Continental steers and heifers should be intensively finished on a high-energy ration over an 80- to 100-day period, CAFRE beef advisers told farmers at a beef finishing event held at Greenmount last week.
Daily liveweight gains during the outlined period should average 1.2kg to 1.4kg/day.
For traditional beef breeds, target weight gains should be similar, but intensive feeding periods should be limited to 60 to 80 days.
Rations should be kept fresh and fed in a clean trough at the same time every day to ensure high intakes. The drinking trough should be cleaned regularly so that water is crystal clear, otherwise concentrate intakes will drop.
Fibre
Fibre should be provided in the form of good-quality silage to stimulate rumen function and maintain a healthy rumen pH of 6.2 to 6.8.
If straw is fed instead of silage, limit to 10% of dry matter intake, which for a 650kg steer will be around 1kg to 1.5kg.
Concentrates are a supplementary feed and therefore feed rates should be matched to silage quality.
Comparison
To highlight the impact of silage quality, two diets were compared. In the first scenario, a 500kg animal is offered high-quality silage and 4.5kg/day of concentrate to achieve a daily weight gain of 1.2kg/day.
To obtain the same weight gain with average-quality silage requires 5.5kg of concentrate to be fed. It works out at an additional £22 of feed costs.
Farmers can benchmark with BoVIS
Beef finishers should continually evaluate carcase data on the animals sold for direct slaughter using BoVIS, CAFRE adviser Allister Calvin told farmers at Greenmount.
The tool is available on APHIS online and benchmarks cattle performance in finishing herds, allowing individual herd data to be compared with NI average slaughter statistics across different breeds and gender.
For finished cattle which originated in the suckler herd on CAFRE’s Hill Farm, 16 Limousin-bred steers from traditional beef-bred cows averaged 386.3kg deadweight last year at 23.5 months old, giving a daily carcase gain of 0.54kg/day.
In contrast, the NI average for Limousin-bred steers killed on local farms was a carcase weight of 376kg at 25.6 months old, giving a daily carcase gain of 0.5kg/day.
Cost saving
Along with a higher carcase value for the CAFRE animals, there was a considerable cost saving in concentrate by killing cattle two months earlier, which, at 8kg/day for 60 days on a ration costing £210/t, amounts to £101/head.
However, Calvin also highlighted that BoVIS data did show that 50% of the CAFRE Limousin-bred steers exceeded the 380kg carcase limit, meaning feeding programmes will be reviewed for next winter to have animals killing below this weight limit.
Over half of NI cattle not suited to retail
More than half of the prime cattle kill in NI falls outside of the UK retail market spec and these carcases have to be sold at a discount into lower-value markets.
Data presented by LMC economist Seamus McMenamin at the CAFRE beef finishing event showed that in terms of the 280kg to 380kg carcase weight limit, one in three prime cattle slaughtered in NI fails to meet this requirement.
During quarter four of 2020, 60% of the prime kill was within the required weight limits. But almost one in five prime animals (19%) were in the 400kg to 450kg carcase weight range and most likely incurred price penalties of 10p to 20p/kg.
In addition, just 45% of prime cattle achieved E, U, R O+ grades at fat class 3+ and 4= during 2019.
However, the main message at Greenmount was that by fine-tuning the feeding system on farm, there is scope to deliver more cattle meeting gold box specifications and therefore maximise carcase value.
Read more
NI trends: plants leave beef quotes unchanged; hogget prices rising
Farmer Writes: do the tests before parting with cash
Continental steers and heifers should be intensively finished on a high-energy ration over an 80- to 100-day period, CAFRE beef advisers told farmers at a beef finishing event held at Greenmount last week.
Daily liveweight gains during the outlined period should average 1.2kg to 1.4kg/day.
For traditional beef breeds, target weight gains should be similar, but intensive feeding periods should be limited to 60 to 80 days.
Rations should be kept fresh and fed in a clean trough at the same time every day to ensure high intakes. The drinking trough should be cleaned regularly so that water is crystal clear, otherwise concentrate intakes will drop.
Fibre
Fibre should be provided in the form of good-quality silage to stimulate rumen function and maintain a healthy rumen pH of 6.2 to 6.8.
If straw is fed instead of silage, limit to 10% of dry matter intake, which for a 650kg steer will be around 1kg to 1.5kg.
Concentrates are a supplementary feed and therefore feed rates should be matched to silage quality.
Comparison
To highlight the impact of silage quality, two diets were compared. In the first scenario, a 500kg animal is offered high-quality silage and 4.5kg/day of concentrate to achieve a daily weight gain of 1.2kg/day.
To obtain the same weight gain with average-quality silage requires 5.5kg of concentrate to be fed. It works out at an additional £22 of feed costs.
Farmers can benchmark with BoVIS
Beef finishers should continually evaluate carcase data on the animals sold for direct slaughter using BoVIS, CAFRE adviser Allister Calvin told farmers at Greenmount.
The tool is available on APHIS online and benchmarks cattle performance in finishing herds, allowing individual herd data to be compared with NI average slaughter statistics across different breeds and gender.
For finished cattle which originated in the suckler herd on CAFRE’s Hill Farm, 16 Limousin-bred steers from traditional beef-bred cows averaged 386.3kg deadweight last year at 23.5 months old, giving a daily carcase gain of 0.54kg/day.
In contrast, the NI average for Limousin-bred steers killed on local farms was a carcase weight of 376kg at 25.6 months old, giving a daily carcase gain of 0.5kg/day.
Cost saving
Along with a higher carcase value for the CAFRE animals, there was a considerable cost saving in concentrate by killing cattle two months earlier, which, at 8kg/day for 60 days on a ration costing £210/t, amounts to £101/head.
However, Calvin also highlighted that BoVIS data did show that 50% of the CAFRE Limousin-bred steers exceeded the 380kg carcase limit, meaning feeding programmes will be reviewed for next winter to have animals killing below this weight limit.
Over half of NI cattle not suited to retail
More than half of the prime cattle kill in NI falls outside of the UK retail market spec and these carcases have to be sold at a discount into lower-value markets.
Data presented by LMC economist Seamus McMenamin at the CAFRE beef finishing event showed that in terms of the 280kg to 380kg carcase weight limit, one in three prime cattle slaughtered in NI fails to meet this requirement.
During quarter four of 2020, 60% of the prime kill was within the required weight limits. But almost one in five prime animals (19%) were in the 400kg to 450kg carcase weight range and most likely incurred price penalties of 10p to 20p/kg.
In addition, just 45% of prime cattle achieved E, U, R O+ grades at fat class 3+ and 4= during 2019.
However, the main message at Greenmount was that by fine-tuning the feeding system on farm, there is scope to deliver more cattle meeting gold box specifications and therefore maximise carcase value.
Read more
NI trends: plants leave beef quotes unchanged; hogget prices rising
Farmer Writes: do the tests before parting with cash
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