Over £900 required to cover cost of calves

At current prices being paid for typical dairy beef calves in marts, farmers will need over £900 per head next spring to cover costs, analysis by the Irish Farmers Journal shows.

Our calculations are based on a farmer purchasing 20 male British Blue two-week-old calves for rearing, with an aim to sell mid-March 2026 as light stores.

The calves cost £650/head and average 55kg liveweight. Target liveweight gain is 164kg, with the aim to sell a 219kg light store after 180 days on farm.

During rearing, calves are offered 39kg or 1.5 bags of milk replacer, at a total cost of £67.08 and they consume 75kg of concentrate (at £392/t) until weaning, which costs £29.40.

Calves are also offered ad lib access to chopped straw (£200/t); assuming they eat 50kg over this rearing phase, it costs £10/head.

Calf vaccination equates to an additional £14 to cover for pneumonia and clostridial disease.

For bedding, it is assumed each calf will be allocated two-thirds of a 4x4 round bale of straw (£25) until weaning, costing £16.50/head.

Weaning to sale

Post weaning, the target is to grow at 1kg daily liveweight gain until sale date in mid-March. Assuming 125 days of additional concentrate feeding at 2kg/day, it is a total of 250kg per calf at a cost of £98.

High quality bale silage (£30 per bale) is offered, with calves consuming 5kg of fresh silage daily, or 625kg at a cost of £26.80 per head.

Purchase and input costs come to £911. Assuming a 219kg calf is offered for sale in March 2026, this animal will need to achieve a sale price of 416p/kg to cover feed and other variable costs.

However, if factoring in a £100 profit margin per head, the farmer will need to achieve at least 462p/kg at the point of sale.

Considerations

The example doesn’t include other miscellaneous costs that need to be considered on an individual farm basis, such as labour, feed equipment, machinery, and shed depreciation.

There are other cost items that farmers incur to include, electrolytes, castration and dehorning costs. In cold weather, it is necessary to feed more milk replacer.

If one animal out of the batch of 20 dies pre-weaning, it adds approximately £40 per head onto the costs of the remaining 19 calves.