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On a number of the new programme farms, 2016 spring-born steers and heifers are now coming fit for slaughter. Poor grazing conditions during the second half of 2017 reduced cattle performance and, as such, many cattle were housed below their target weight. This has led to cattle taking longer to reach slaughter weight.
In addition, the historic effects of a spread-out calving pattern on the new programme farms is also a key reason for having more cattle coming fit for slaughter in early spring.
However, this trend is already being rectified with tighter breeding periods, which will compact calving patterns in future.
As calving patterns tighten, this will result in more cattle coming fit for slaughter in early December rather than January and February.
Several farmers began drafting finishing cattle prior to Christmas and they continue to offload animals as soon as they reach the required level of fat cover.
Weighing cattle is now a routine aspect of herd management on the programme farms.
With regular weighing, it is much easier to determine if it is cost effective to continue feeding cattle in an effort to increase carcase weight.
By weighing cattle on monthly intervals, the farmers can quickly identify which cattle have stalled in terms of performance. Provided these cattle are at a suitable fat cover, they are then marketed.
As these animals are no longer covering their daily feed costs, there is no benefit in holding these animals for any longer. Holding these cattle will mean they enter a loss-making period.
Monitoring performance in finishing cattle
Bullocks that are being intensively finished were weighed on 18 January. The group averaged 616kg liveweight and had gained 1.18kg/day since their last weighing on 6 December when the same group averaged 565kg.
The group is approximately 20 months of age and on track to kill at 20 to 24 months of age. Individual weights range from 678kg down to 566kg.
Calving pattern has been a bit too spread out in previous years, which means there is a bigger range in cattle weights than I would like.
However, this is being addressed and the upcoming spring-calving period should be finished at least one month earlier than last year.
The benefit of this will be bigger batches of cattle to manage and sell in future years, making it easier to group cattle for feeding and give me a bit more bargaining power when selling.
It will also free up housing space with cattle being finished earlier.
There are 29 bullocks to kill in the coming months. They are either Angus- or Limousin-bred animals. The Angus cattle will be killed through the premium breed scheme.
Four steers were killed on 11 December and averaged 352kg carcase weight. The bullocks averaged 625kg liveweight as they moved to slaughter, giving a kill-out of 56%.
They were 19 months of age and three animals were R grades, with one U grade in the group.
Finishing management
Along with the bullocks, there are 11 heifers to be killed in the coming weeks. After weighing cattle, I decided to increase the concentrate levels.
The strongest bullocks have been increased from 4.5kg/day to 6.5kg/day of the finishing ration. The heifers are on 4kg/day of the finishing ration.
All finishing cattle are also getting high-quality first-cut silage, which has a feed value of 30.2% dry matter, 11.3 Mj ME (energy) and 12.7% protein with 71 D-value.
Finishing cattle were on a growing ration until early December before moving on to the finishing ration and cattle performance has really improved since the change in diet.
The finishing ration consists of 380kg barley, 285kg maize, 165kg maize distillers, 120kg soya hulls and 25kg each of molasses and minerals.
Feed costs
The ration cost £185/t to buy. Taking a steer eating 6.5kg/day of ration will cost £1.17/head. Add in 25kg of silage at £25/t gives a feed cost of £1.80/day.
At a daily gain of 1.18kg/day and 56% kill-out, the cattle are gaining 0.66kg/day of carcase worth £2.38 at a beef price of £3.60/kg. This roughly leaves a margin of 58p/head/day after feed costs to cover other expenses.
Building numbers in the spring calving herd
To increase profit, I am building suckler cow numbers towards 85 breeding females. Spring calving is due to start in early March with 57 cows and 29 replacement heifers scanned in-calf.
This is a big increase in numbers compared with last year when a total of 63 cows and replacements calved.
Cows are in good condition, arguably too good. Therefore, I am planning to continue restricting silage intakes for a few weeks yet. Cows were down to 60% of their potential (ad-lib) intake.
Silage intakes are simply restricted by offering fewer blocks cut from the pit.
Pre-calving minerals are now being offered to ensure cows have adequate cover for the calving period.
Cows were blood-sampled and I also had forage analysed for mineral content. Results were ideal for the group of in-calf heifers, but analysis showed very low results in the cows.
I have not vaccinated for scour in previous years, but with more cattle on farm I think this will be a worthwhile task to carry out now.
Replacement heifers
I have 26 weanling heifers on farm. They averaged 310kg on 5 January and have gained 0.75kg/day since 2 November.
My plan would be to breed as many of these as possible, but there will be a few animals to remove from the group first.
Target breeding weight is 420kg by 6 June, which means the heifers need to average 0.75kg/day from now until the breeding period.
The heifers are eating 2kg/day of a 16% growing ration and first-cut silage. I will continue to feed meal until turnout, or even after turnout if grazing conditions are poor, to make sure they hit the target breeding weight.
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