ABP Food Group’s Advantage Beef Programme team has confirmed the keynote speaker for its series of farmer information meetings taking place over the coming two weeks.
Well-known veterinary consultant Tommy Heffernan, or ‘Tommy the Vet’ as he is better known, will deliver a presentation to farmers at each of the three events on best practice when rearing calves for beef production.
The vet will be speaking about factors to consider when buying calves such as the source farm, vaccinations and rumen development.
The ABP events
The information meetings are aimed at farmers buying calves and rearing them to beef, and are open for both Advantage Beef Programme members and non members to attend.
Both dairy and beef farmers are welcome to attend too.
Speaking to Agriland ahead of the events, ABP’s Farm Liaison Team Leader Amie Coonan said: “The information meetings will focus on best practice when it comes to calf health and calf nutrition and will also examine the importance of looking further into the genetic composition of dairy calf to beef animals.”
“We aim to keep these evenings interactive throughout and there will be interesting tutorials as well as informative videos with questions welcome throughout,” she added.
The details of the three events taking place are as follows:
- Clonakilty Park Hotel, Clonakilty, Co. Cork on Tuesday, November 29;
- Horse and Jockey Hotel, Co. Tipperary on Wednesday, November 30;
- Springhill Court Hotel, Co. Kilkenny on Tuesday, December 6.
All three events will get underway at 7:30pm.
Coonan herself will be speaking on calf nutrition and will be discussing best practice when weaning the calf from milk and onto concentrates.
ABP agri-sustainability manager Stephen Connolly and farm liaison officer Sean Maher will deliver presentations on the performance of calves on the ABP Demo Farm and the kill-out data to date this year.
They will also outline the importance of genetics and we will be showing how different cattle killed out from different artificial insemination (AI) bulls and what the better genetics is worth to the farmer in carcass weight.
An explainer will be offered to farmers on how to find the Commercial Beef Value (CBV) of an animal and the beef sub-index value of a bull.
Farmers who want to know the values of a stockbull or AI bull can bring along the bull’s tag number on the night and a member of the Advantage Beef Programme will check the bull’s figures and show farmers what to look out for.
AI companies will be in attendance on the night and refreshments will be served.