Finian Mathews is in his second year finishing beef cattle from the dairy herd he milks with his brother Joe in Dunleer, Co Louth. He uses mostly Angus and some Rotbunt genetics on British Friesian cows.
April 2017-born calves were bucket-fed milk before going out to grass and spent the winter outside grazing a Gorilla rape/kale hybrid. They got 100kg of meal to finish and killed out at 247kg average carcase weight last October and November, fetching a net price of €3.95/kg including the QA and Angus bonuses.
When the Irish Farmers Journal visited Finian in January, his second batch of weanlings was out on a rape crop.
Collaboration
The field was on good hill-top ground used in rotation with tillage and the system would not suit every farm in Ireland, but with suckler and beef farmers struggling to make ends meet, Finian thinks there is room for better collaboration. “If you had a cheap clover grass system, there’s definitely scope there for having a low-carbon system,” he said. “These cows don’t give as much milk, but they have nice compact calving,” he added, reporting around 5,000l yield. Meanwhile, they are productive in the parlour between calvings, which means a higher carbon efficiency than suckler cows. “If you could combine the two, you would have a dual-purpose system,” Finian said.
The farmer argued that being less efficient in milk production is not a problem if you are using less meal, which is four times more expensive than grass. At the same time, you can compete with the growing amount of cheaper beef coming from feedlots.
Another advantage of feeding less meal is to reduce the environmental impact from its production. “If you feed 1.5t of meal, that’s another 0.5ac used elsewhere,” the farmer said.
“It’s only when you start counting all these things that people realise the full picture.”
Another advantage is that his hand-fed calves make for docile cattle, suitable for safe further rearing by part-time farmers. He sold some of them and “an older man bought them” Finian said.
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Finian Mathews is in his second year finishing beef cattle from the dairy herd he milks with his brother Joe in Dunleer, Co Louth. He uses mostly Angus and some Rotbunt genetics on British Friesian cows.
April 2017-born calves were bucket-fed milk before going out to grass and spent the winter outside grazing a Gorilla rape/kale hybrid. They got 100kg of meal to finish and killed out at 247kg average carcase weight last October and November, fetching a net price of €3.95/kg including the QA and Angus bonuses.
When the Irish Farmers Journal visited Finian in January, his second batch of weanlings was out on a rape crop.
Collaboration
The field was on good hill-top ground used in rotation with tillage and the system would not suit every farm in Ireland, but with suckler and beef farmers struggling to make ends meet, Finian thinks there is room for better collaboration. “If you had a cheap clover grass system, there’s definitely scope there for having a low-carbon system,” he said. “These cows don’t give as much milk, but they have nice compact calving,” he added, reporting around 5,000l yield. Meanwhile, they are productive in the parlour between calvings, which means a higher carbon efficiency than suckler cows. “If you could combine the two, you would have a dual-purpose system,” Finian said.
The farmer argued that being less efficient in milk production is not a problem if you are using less meal, which is four times more expensive than grass. At the same time, you can compete with the growing amount of cheaper beef coming from feedlots.
Another advantage of feeding less meal is to reduce the environmental impact from its production. “If you feed 1.5t of meal, that’s another 0.5ac used elsewhere,” the farmer said.
“It’s only when you start counting all these things that people realise the full picture.”
Another advantage is that his hand-fed calves make for docile cattle, suitable for safe further rearing by part-time farmers. He sold some of them and “an older man bought them” Finian said.
Read more
Dairy bull calf trials begin
Watch: spring calf health series -targets for dairy beef
Beef and dairy should stop 'working in silos' – Boyle
Farm solutions to climate problems
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