Getting the finishing phase right

At this time of year, grass demand is generally greater than grass supply. This is due to a number of factors including animals getting heavier and consuming more and also as days get shorter and nights gets colder, grass growth drops off and is unable to meet herd demand on its own.

Autumn grass also has a lower feeding value than spring or summer grass. Although it can look very leafy, the dry matter content is a lot lower at 14% to 16% so this means the animal needs to consume a lot more fresh weight in grass to fulfil its daily requirements.

For example, a 500kg steer needs 10kg of dry matter to consume on a daily basis. If grass were 14% DM, an animal would need to consume 71kg fresh weight of grass which is physically impossible because of the high water content of the grass. This is why concentrates need to be fed at grass to increase the energy content of the diet to make sure the animal continues to thrive and put on weight.

It is important to remember that autumn grass is still a cheaper feed than feeding silage and meal in the shed. Housing can cause a growth check and also increases the risk of respiratory disease. However, there can sometimes be merit in starting animals on concentrates outside, eg bulls could start their buildup phase outdoors and progress to ad-lib once housed.

Economic response

Teagasc research indicates that where grass supplies are good quality and plentiful, the economic response is poor while the economic response increases where grass supplies are poor quality and scarce.

Guidelines from feeding trials at Grange indicate that there is an economic response to feeding 0.5kg concentrates per 100kg liveweight (3kg to a 600kg steer) when grass is plentiful and 1kg concentrates (6kg to a 600kg steer) when grass is scarce.

Obviously, the economics of meal feeding depends also on the cost of meal and the price of beef. Again, as a general guideline, with good autumn grass you can expect a conversion rate of about 1kg carcase per 12kg meal fed for the first 3kg meal per day and a similar response (12:1) for 6kg of meal per day as grass becomes scarce or as we continue to keep finishing cattle outdoors on pasture through November and into December.

The economics of meal feeding are just about positive at a conversion rate of 12:1 when 1kg of beef is valued at €3.75 and 12kg of meal cost €3.36.

Keep an eye on fat scores

Each unit of fat deposited needs over twice the energy of each unit of lean meat. Therefore, feed conversion efficiency declines as animals fatten and this occurs at a lower weight with cattle that fatten earlier. The message from this is that at times of stable prices, stock should only be brought to the level of finish that is required by the market (ie fat score 3).

In times of falling prices, over finishing is very uneconomical. It’s important to weigh and handle cattle regularly during the finishing phase and draft on a regular basis Excess fat is trimmed off before the carcase hits the scales in processing plants so it does not pay to go to high fat scores in finishing cattle.

Animals hitting 4+ are deducted 6c on the grid along with losing the QA bonus, so that’s an 18c/kg deduction. On a 400kg carcase, that’s a reduction of €72 – higher than the margin that a lot of finishing animals are leaving at the moment so it pays to draft regularly.

In research carried out by Michael Drennan of Teagasc, it was suggested that a one unit increase in carcase fat score on the 15-point Europ scale was associated with a 9.6g/kg decrease in carcase saleable meat yield. So moving from a 3= to a 4= would result in a 2.88% loss in meat yield. Each 1kg of fat also requires twice the energy it takes to put on 1kg of lean meat so not only do you not get paid for it, but it costs more to put on.

Feeding tips