The first 101 dairy-beef heifers were recently slaughtered from the ABP Demo Farm, freeing up shed space to house the first of the 2024-born dairy-beef weanlings.

As of Thursday, October 24, a total of 72 of the 400-odd weanlings have been housed in the farm.

ABP Food Group’s Advantage Beef Programme farm liaison officer Sean Maher explained that the youngest group of calves were housed first with an average weight of 226kg at housing.

Maher said: “We are very happy with how these have performed.”

Housing protocols on ABP Demo Farm

At housing, hair of the tails and backs of the cattle is clipped and a lice pour-on solution is applied.

Maher said: “We will monitor dung samples to see if an additional wormer is needed. We hope to keep a lot of the other weanlings out for another six weeks however, as soon as space becomes available in the shed, we can start housing more of these gradually.”

These weanlings were administered a booster vaccine for Bovine Respiratory Disease (BRD) four weeks in advance of housing.

The winter feed diet for the 2024-born dairy-beef weanlings will include:

  • Conventional silage;
  • Red clover silage;
  • Beet;
  • Concentrates.

Maher said that last winter, this diet saw an average daily gain (ADG) of almost 1kg on yearlings, which is an impressive performance.

Methane data on two batches of these weanlings has been collected this year and this winter, the farm aims to collect data on all 400 weanlings.

International dairy-beef conference

An international conference focusing on dairy calf-to-beef production took place in Co. Wexford last week on Wednesday, October 16, and Thursday, October 17.

The major industry event was hosted by Teagasc with the support of ABP Food Group and the British Society of Animal Science (BSAS).

As part of the event, delegates travelled to the ABP Demo Farm in Co. Carlow for a field trip.

The afternoon session included a field trip to the ABP Demo Farm in Co. Carlow where delegates got a tour of the farm and seen how the system is run.

The farm tour consisted of an outline of the history of the farm and its current system, the role of animal breeding in dairy beef systems and finally a live-animal grading demonstration with a presentation on the importance of meeting market specifications for both farmers and factories.