Making the most of your ICBF weanling performance report

In December, the ICBF sent out weanling performance reports to suckler farmers. The report was based on weights recorded as part of the 2022 BEEP-S programme.

While the financial support from the scheme is vital for the suckler sector, there is more potential value in using the data from the scheme to help improve the profitability and sustainability of your herd in the coming years.

Only calves weighing between 100 and 300 days old were included and, from this, a 200-day adjusted weaning weight was calculated to produce a weaning efficiency percentage for each cow-calf pairing.

Weaning efficiency is the calf’s weight at 200 days expressed as a proportion of the cow’s weight.

For example, a 720kg cow with a 340kg, adjusted 200-day weanling will have a weaning efficiency of 47% (340kg ÷ 720kg × 100 = 47.2%)

Weaning efficiency

Over 70% of all variable costs in livestock production can be attributed to feed. As livestock producers, we are paid for the kilos of product (be that liveweight or carcase weight) that leave the farm gate. Therefore, anything that can be done to reduce the amount of feed it takes to produce a kilo of beef will have a positive effect on the overall profitability of that system.

The suckler cow is an expensive unit to carry on farm every year, so her output needs to be sufficient to cover costs. Obviously, bigger cows will eat more and therefore have a higher cost each year.

The question is, do they produce a heavier calf to cover these costs? While there are some that do, the data would show that there is a happy medium in terms of cow weight that can still produce a heavy weanling each year, as well as being able to get back in calf the following year.

Some will argue that weaning efficiency is a crude measure in that it doesn’t take animal quality into consideration.

While this is true, each farmer will know where the quality of the stock they produce sits in the overall sector.

However, few weanling producers would disagree on the importance of a sufficiently heavy weanling to achieve a price sufficient enough to cover production costs.

Overall performance

The first table of the report looks at calf performance, an overall average daily gain, as well as figures broken down for bulls and heifers.

The target 200-day weight is 300kg for males and 250kg for heifers. This translates to a daily liveweight gain target of 1.25kg/day for males and just over a kilo a day for heifers based on a 45kg birthweight.

Where your reported average daily gain figure is below this, you need to ask yourself, why? Is it the genetics within the herd? Has it to do with nutrition and grassland management? Or, was there a health issue this year that caused performance to be lower than expected?

Cow and sire performance

In the second section of the report, the average weight of the cow herd is broken down into cow parity. On the right-hand side of the table, weaning efficiency is displayed, with “your herd” on the left and the “target” on the right, which is 42% for all groups.

If you are already hitting the target of 42%, it doesn’t mean there is no work to do. This is the national average target

Herds that calve at 24 months will often see their first-calvers match if not outperform the rest of the herd for weaning efficiency because although their calf may be lighter than average, so too is the cow and the overall percentage being weaned can be greater. For those calving at 30 or 36 months, the weaning efficiency can be lower for first-calvers.

If you are already hitting the target of 42%, it doesn’t mean there is no work to do. This is the national average target. Those in the top 10% to 15% will be achieving much more than this.

Top v bottom cows

The report details the top five cows on weaning efficiency. Look at the cows in each of these tables and see where the result is coming from.

The top five cows will tend to be lighter than the average cow in the herd but will have weaned a calf at the herd average weight or heavier.

Also, where there are cows with twins, they will appear here as they will have weaned a greater proportion of their weight with two calves in the same year.

Likewise, from the very nature of the measure, the bottom five cows are likely to be some of the heavier cows in the herd. However, they are here because they failed to produce the goods in terms of kilos of output. That means they cost a lot of money to feed all year and haven’t returned a heavy weanling that will cover the cost of production.

There will be a variety of reasons for this. It may have been down to the sire used or a health issue with the calf and so each case will need to be judged separately. However, pull out last year’s report and see if there are any repeat offenders.

If so, it may be time to cull after this coming year. Each year, the report should help you build up a picture of each cow’s performance over time.

For those using AI, the table in the report is useful where each sire’s progeny are averaged and compared.

The number of males and females is accounted for so you know what you are comparing.

Again, you need to take the cow type that each bull was used on into consideration when comparing sires. Those used on heifers are unlikely to have the heaviest calves at weaning.

For those with stock bulls, it can still be very useful to compare the performance of more than one bull and see how they are performing.

Before the busy calving period kicks off in a number of weeks, sit down with the report for an hour some evening and digest the information in it.

If it helps identify one cow or bull that is an outlier for either good or bad reasons or a trend with a certain cow type that you may not have noticed before, it will be an hour well spent.