Over 800 farmers passed through the gates of the Irish Cattle Breeding Federation (ICBF) Tully research station on Tuesday last, with an open day having taken place for many years.

The research centre switched from performance-testing pedigree bulls to progeny testing over a decade ago, with traits such as feed and water intake, linear scoring, methane production and meat eating qualities all now measured on the animals brought in as forward stores and exiting the farm as finished beef.

Dr David Kelly and Clodagh Ryan of the ICBF presented findings from the 455 dairy-beef and 304 suckler-beef animals slaughtered from Tully in respect to commercial beef value (CBV) tallying with overall profitability, with data from both showing that the difference in CBV between the top 20% and bottom 20% of both types of animals was closely aligned with overall profitability.

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Dairy-beef animals within the top 20% for CBV had a rating of €168, with the bottom 20% having a rating of €48, a €120 difference.

Dairy-beef animals in the top 20% for CBV had a 13kg heavier carcase (318kg v 305kg), graded a similar fat score (R- v R+) despite having a reduced growth rate (1.54kg/day v 1.65kg/day).

Liveweight

Liveweight of the animals was marginally different, with the top 20% weighing 598kg, with the bottom 20% weighing 501kg. However, due to the higher carcase weight and despite the lower liveweight, the top 20% of animals yielded a kill-out of 53% in comparison with the bottom 20% at 50.3% kill-out.

Feed intake for the top 20% was 12.34kg DM/day, with it being 0.7kg higher in the animals ranked in the bottom 20%. The top 20% animals also produced 24g/day less methane (256g/day v 280g/day).

The ICBF calculated feed cost savings of €21/head, with additional carcase revenue calculated at €87 (based off €6.80/kg) to yield a total profit difference of €108/animal, comparable to the €120 difference in CBVs.

Table 1 shows the breakdown of the figures of the suckler animals.

Here, the carcase difference is significantly higher, with the ICBF showing €287 of an extra carcase revenue from cattle in the top 20% (based of €6.80/kg), with €11 saved in feed costs to give an overall profit difference of €298/animal, €66 higher than the difference in the animal CBV.