I’m only a very small beef finisher. I finish all my male calves and cull cows, and a few heifers that I can’t get into calf.

I have no diet-feeder and I just measure my meal out in buckets and feed the cattle in some old bath tubs. But, just because I’m doing things in a small way, this doesn’t give me an excuse to be inefficient.

Finishing cattle is only a very small part of my overall farm business, but it is a part that I really enjoy. I have bred all my cows through artificial insemination (AI) and my calves are also all AI-bred. So, I can trace my finishing cattle back for generations. I like to see how different lines of breeding are performing.

Having put all this effort into breeding the best stock I can for the farm, there is no point in relaxing and thinking you have the hard work done. I must squeeze the most I possibly can out of their performance.

I weigh my finishing cattle at least once a month, and I have banks of information built up over the years. I know exactly where I need to be with weight gains and if something isn’t working then I need to do something about it.

I also get my silage analysed every year and I draw up a feeding programme based on this analysis. It’s very easy to think that your silage is similar to other years and to feed the same amount and quality as before. But the margins in finishing cattle are very slim and I need to be counting every cost and the return on every input. There is no point in me, or anyone else, just feeding cattle on a whim. A silage analysis is a few pounds well spent.

Level of finish

I’m no expert in telling when cattle have the right amount of finish to be ready for slaughter, but I’m trying to learn. I weigh my cattle a few days before slaughter and then I can work out the kill-out percentage.

This has been a real eye-opener for me. If an animal is under-finished, then you will be disappointed with the kill-out percentage. Some farmers tell me they don’t need that kind of information and that all they need is the fat score at grading.

I don’t agree with this as I think the fat score is only loosely related to the level of finish. I recently killed a bull that graded E=2+ and a lot of farmers told me that he wasn’t finished, and I should have fed him longer.

He killed out at 63%, which I think proved that he was ready for slaughter.

A few years ago, my bulls would have killed out at 52% to 56% but this year it was 58% to 63%. The fat score is almost identical, so I have convinced myself that to get a good level of finish you need to know what to feed, when to feed it and in what quantity.

The ration I have been feeding this year has almost 30% maize meal which is good for putting an appropriate level of finish on the cattle. So far, on the suckler-bred cattle, it has worked well.

But I have a batch of dairy-bred cattle and I am disappointed with how they are turning out, so I have bought a bulk bag of maize meal and I am adding extra to the ration that I am feeding. It seems to be working but I’ll know, for sure, in a couple of weeks.

Overall, I have found that there is a small margin in finishing cattle, but you need to have a good grasp of what you’re doing. You must set targets and ways of achieving those targets.

If you think that you can just put the cattle in a shed and feed them some meal that you have heard works for someone else, you could be in for a shock. Finishing cattle could end up costing you money.