The northwest of Ireland is fast developing a reputation as a contract-rearing hub.
Up to now, contract rearers have been rearing dairy replacement heifers, but a new pilot programme with dairy bull calves kicked off in 2020.
Ten contract rearers are part of the Teagasc Everycalf programme, looking at the logistics, performance and profitability of contract rearing male calves from Teagasc dairy herds.
Kieran Henry, Tubbercurry, Co Sligo.
Kieran Henry is farming 100 acres with his wife, Caroline, near Tubbercurry in Sligo. When Kieran and Caroline took over the farm in 2011, they started with nine pedigree Limousin suckler cows and nine pedigree heifers.
Since then, suckler numbers peaked at 35, but are now back to 25 pedigree cows plus followers.
Two new enterprises have started – contract-rearing dairy heifers and contract-rearing dairy bulls. There are currently 175 animals on the farm in total and Kieran works full-time as an AI man with Progressive Genetics.
The balance of owned and contract-reared stock seems to work well for Kieran, who says he won’t be selling out of sucklers anytime soon.
“We do a profit monitor, so we have a fair idea of what each enterprise is returning and while the sucklers don’t leave much profit, they are stock that we own, so we have something to sell if we ever want to.
“Even though we only have a payday a few times a year compared with the monthly income from contract-rearing, I’d be very slow to get rid of them entirely,” Kieran says.
He has two contract-rearing arrangements. The first is with a Sligo farmer to rear 60 dairy heifers from November of their first year to November of their second year.
Kieran Henry with some of the bull calves he is contract-rearing.
They come to Kieran at eight to nine months of age. He then houses them over the winter, puts them to grass in spring, gets them in-calf and then sends them back on the lorry that delivers the weanlings in November.
He has been in this arrangement for the last five years and it is working well.
The owner of the stock visits three or four times per year and Kieran keeps him up to date on progress through regular weighing and texts messages.
He gets a bonus payment for achieving in excess of 80% in-calf in the first three weeks, something he has always achieved, so performance is clearly top class.
The bigger calves of the second batch are still on milk and are mostly Aberdeen Angus cross.
The other arrangement commenced last year and it is with Teagasc. The bull calves arrive on the farm at three weeks of age and Kieran rears them until mid-April of the following year.
“Last year was my first year ever rearing calves and it was a learning curve. It went reasonably well, but it went better this year as we fed less milk replacer,” Kieran says.
Last year, the calves were fed 6l of milk replacer, but this year they were fed 4l once a day. The target is to wean the calves at 80kg when they reach 60 days of age and are eating 1.5kg to 2kg of meal per day.
Kieran fed two bags of milk replacer per calf last year, along with a high-spec calf ration, but this year he only fed one bag of powder per calf of a lower-spec ration.
Calf performance
Calf performance hasn’t changed. If anything, Kieran says the calves are healthier, with fewer scours and fewer tummy upsets.
The contract rearers have no control over what calves they get, but they are assured that they are healthy, 50kg liveweight, growing at least 0.45kg/day, are a minimum of three weeks old, are treated for coccidiosis and are vaccinated against pneumonia and blackleg.
There are 60 dairy heifers being contract-reared.
A sample of calves from each batch are blood-tested prior to departure to check that they got enough colostrum when born.
The 50 bull calves arrived in two batches, with the first 33 arriving in mid-March and the second batch arriving in early May.
The first batch are weaned off milk and are out grazing a paddock next to the yard by day.
Kieran is still bringing them in at night because the weather is bad. He feeds them 1kg/head of meal morning and evening, which encourages them back into the shed at night.
As soon as the weather picks up, they will be out full-time.
His contract is to rear these calves to 15 April 2022. The 42 calves he had last year left the farm on 15 April this year at an average weight of 359kg.
The target weight in the contract on that date is 330kg, with a bonus for being above that weight and a deduction if they’re underweight.
The bonus/deduction is more or less equal to the full value of the liveweight at €1.75/kg. Because Kieran’s calves were on average 29kg heavier than 330kg, he got an extra €51/head in the final monthly payment, which amounted to an extra €2,131 in total.
Tom Coll and Brendan Horan are heading up the project from the Teagasc side.
The older batch of calves is weaned.
Brendan says that the bonus incentivises the rearers to achieve good performance, because they get to retain the value of the extra liveweight they put on the animals.
For Teagasc, it means that less animals are likely to be under target weight and it also means that the animals are likely to be fit for slaughter earlier.
Not all farmers in the programme achieved the bonus, with some rearers having some of their final payment deducted because the average weight was below target, so it works both ways.
It’s important to note that all dairy bull calves born in the Teagasc research farms are enrolled in the programme, with breeds ranging from purebred Jersey to Charolais-cross calves.
The majority of the calves are Holstein Friesian and Aberdeen Angus.
Interestingly, there is very little difference in liveweight between the breeds in mid-April.
The earlier-born Holstein Friesian and Jersey crossbred calves have similar daily gains as later-born Hereford and Angus calves and are heavier in mid-April. See Table 1 for a breakdown of the performance to date.
The bullocks are now on a second rearer’s farm and performance data will continue to be collected until they are slaughtered at 22 to 26 months of age.
Good performance
Kieran identifies three reasons why he achieves good performance.
The first is grassland management. While the young calves are grazing stemmy grass now to prevent summer scour syndrome, as soon as they get older they will be grazing lighter covers.
This enables him to get cheap liveweight gain over the summer and autumn.
The Limousin cattle are in the shed because the weather is poor.
Secondly, he is constantly weighing the animals. Calves on milk are weighed almost weekly and are re-sorted based on weight and thrive.
Those that are not thriving as much are put in a separate group and fed more milk and vice versa. This enables Kieran to target milk to the calves that need it the most and is the reason why milk replacer usage has almost halved in 2021. Older animals are weighed every three to four weeks.
Another reason for good performance is good silage. Silage quality averages 74% to 75% DMD most years. The cattle are weighed regularly over the winter and only the lightest pens get 2kg of meal per day.
Inputs such as meal and fertiliser are Kieran’s expenses, so the less he spends on these the greater the potential there is for profit. The contract-rearing rate is €1.20/head/day plus a potential bonus for hitting target weights.
“The big advantage of being in the programme for me is that I am assured of getting a good, healthy calf from the one herd. I’d hate to have to go out looking for 50 calves in the market.
“The other big advantage is that I’m getting a regular monthly income and I’m not at the behest of beef prices,” Kieran says.
To be fair, contract-rearing male dairy calves is not a perfect solution to the dairy calf issue, but it is an attempt to redress the balance of risk.
It can be argued that in this model, all of the risk is back on the stock owner, in this case Teagasc. However, if the calves were purchased by the rearers, then all of the risk is on them.
There are two big drawbacks to dairy calf systems: the first is that the market can over-value animals as calves and then undervalue them until they are fit for slaughter. This deters farmers from buying calves as they are seen to be too expensive.
It also reduces their asset value while the animals are still growing, whereas there’s nearly always a better trade for a growing suckler-bred animal. Having a few animals on hand that can be sold is part of the psyche of beef farming.
For this reason having a basket of enterprises on the farm, such as dairy calf-to-beef, contract-rearing and a suckler enterprise can increase cashflow, reduce risk and maintain the balance sheet.
Success of any arrangement will be dependent on integrity and trust between the parties and top performance on the rearer’s farm.
With live exports under threat, these types of arrangements may be needed in the future.
The Everycalf programme is designed to evaluate the performance of all 500 male dairy calves from Teagasc dairy research farms.
The programme will run for three years.
The northwest of Ireland is fast developing a reputation as a contract-rearing hub.
Up to now, contract rearers have been rearing dairy replacement heifers, but a new pilot programme with dairy bull calves kicked off in 2020.
Ten contract rearers are part of the Teagasc Everycalf programme, looking at the logistics, performance and profitability of contract rearing male calves from Teagasc dairy herds.
Kieran Henry, Tubbercurry, Co Sligo.
Kieran Henry is farming 100 acres with his wife, Caroline, near Tubbercurry in Sligo. When Kieran and Caroline took over the farm in 2011, they started with nine pedigree Limousin suckler cows and nine pedigree heifers.
Since then, suckler numbers peaked at 35, but are now back to 25 pedigree cows plus followers.
Two new enterprises have started – contract-rearing dairy heifers and contract-rearing dairy bulls. There are currently 175 animals on the farm in total and Kieran works full-time as an AI man with Progressive Genetics.
The balance of owned and contract-reared stock seems to work well for Kieran, who says he won’t be selling out of sucklers anytime soon.
“We do a profit monitor, so we have a fair idea of what each enterprise is returning and while the sucklers don’t leave much profit, they are stock that we own, so we have something to sell if we ever want to.
“Even though we only have a payday a few times a year compared with the monthly income from contract-rearing, I’d be very slow to get rid of them entirely,” Kieran says.
He has two contract-rearing arrangements. The first is with a Sligo farmer to rear 60 dairy heifers from November of their first year to November of their second year.
Kieran Henry with some of the bull calves he is contract-rearing.
They come to Kieran at eight to nine months of age. He then houses them over the winter, puts them to grass in spring, gets them in-calf and then sends them back on the lorry that delivers the weanlings in November.
He has been in this arrangement for the last five years and it is working well.
The owner of the stock visits three or four times per year and Kieran keeps him up to date on progress through regular weighing and texts messages.
He gets a bonus payment for achieving in excess of 80% in-calf in the first three weeks, something he has always achieved, so performance is clearly top class.
The bigger calves of the second batch are still on milk and are mostly Aberdeen Angus cross.
The other arrangement commenced last year and it is with Teagasc. The bull calves arrive on the farm at three weeks of age and Kieran rears them until mid-April of the following year.
“Last year was my first year ever rearing calves and it was a learning curve. It went reasonably well, but it went better this year as we fed less milk replacer,” Kieran says.
Last year, the calves were fed 6l of milk replacer, but this year they were fed 4l once a day. The target is to wean the calves at 80kg when they reach 60 days of age and are eating 1.5kg to 2kg of meal per day.
Kieran fed two bags of milk replacer per calf last year, along with a high-spec calf ration, but this year he only fed one bag of powder per calf of a lower-spec ration.
Calf performance
Calf performance hasn’t changed. If anything, Kieran says the calves are healthier, with fewer scours and fewer tummy upsets.
The contract rearers have no control over what calves they get, but they are assured that they are healthy, 50kg liveweight, growing at least 0.45kg/day, are a minimum of three weeks old, are treated for coccidiosis and are vaccinated against pneumonia and blackleg.
There are 60 dairy heifers being contract-reared.
A sample of calves from each batch are blood-tested prior to departure to check that they got enough colostrum when born.
The 50 bull calves arrived in two batches, with the first 33 arriving in mid-March and the second batch arriving in early May.
The first batch are weaned off milk and are out grazing a paddock next to the yard by day.
Kieran is still bringing them in at night because the weather is bad. He feeds them 1kg/head of meal morning and evening, which encourages them back into the shed at night.
As soon as the weather picks up, they will be out full-time.
His contract is to rear these calves to 15 April 2022. The 42 calves he had last year left the farm on 15 April this year at an average weight of 359kg.
The target weight in the contract on that date is 330kg, with a bonus for being above that weight and a deduction if they’re underweight.
The bonus/deduction is more or less equal to the full value of the liveweight at €1.75/kg. Because Kieran’s calves were on average 29kg heavier than 330kg, he got an extra €51/head in the final monthly payment, which amounted to an extra €2,131 in total.
Tom Coll and Brendan Horan are heading up the project from the Teagasc side.
The older batch of calves is weaned.
Brendan says that the bonus incentivises the rearers to achieve good performance, because they get to retain the value of the extra liveweight they put on the animals.
For Teagasc, it means that less animals are likely to be under target weight and it also means that the animals are likely to be fit for slaughter earlier.
Not all farmers in the programme achieved the bonus, with some rearers having some of their final payment deducted because the average weight was below target, so it works both ways.
It’s important to note that all dairy bull calves born in the Teagasc research farms are enrolled in the programme, with breeds ranging from purebred Jersey to Charolais-cross calves.
The majority of the calves are Holstein Friesian and Aberdeen Angus.
Interestingly, there is very little difference in liveweight between the breeds in mid-April.
The earlier-born Holstein Friesian and Jersey crossbred calves have similar daily gains as later-born Hereford and Angus calves and are heavier in mid-April. See Table 1 for a breakdown of the performance to date.
The bullocks are now on a second rearer’s farm and performance data will continue to be collected until they are slaughtered at 22 to 26 months of age.
Good performance
Kieran identifies three reasons why he achieves good performance.
The first is grassland management. While the young calves are grazing stemmy grass now to prevent summer scour syndrome, as soon as they get older they will be grazing lighter covers.
This enables him to get cheap liveweight gain over the summer and autumn.
The Limousin cattle are in the shed because the weather is poor.
Secondly, he is constantly weighing the animals. Calves on milk are weighed almost weekly and are re-sorted based on weight and thrive.
Those that are not thriving as much are put in a separate group and fed more milk and vice versa. This enables Kieran to target milk to the calves that need it the most and is the reason why milk replacer usage has almost halved in 2021. Older animals are weighed every three to four weeks.
Another reason for good performance is good silage. Silage quality averages 74% to 75% DMD most years. The cattle are weighed regularly over the winter and only the lightest pens get 2kg of meal per day.
Inputs such as meal and fertiliser are Kieran’s expenses, so the less he spends on these the greater the potential there is for profit. The contract-rearing rate is €1.20/head/day plus a potential bonus for hitting target weights.
“The big advantage of being in the programme for me is that I am assured of getting a good, healthy calf from the one herd. I’d hate to have to go out looking for 50 calves in the market.
“The other big advantage is that I’m getting a regular monthly income and I’m not at the behest of beef prices,” Kieran says.
To be fair, contract-rearing male dairy calves is not a perfect solution to the dairy calf issue, but it is an attempt to redress the balance of risk.
It can be argued that in this model, all of the risk is back on the stock owner, in this case Teagasc. However, if the calves were purchased by the rearers, then all of the risk is on them.
There are two big drawbacks to dairy calf systems: the first is that the market can over-value animals as calves and then undervalue them until they are fit for slaughter. This deters farmers from buying calves as they are seen to be too expensive.
It also reduces their asset value while the animals are still growing, whereas there’s nearly always a better trade for a growing suckler-bred animal. Having a few animals on hand that can be sold is part of the psyche of beef farming.
For this reason having a basket of enterprises on the farm, such as dairy calf-to-beef, contract-rearing and a suckler enterprise can increase cashflow, reduce risk and maintain the balance sheet.
Success of any arrangement will be dependent on integrity and trust between the parties and top performance on the rearer’s farm.
With live exports under threat, these types of arrangements may be needed in the future.
The Everycalf programme is designed to evaluate the performance of all 500 male dairy calves from Teagasc dairy research farms.
The programme will run for three years.
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