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Where farmers are planning to kill forward cattle off grass mid-summer, before committing to finishing animals, carry out a simple finishing budget first.
The purpose of this budget is to determine if there will be a return on time and capital from feeding cattle until late July, rather than offloading live now.
If you do decide to go down the finishing route, then you should be looking to introduce concentrates now; that is, if you have not already done so.
Outlined are five tips to help with finishing cattle off grass this summer.
1. Weigh cattle and group animals for feeding
The first step is to weigh cattle. Once you have physical weights, you should divide animals into smaller groups based on liveweight and type.
This way, you will only be targeting concentrates to those animals that are coming closest to the target finishing liveweight.
There is little benefit in feeding high levels of concentrate to cattle that are still 100kg to 120kg below target finishing weight.
If anything, this is just substituting a cheap grass diet with a more-expensive concentrate one.
Also, try to group cattle that are similar in type. This way, you will have bigger numbers coming fit for slaughter at the same time, increasing the prospects of a higher beef price.
2. Which groups to target first
Once cattle are on the finishing ration, they can gain anywhere from 1kg to 1.3kg/day over a 50- to 60-day period.
Therefore, you should aim to start feeding cattle that are around 60kg to 80kg from reaching their target finishing weight. With lighter cattle, delay meal feeding until they reach a similar stage.
3. Concentrate feeding period
During the finishing phase, concentrate feeding should be capped to six weeks for traditional beef-bred animals. For late-maturing continental types, this can be extended to eight weeks.
Feeding for a longer period is uneconomic, as feed efficiency will start tailing off and cattle will only be substituting grass with meals.
4. Ration type
On good-quality summer grazing, swards will have protein levels above 20%. Therefore, there is no need to feed a ration with more than 13% or 14% protein.
To get fat cover on to cattle, you will need energy and starch. So you could offer a simple rolled barley diet or a barley and maize mix.
Feeding soya hulls or beet pulp will provide additional rumen fibre, helping to avoid rumen problems associated with higher concentrate feeding levels.
5. Feed levels
Feed levels will depend on whether cattle are either heifers or steers, traditional beef breeds or late-maturing continental types.
Start off with 3kg/day and build up to finishing levels by offering an extra 1kg/head every four to five days.
When offering more than 3kg/day of ration, split this evenly between a morning and evening feed.
For traditional beef breeds, limit to 4kg/day for heifers and 5kg/day for steers. Pay attention to fat covers.
For continental types, heifers can be fed 5kg/day, with steers offered between 6kg and 7kg/day, depending on fat covers and grass availability.
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