight they spend a period with a stocker before going into a feedlot. The stocker will introduce them to a cereal diet and carry them to a weight suitable for intensive feeding. On arrival to the feedlot, animals are generally fed a starter diet and built up onto the intensive finishing diet over a period of 21 days.

Animal health, stocking rate, feed through management and access to fresh water are all key to ensuring high levels of performance on these feedlots with animal health monitored closely. Sick animals are removed from pens and treated separately.

Hormones

The animals receive their hormone implant right when they come from the stocker to the feedlot. At this point they are approximately one year old and are weighing a little over 300kg. The implant costs that I was given are in the region of $3.5 (€2.59) and the animal will gain roughly 20lbs to 30lbs carcaseweight (9kg to 13.5kg) due to its usage, a return of close on $60 (€45) for a $3.5 spend.

The second hormone is applied 90 days later. Though it won’t provide the same return, it contributes to carcase gain. The implanting strategy will differ depending on whether you are finishing a steer or a heifer and on animal confirmation. An Angus heifer will get an aggressive implant compared with a Simmental steer which, due to its conformation, won’t need as aggressive a treatment to reach the factory spec.

A double implant strategy will provide a weight gain of 25lbs to 40lbs (11kg to 18kg) carcaseweight. This is a significant return for a $7 spend over the course of 180 days.

Hormones are generally a synthetic form of testosterone or a synthetic form of oestrogen and essentially work as protagonists to increase circulating growth hormone in the body. It is the increased growth hormones that increases the weight of the animal.

Growth promoters

Growth promoters or beta agonists such as Zilmax have been used to give an extra push over the last 20 days. Feeding 90mg per head per day to get a gain of up to 33lbs of carcaseweight over the period will provide in the region of $66 (€49) of beef for a spend of $3.40 (€2.50).

The cost that I was given for a 10lb (4.5kg) purchase of a beta agonist product was $8,600 (€6,370). This will treat approximately 2,500 animals.

Within a muscle there are individual fibres and this makes the individual fibres bigger, rather than adding more fibres to the muscle.

Research has shown that the use of some beta agonists effects tenderness, but consumers haven’t reacted. This is mainly because the US is by and large a manufacturing meat market, for burgers. It is also said to be having an impact on meat quality, as it dilutes the marbling of the meat.

By 2012, an estimated 70% to 80% of the US cattle herd was being fed Zilmax or Optaflexx. The latter is a similar growth promoting product from Elanco that had been in use for nearly a decade. Zilmax is a product produced by Merck Animal Health.

Zilmax has a three-day withdrawal period prior to slaughter, and cattle can be slaughtered up to seven days following the withdrawal period and maintain performance benefits. Prior to my visit Zilmax had been removed from the market.

Merck opted to suspend Zilmax for further testing after the country’s leading meat processor, Tyson Foods Inc and Cargill Inc, stopped buying cattle in September which had been given the additive, citing animal welfare concerns. Optaflexx has remained on the market but is considered to provide less yield compared with Zilmax.

Competitive advantage

Between implementing a double hormone strategy and the beta agonist growth promoter, there is potential for an additional 73lbs of gain costing a little over $10 dollars per animal (€7.70). That’s a total of $146 worth of beef for a spend of just over $10.

This works out at a cost of €0.23 per kg carcase gain, compared with the current cost in Ireland of €3.20 for a kg of gain from an intensive diet – a competitive advantage of approximately €100 per head on Irish producers.