'Much healthier calves since we started using First Fibre’ on Co. Carlow beef farm

Auctus spoke to beef farmer Nigel Hogan about his beef enterprise, the importance of the right nutrition and why he is using Auctus First Fibre on his farm in Co. Carlow.

Nigel Hogan and his father Pat farm a 60-cow suckler herd just outside Tullow, Co. Carlow.

“We run a 60-cow suckler herd, of which 20 are pedigree cows. We also keep 200 Suffolk-cross Texel ewes, lambing half of them in January and half of them in March. We also have 100ac of tillage,” said Nigel.

“75% of the suckler herd are spring calving while the remaining 25% are autumn calvers. The autumn calvers finish in November. We have just started spring calving.

“Rathnashan Simmentals is the name of the herd. We run a Simmental bull on both the commercial and pedigree stock. All the commercials are sold as bull beef and the heifers are sold as replacement heifers. In the pedigree herd, we show 10 to 12 calves per year.”

Last year, Nigel had great success with the pedigree herd.

“We had a very successful 2019. We had winners in four of the five classes at the Simmental All-Ireland in Strokestown. Three of the four bulls were sold to a herd in Scotland.”

‘Smoother transition’

Nigel started using First Fibre from Auctus last year and has seen a notable improvement in his calves.

“We’ve been using First Fibre for the past year. I heard about First Fibre from friends of mine in other pedigree herds. We’re very happy with it. We find it a lot easier to introduce calves onto meal.

The transition from not eating meal to starting to eat solid feed seems to be a lot faster. The calves are a lot healthier. Before, we found with calves, when we started them with meal, they would start to scour a small bit.

“Now there’s none of that; it’s a lot smoother transition. They seem to take to meal much easier. It seems to be much better on the calves’ stomach, sitting down and chewing their cuds and we are very happy with the daily live weight gain (DLWG) of the calves so far.

“We start the calves on First Fibre within the first week. It’s a very palatable feed for the calves, which is important when you are trying to encourage them to eat more concentrate.”

‘Brilliant from day 1’

Nigel is quick to highlight the excellent customer service he has experienced to date with the team at Auctus.

“I contacted John Linnane in Auctus and John was brilliant from day one. He came down to the farm, we talked through what would be the best course of action and was very helpful right through, in terms of determining a nutritional plan for the calves on the farm.

It’s very important to have a guide on what to feed and ways to feed because when you start using a new product, unless you have that kind of support, it’s guesswork on what you are doing.

“At least you can see the improvements in the calves and you can see from John’s guidance how well it is working.”

Nigel indicated the value of First Fibre.

“A product like First Fibre is very important with the low margins that are in it at the minute. You have to be as efficient as you can with everything so: increasing DLWG; calves looking better; going to sales in better condition; and selling cattle in good condition, are more important than it ever was.”

What is First Fibre?

First Fibre is uniquely formulated to vastly improve the rumen development process in the first few weeks of life.

First Fibre is a complete fibre mix of three sources containing: lucerne; first generation Timothy grass; and dried straw to improve rumen gut wall integrity, papillae growth and the development of primary enzymes.

It is an extremely palatable, high protein ration with a balanced vitamin, mineral and amino acid inclusion which gives superior efficiency and absorption of nutrients.

First Fibre contains prebiotics to maximise gut health as the animal establishes the correct microflora and bacteria populations. It contains a very low moisture content which means there is no risk of secondary fermentation or mycotoxin build up, even in an open bale.

Each bale is split into sections to make the measuring of intakes extremely easy and accurate and to keep each section compact and totally fresh.