The farmers in the BETTER farm programme visited some of the more high-profile farms in England last week to view how suckler beef production has progressed in Britain. The first farm visited was run by father and son team Tom and Mike Powley.

The Powleys run 100 spring-calving suckler cows on 180 acres of grassland, which is fragmented into six land parcels.

A further 120 acres of cereals are produced, around 25% of which are used for feeding cattle.

The entire farm is rented, with annual land rent running from £120/acre to £200/acre (€154 to €256), which is a substantial cost for any business to incur annually.

The Powleys moved to the current farm 25 years ago and set up a suckler herd straight away. The herd has built up over the years to total 100 cows with progeny normally taken through to slaughter. This year, some heifers have been sold live as yearlings at 400kg at £1,000 (€1,200).

The farm is well-run, with Mike having a fantastic grasp on herd performance in terms of breeding and daily liveweight gains.

The 100-cow suckler herd consists of South Devon crossed with Limousin cows. The South Devon is a traditional beef breed which is much larger than Angus and Hereford.

It is also a breed that carries milk, docility and cows that are capable of gaining flesh at grass while rearing a calf.

Breeding

Replacements are bred on farm. Mike keeps a nucleus herd of 25 purebred South Devon cows to cross with Limousin sires to produce heifers.

Sexed Limousin semen has also been used with a conception rate of 55% to 65% in the past. Limousin sires have also been used on mature cows to ensure that there are 10 to 15 heifers suitable for breeding annually.

Replacement heifers are served with an easy calving Angus sire through AI at 15 months at a liveweight range of 420kg to 440kg. Heifers are calving down at 600kg to 620kg in most years and very seldom does a heifer require culling because she cannot rear a calf or go back in-calf.

The mature cows are served with Limousin and Blue sires, again to AI. The main herd sires used are Ronick Hawk, Carmorn Dauphin, Tamhorn Warrior and Bluegrass Cylone. All bulls are selected on estimated breeding values (EBVs) for growth, milk and calving ease.

As cows are at grass and the farm is fragmented, Mike uses a heat detection system that was partly funded by industry stakeholders.

In return for the investment, his farm is used as a demo farm for educational purposes. Cows wear collars with an individual microchip that records movement. The information is transmitted to a central computer unit in the centre of the field.

This unit has a range of 500m and cost £9,000 (€11,538) to supply and install. The collars cost £80 (€101) each, but have lasted five years without repair.

According to Mike, his cattle are gaining 1kg/day of carcase, currently worth £3.80/kg (€5.11 including VAT), so for every cycle a cow misses, he is losing out on £80, which covers the cost of the collar. Across the whole herd, the cost of the unit would be recovered in less than two years with improved conception rates.

Once cows are confirmed in heat, they are calmly brought into a handling unit for inseminating, using electric wire. Conception rates to first service for the herd range from 70% to 80%.

Efforts are being made to have the whole herd calved within nine weeks. The herd currently calves in 12 weeks from March to early June.

Blood profiles have shown cows are low in iodine and selenium, so all cows receive a bolus before the grazing season starts.

Grassland

In Britain, there is little emphasis placed on the value of grassland management. Mike Powley has recognised how important good grassland is in terms of keeping animal performance high and costs low.

Approximately 10% of the main 84-acre grazing block is reseeded annually. Autumn is the preferred time to reseed and land is ploughed, harrowed and seed is sown using an air drill.

Soil fertility is good on the farm with lime applied regularly. Soil pH was low when they took on the farm 25 years ago and over 20t/acre was applied in the first decade.

A further 10t/acre has been applied in the past 10 years. Through regular spreading of farmyard manure, soil P and K has increased to index 3.

Swards are high in clover and approximately 130 units of nitrogen are applied annually, mostly as straight 33% nitrogen at £280/t (€358).

Fields are grazed rotationally with cows moved every four to five days. Field size is large and cows are grazed in two groups on the main grazing block until the end of the breeding season.

The BETTER farm group suggested dividing fields into smaller allocations.

It was a point that Mike took on board as being something to try next year to improve grass utilisation, as he had to top fields three times this year. Topping was carried out the day before cows were due to be moved.

Winter feeding

Cows are housed and fed a mix of baled silage and urea-treated straw. Straw costs £30/t (€38) and costs £25/t for treatment (€32).

The urea increases the protein level of straw and, with cows being housed in body condition score four, they can have their diet restricted.

Cows weigh 750kg to 950kg liveweight, which can increase winter feed costs greatly. Cows are fed ad-lib straw and one bale of silage between 45 cows daily with minerals also offered.

Calves are weaned by late October in the field using electric wire. They are then housed two weeks later when they are treated for fluke, lice, worms and clipped.

Bulls weigh 350kg to 400kg at housing and Mike has his own weighing scale to monitor performance. They have been offered a mix of 90% barley and 10% soya in a creep feeder since 1 September.

Once housed in November, bulls are pushed for slaughter. They are fed 8kg/head of ration containing 90% barley, 5% soya and 5% regumix, which is a liquid protein combined with molasses.

Barley is also treated with a urea-based product once harvested to increase crude protein levels to 17% to 18%. The treated grain helps to buffer the rumen in finishing diets of 90% barley.

Treated barley costs £120/t, soya costs £360/t and regumix costs £200/t, making the finishing ration costs approximately £136/t (€174).

Red clover silage is also offered, with digestibility of 72 to 76 DMD.

Before red clover was fed to finishing bulls, they ate 10kg to 11kg of ration per day. Bulls will consume 1.2t of meal during the finishing period.

Bulls are slaughtered at 400 days of age and carcase weights usually reach 415kg with 90% E and U+ grading animals and bulls reaching fat class 3. Kill-out for bulls ranges from 62% to 65% annually.

Cattle gain 1kg to 1.1kg of carcase weight per day, which is currently worth £3.80/kg (€5.11/kg including VAT) with approximate daily feed costs of £1.30/kg (€1.66/day). These costs exclude land rental and fixed costs.