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The slaughter performance of five batches of animals drafted to-date in Newford Farm has been grouped together and is detailed in the table below.
The data analysed by Michael Fagan of Teagasc includes the batch of steers and heifers slaughtered last Friday week.
All but 10 heifers born in Newford in 2018 have now been slaughtered. Slaughter performance is similar to 2018, with heifers grading R+ on average on conformation and 3= on fat score. The average carcase weight of the heifers aged 20 months is 303kg, with an average sale value of €1,134.73. The 10 heifers left to slaughter are likely to be drafted in the next fortnight.
Fat cover
The focus with steers is to draft them once they reach a desired fat cover, with the beef price to daily feed cost ratio not incentivising retaining steers to heavier weights.
The carcase weight of the first 10 steers slaughtered averaged 353kg at an average age of 21 months. Steers returned a similar grade to heifers at R+ on conformation and 3= on fat cover.
Finishing diet
The 41 remaining steers are on a finishing diet of ad-lib 75DMD silage and 6kg concentrates. Another draft should be ready in the next 10 days to two weeks.
There have also been eight dairy-cross heifers drafted to date.
These are heifers which either did not reach breeding targets or failed to go in-calf. They returned a much lower carcase weight of 250kg on average.
They made an average price of €3.37/kg, with heifers not eligible for payment of the QPS bonus due to them being finished on their fifth residence.
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