Based in Co. Meath, the Kepak Farm is a 320ha beef-finishing operation that buys in approximately 5,000 cattle/yr, mainly through livestock marts, but also direct from farmers across the country.
Agriland recently paid a visit to the farm to meet Kepak’s agricultural director Jonathan Forbes and farm manger Sam Myles, to find out more about the running of the impressive beef enterprise.
The Kepak Farm was purchased by Noel Keating in 1983. It has a yard capacity of 1,800 cattle.
The farm operates a store-to-beef enterprise with the following two systems:
- Hereford steers and heifers for the Irish market;
- Commercial steers and heifers for the UK and EU markets.
Fewer young bulls are being finished every year and this is as a result of “signals from the market”, explained Forbes.
The cattle are housed on a combination of slatted housing, straw bedding, and slats with rubber matting.
The key areas of focus for the farm are:
- Good daily liveweight gain;
- 60-80-day turnaround of cattle;
- Producing crops for use in cattle feed;
- Producing cattle to market spec;
- Young ages of cattle at finish;
- Good use of inputs/resources.
More recently, Kepak farm has been closely examining the carbon footprint from its beef-finishing operation and looking at ways that this can be reduced.
The farm has embarked on a research project in collaboration with Meat Technology Ireland (MTI) and the goal of this project is to develop breeding strategies to reduce the carbon footprint associated with Irish beef cattle – without compromising meat yield and quality.
The farm is 80% self-sufficient for feed. It trades some of its wheat for maize grain. Brewers grain is bought to balance diets, and a value protein feed is also purchased.
Approximately 150 cattle/week are bought and 150 cattle/week are sold on the farm. The farm throughput last year was 5,057 with a mortality rate of 0.7%.
Every animal is purchased in accordance to its planned market. Cattle are also purchased in accordance to age, weight, conformation, fat score and Quality Assurance (QA) status.
Simple system for Meath beef farm
Forbes explained: “The system here is really simple; animals are bought predominantly at marts, but we also buy direct from farms.
“The cattle come in and arrive on a straw bed, where they spend 24 hours to acclimatise.
“Then the cattle are checked in. They get a colour-coded management tag that is linked to the buyer of the cattle. They get their cards checked, two pneumonia vaccines, a fluke and a worm dose and a clostridial vaccine.
“After this is complete, the cattle are batched and generally always remain in their batch until they are moved off the farm. At a specific age and weight, they are drafted for slaughter, come out of the system quickly and we repeat the process.”
Most cattle spend between 60-90 days on the farm.
“To get the throughput, we buy them at a forward stage, do the programme, and get them off the farm,” Forbes added.
Feeding and beef performance
The sheds on the farm are a mix of old buildings that have been modified to suit the current system and newer-type buildings. Cattle are housed on a range of both of dry-bedded and slatted pens.
The cattle are fed twice a day. Before feeding, the amount of food remaining in the troughs is noted and this is deducted from the feed programme to ensure spoilage is kept to a minimum. A big emphasis is placed on feed hygiene and keeping feed troughs clean.
The amount of feed offered to the cattle is built up slowly over 14 days to the full diet which they remain on until slaughter.
The cattle are generally fed 21kg fresh weight of feed and the feed cost is currently €3.80/head/day. Earlier in the season, feed costs had peaked on the farm at €4.50/head/day.
Forbes highlighted the importance of ensuring minimial feed waste, saying: “21kg fresh weight at €3.80/kg is 17c/kg. If you’re throwing out 1-2t of feed, it’s a lot of money.”
The target average daily gain (ADG) for the continental cattle is 1.3kg/day. The target ADG for the young bulls is 1.5kg/day.
“The dairy-bred Angus and Hereford cattle can do over 2kg/day, depending on the season,” Forbes said.
“These cattle are typically coming from farms where they were being extensively managed and we feel we get compensatory performance when they arrive here and are put on a good diet,” he added.
“On the basis of a poor kill-out, they’re compensating with their daily liveweight gain being very good.”
Forbes added that the farm ensures it produces finished animals with clean hides.
“It’s important that all animals presented for slaughter are nice and clean,” he said.
Pre-mix
Most of the ration is stored off-farm and is brought in as needed. Once the straight cereals arrive, they are mixed. This is to improve the accuracy of the feed, “rather than putting in a scoop of this and a scoop of that, all the cereal feed is pre-mixed once or twice a week”, Forbes said.
The farm completed a first cut in April and the aim is to make silage with a dry matter digestibility (DMD) as close to 80% as possible.
Farm manager Sam Myles explained there are two separate diets used on the farm. The two diets are the same all year, but may be tweaked slightly depending on the feed costings.
“We have an arrival mix which is mainly grass silage. It’s 8.5kg grass silage, 3.5 kg meal, brewers grain, maize silage and molasses,” Myles said.
“After 10 days we reduce the level of forage and build them up to about 8.5kg of meal and they stay on that for their remaining days here.
“Depending on the animal, we might give them a higher finishing ration and build them up to 10.5kg of meal, but that was predominantly for top-spec beef heifers and young bulls,” he added.
Every day, the level of feed going to each pen is adjusted via a phone app.
“At the end of every week, I get an email showing me how much of each type of feed we use and how much feed I need to order for the following week,” Myles said.
A tractor and diet feeder is used on the farm. Self-loading diet feeders were considered, but are not used.
Nutrient use
All slurry and manure produced on the beef farm is incorporated back into the soil nutrient management plan which is key to the Kepak Farm managing to produce some of the highest grain yields per hectare in the country.
The slurry is put on standing corn at a rate of 3,000 gallons/ac and supplies sufficient phosphorus and potassium for the crop.
As all the slurry is coming from finishing cattle diets, it is up to 12% dry matter. Every 1,000g of slurry from the farm is worth the equivalent of a 50kg bag of 13:6:20.
The farm has recently started growing catchcrops on ground that does not go into a winter crop. These are put back into the soil and increase its organic matter.
Last autumn, 170ac of leafy turnip was grown and incorporated into the soil this spring. The catch crop was shown to be worth the equivalent to a bag of calcium ammonium nitrate (CAN)/ac to the spring crop. These measures are helping to further reduce the chemical nutrient usage on the farm all the time.