At the livestock demo held at Enniskillen Mart last week, Barry Carty gave a detailed overview of how he has altered his 60-cow suckler system since joining the BETTER Farm programme in 2017.

Before that, Barry operated a traditional weanling system, with animals sold straight off the cow in spring and autumn.

Cattle sold always received a high price per kilo, but weights struggled to generate a sale value that could cover the cost of keeping the cow.

However, since joining the programme Barry has gradually moved to holding calves on-farm for a longer time in an effort to increase liveweight and maximise sale value.

Increasing sale weight

In 2016, the farm was benchmarked to establish a baseline in terms of financial and physical performance. Male calves averaged 350kg liveweight, with heifers averaging 275kg when sold.

Since then there has been steady progress in increasing both the sale weight and the sale value of cattle. In 2018, male calves averaged 368kg, with heifers rising to 353kg when sold.

Sale weights have increased significantly in 2019, with steers sold during February averaging 446kg at £1,024/head, or 229p/kg. Heifers sold this year averaged 379kg liveweight and £780/head.

The animals sold this year were born in December 2017 to January 2018.

There are still some calves left in this group to be sold, so the overall average is likely to be lower, but it is still expected to be significantly higher than in previous years.

Considerations

Producing heavier cattle for sale is increasing herd output, which is ultimately improving farm profitability.

However, holding cattle for longer does increase rearing costs, which have to be considered before making wholesale changes to the system.

Spring-born calves are now held over winter and sold at around 12 to 13 months, instead of being sold at seven to eight months old.

This means there have to be adequate housing facilities available to hold calves over the winter period.

Secondly, these animals will require additional silage to be made, which needs to be of good quality to support adequate liveweight gains during winter.

Concentrates will have to be purchased to supplement silage and achieve a good level of animal performance during winter.

Cashflow

Delaying the sale of cattle from autumn to February can affect cashflow, especially with additional winter feeding costs to be accounted for.

Therefore, a cashflow planning exercise is advised to make sure the business can carry the animals on-farm for longer.

Phasing in the changes to the system is also a good idea. For example, in the first year of changing a system some of the strongest calves can still be sold as weanlings. This means there will still be cash coming into the business as normal, with younger, lighter animals held over winter.

This takes the pressure off housing and forage demand during the first year. The phased transition also allows farm management time to adapt to the changes.

Changing the cattle system

1. Defined calving period: Before joining the programme the herd had a spread out calving pattern, with the autumn herd calving from July to December and spring cows from January to April. However, Barry has now put cows into two defined calving blocks – with 40 cows calving from August to September and the remaining 20 from late December to February. Compact calving means that the herd is much easier to manage throughout the year as calves are at a similar stage of development. Cows can also be grouped for winter feeding. Autumn-calving in August means cows can be calved outside, reducing bedding costs and the risks to calf health. Calves are also much stronger when housed. The spring herd can be bred and settled in-calf before turnout. The farm is heavily fragmented and cow groups are small in size. Grass quality would also be an issue, so breeding cows at grass would be a challenge. Due to the small group sizes, it is impractical to breed all spring cows to stock bulls or AI at grass, so calving early and breeding indoors suits the system.

2. Use of AI: The compact calving blocks allow Barry to make greater use of AI to improve calf quality and produce progeny with higher liveweight gains. Autumn-calving cows were housed in early October and offered high-quality silage and 1.5kg/day of concentrate to increase energy intake during the breeding period. Barry carries out all inseminations on cows, with breeding starting in mid-October and finishing by January. Breeding has now started for the spring-calving cows, with all animals expected to be in-calf by turnout in April. As cattle are sold live, the herd is using Charolais genetics to maximise sale value in the live trade. In the past couple of years, Fiston has been used to inseminate cows and is delivering high-quality calves. The sire has low calving difficulty which means more live calves born and no adverse effects on cow fertility.

3. Targeted sale time: Compact calving means Barry has bigger groups of cattle to sell and can target sale dates to periods when demand is strong in the live trade. For example, spring-born calves are now sold in February when buying demand is high for grazing cattle.

4. Silage quality: Despite the farm’s location in west Fermanagh, Barry made some of the highest-quality silage across the programme farms in 2018. Silage had a dry matter of 43.8%, protein of 12.6%, energy of 11.3 ME and 71% D-Value. High-quality silage has resulted in excellent weight gain in calves as well as boosting cow fertility, with all autumn cows settled in-calf. Silage is harvested in a two-cut system, with first cut made in May to June and second cut harvested in July to August, weather depending.

5. Buying in replacements: The herd has also streamlined the replacement policy and is now buying in-calf heifers rather than breeding homebred animals. Homebred heifers struggled to gain adequate weight from grass to meet target breeding weights. In-calf heifers are purchased from herds with a high health status to minimise the disease risks. With no replacements being kept, Barry can focus on using proven terminal Charolais genetics across all cows. This means there are more high-value calves for sale annually in the live trade, compared with a combination of breeds in an effort to get replacements.

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