With all of the items currently available through TAMS (Targeted Agricultural Modernisation Scheme), the question being posed by many farmers is why rubber mats are not included on the list of eligible items.

Rubber mats can be a major investment for any farm, whether that is for slatted pens or for cubicles.

The cost of putting rubber mats on a standard 4.8m wide pen with a 4.4m (14ft 6in) slat is approximately €1,100, plus VAT.

We have all seen the growing concern from consumers when it comes to animal welfare and is this an area Irish farmers should be looking to target by positioning ourselves ahead of the curve.

Schemes

We have already seen the changing trend from UK supermarkets with Morrisons Shorthorn Beef Range, for example, where the terms of the scheme state that, “eligible cattle may not be kept on concrete slatted floors during the finishing period.

Rubber-coated slats are acceptable.” Indeed, in the programme for the current Government back in 2016, they committed to including mats for slats through TAMS.

However, to-date they have remained off the list.

While funding for the scheme may be highlighted as an issue, other items have recently been included, such as beef and sheep farmers now being eligible for grant on meal bins where it was traditionally only dairy farmers who were eligible.

Conflicting research

The two most recent pieces of research carried out from an Irish perspective have been conflicting on the benefits of using rubber mats.

Research carried out by AFBI (Agri-Food and Biosciences Institute ) (Lowe et al, 2019) has shown there to be a positive trend between using rubber-covered slats and the performance of dairy-origin bulls.

The study evaluated dairy-origin bulls from a mean age of eight months to slaughter at 15.5 months.

Bulls on conventional concrete slats had a carcase weight of 270kg at slaughter while bulls finished on rubber-covered slats had a carcase weight of 279kg.

When bulls were offered concentrates ad-lib and were accommodated on rubber-covered slats, they did have a higher concentrate intake than bulls accommodated on concrete slats

Liveweight gain was also higher on rubber-covered slats at 1.55kg/day, compared to 1.49kg/day on concrete slats.

One interesting point from the report was that, when bulls were offered concentrates ad-lib and were accommodated on rubber-covered slats, they did have a higher concentrate intake than bulls accommodated on concrete slats.

Total dry matter intake (DMI) was 8.1kg for bulls on concrete slats and 9.2kg for bulls on rubber-covered slats.

However, floor type did not significantly affect intake when bulls were offered grass silage supplemented with 6kg of concentrates.

In contrast to this, work carried out by Teagasc (Earley etal, 2015) highlighted that housing beef cattle on rubber mats or straw instead of concrete slatted floors had no significant effect on animal performance or animal welfare.