The economics of winter finishing are extremely challenging with a farmgate factory price of up to €8/kg required next spring to deliver a €100 margin. As such it is critical that finishers do all within their control to optimise animal performance.

This advice was delivered by Michael O’Connor, Teagasc business and technology advisor, at Tuesday night’s beef event held in Tullamore Mart in Co Offaly. Michael presented the data outlined in Table 1 which showed the effect of space allowance on the performance of finishing bullocks.

Bullocks penned on a concrete slatted floor with a space allowance of 2m2 achieved a 12kg lower carcase weight than those penned with a space allowance of 2.5m2, while increasing this offering to 3m2 underpinned a further carcase weight increase of 8kg.

Michael outlined the impact that achieving this increase in carcase weight brings. Taking an average of seven animals per pen it equates to 140kg extra carcase weight and at a round price of €7/kg is worth just shy of €1,000.

Farmers at the event were reminded to take account of weight gain over the finishing period and to account for this when penning animals. This is especially important when finishing young bulls as options for removing and mixing bulls once they are settled in their finishing group are few.

While the space allowance may be satisfactory at the start of the finishing period finishers need to ask themselves the question is it still satisfactory when animals weigh 50kg or 100kg more. Table 2 explains this in detail showing that heavier animals require an increased space allowance.

Teagasc state that research has shown that there is no advantage to going above 3m2 for finishing animals on a concrete slatted floor.

Water availability

Michael also outlined the importance of a sufficient supply of clean water. He presented research findings which show that drinking water contaminated with faeces can reduce live weight gain in cattle by 20% to 23% compared to fresh clean water. As such farmers were advised to check troughs for cleanliness each day.

Water supply and flow rates is also critical with animals typically drinking 15 litres of water per 100kg liveweight with higher consumption in animals on dry finishing diets such as ad lib concentrates and straw.

He advised farmers that small troughs which hold in the region of 2l of water are not suitable for animals being finished on intensive finishing diets and recommended that these are replaced with troughs with a larger water capacity.

Health tips

The event hosted by Teagasc and Dovea Genetics with support from the Irish Farmers Journal also heard from Denise Murphy, Department of Agriculture Regional Veterinary Laboratories and Donal Lynch, Slieve Bloom Veterinary. See further reports from the event on www.farmersjournal.ie.