Steers average 372kg dead and heifers 331kg in Newford Farm

The big driving force behind Newford Farm, the 90-cow suckler-to-beef herd located in Co Roscommon, generating a net profit of over €100,000 including beef scheme payments in 2025 was the high level of output achieved.

At the Wednesday 22 April open day, Martina Harrington of Teagasc told those attending that the farm is producing 360kg of beef output per livestock unit, highlighting that this level of performance is among the best-performing suckler-to-beef units.

Martina highlighted that there are a number of factors underpinning this level of output.

Firstly, every cow on the farm is productive with the herd maintaining a 365-day calving interval and producing 1.01 calves per cow per year in 2025.

Strong foundation

This provides the foundation for positive performance but to exploit this strong foundation requires high levels of animal performance. Steers achieved an average carcase weight of 372kg in 2025 at an average age of just 21.8 months, while heifers achieved an average carcase weight of 331kg at 20.7 months of age.

Table 1 details the slaughter performance of heifers over the last seven crops produced. As can be seen heifers achieved a 25kg higher carcase weight than in 2024 and 11kg higher carcase weight than in 2023, with slaughter performance in 2025 – the best since the demonstration farm was established.

Bullocks achieved a carcase weight of 372kg on average in 2025, exceeding the average in 2024 by 19kg, surpassing the previous high point of 365kg in 2023. This was at a slightly older age of 21.8 months with bullocks killed from October through to December.

It is now clear that the typical grade of animal produced from first-cross Angus-cross and Hereford-cross cows is an R grading animal. This typically ranges from R- to U- with an odd bullock hitting U=/U+. The kill out percentages varies from year to year and is typically influenced by the prevailing weather and the level of concentrates fed in the run up to slaughter.

The 2025 grazing season was very favourable in supporting a high level of performance with bullocks finished on ad-lib top-quality silage and 6kg concentrates daily.