ABP Demo Farm: Cattle kill out results and weanling weights

ABP’s Advantage Beef Programme farm liaison officer, Sean Maher, has provided an update to farmers on what has been happening on the ABP Demo Farm.

He discussed the finishing performance of the cattle killed to date, and gave an update on the 2023-born weanling performance.

A total of 350 of the 2023-born dairy-beef weanlings have now been housed on the ABP Demo Farm in Co. Carlow.

The average housing weight of the 2023-born cattle was 250kg. Sean said that due to the poor weather conditions, the weanlings housing weight was 10kg lower than the same time last year.

These weanlings were all weighed at housing. All cattle have the hair on their backs clipped when they are being housed.

Sean said: “This helps to keep livestock clean, it helps to minimise health issues and gives us better contact with the skin when using a pour-on lice treatment.”

All batches of calves were dung-sampled prior to housing, and were then dosed accordingly.

Shed space

Sean said: “Like many farms across the country, we are limited on housing, and with our finishing cattle being slightly back on performance, we still have 50 weanlings outdoor until the last of finishing cattle leave the farm in the next few weeks.

“These weanlings are on grazed grass and 2kg of meal. We are grazing them in two groups, and targeting the drier fields.

“Grazing conditions have been very challenging, but the last week of cold and dry weather has given us some respite. These cattle have been very content, and are none the worse of the cooler conditions.

“On the weanling health front, we have had very little trouble since housing.”

Sean attributes this to a combination of:

• Using pneumonia vaccines;
• Good open sheds with plenty of air;
• Minimizing mixing of batches as much as possible;
• Limiting stress.

By grouping weaker calves together, Sean said “it allows them a better access to feed, prevents bullying, allows you to feed them a little more concentrates while keeping a better eye on them.”

Winter feed

The winter diet on the ABP Demo Farm is a mix of grass silage, red clover silage, beet and concentrates.

Silage has been analysed with the first cut averaging 74% dry matter digestibility (DMD), with 33% dry matter (DM) and 13.5% protein.

The second-cut silage is averaging 71% DMD, with 49% DM and 12% protein.

Some excess paddocks baled early in the year off swards with high-clover content had DMDs of 75% and proteins of 16%.

“The quality of the red clover will be slightly back on last year however it must be noted that it was exceptional last year. This year it is coming in at 16.5% protein and 33% DM,” Sean explained.

Greenfeed bins

Two Greenfeed bins are in operation in the sheds gathering methane data as part of the Meat Technology Ireland (MTI) project the farm is involved in.

This is an industry collaboration focusing on breeding beef cattle with a lower methane output, younger age at finish while combining improved on-farm efficiency and profitability.

Sean said that the first batch of weanlings are being trained to use the Greenfeed which will allow the farm to collect data for the 2024 grazing season.

“Cattle are first trained to the Greenfeed indoors which then helps to increase the level of usage at grass.

“Last year over 90% of animals that had access to the machine at grass used it regularly, which Sean said is considered a good level.

“Weanlings with over 50 visits over the winter months are chosen to use the Greenfeed. Without this training period, we would have been lucky to get 50% usage.”

Finishing cattle

Of the 2022-born cattle on the farm, 165 of the heifers have been finished to date, with only 10 left to be drafted.

There has been 132 of the bullocks finished at 319kg with another 70 to go in the next two weeks.

An update on the kill-out performance of the bullocks will be provided in the next couple of weeks.

Sean said: “The remaining heifers are a mixed bag, but a large proportion are Limousin and Belgian Blue with a few others left that may have suffered setbacks.

“On the ABP Demo farm, we find it takes more feed to finish our continental bred cattle vs. the traditional breeds along with more days in the finishing period. This also leads to pressure on our system with housing space limited on farm.

“We have some excellent performance from our continental-bred cattle but we may see better performance by finishing at 24 months versus 21 months to capitalise on extra carcass weight to offset the higher calf cost.”

The average carcass weight of the heifers slaughtered this year is 270kg, which is similar to last year.

Sean commented: “Fat scores have been trickier this year. A lot of cattle that were housed for finishing were probably not as well fleshed as we would have liked at the time.”

Below is a table on the heifer kill-out performance by breed on the ABP Demo Farm:

Commenting on the results, Sean said: “One of our heaviest heifers this year, was an Angus heifer with a carcass weight of 315kg and a grade of a R- 4-.

“One of our lightest heifers was also an Angus with a carcass weight of 212kg and graded O=3.”

“We had Angus, Hereford, Limousin and Aubrac. Its important to point out when we buy our calves, we select on genetics alone and some sires we purchase will have a low beef sub index within the Dairy Beef Index (DBI), so we aren’t surprised with their performance.

“The use of tools such as the Commercial Beef Value (CBV) and sire genetic evaluations are key when selecting beef calves to purchase.

“Everyone has their own preference on breed and we believe as farmers, we need to select the best within a breed, rather than one breed over another.

“Over the next few weeks we will provide an update on sire performance within breed to show the variation of performance due to sire,” he said.