Winter Beef series: Feeding meal to cattle for finishing

This winter, an under-fleshed Angus or Hereford bullock that is sent to the factory could lose out on 40-50c/kg when all bonuses are taken into account.

With this in mind, slaughtering cattle that need a few extra weeks feeding is ultimately, a false economy for the farmer.

Meal prices for beef finishers are hovering between €430-470/t this winter, which is an increase of €130-150/t on last year.

With increased input costs on farms and Irish beef prices lagging behind the UK and Europe, careful management of costs will be needed this year more than ever on all winter beef finishing operations.

Silage is not cheap either, due to cost of ensiling and the huge fertiliser cost increases in 2022. Storing cattle over the winter isn’t the big cost-saver some farmers believe it to be.

Most calf-to-beef systems made a positive margin from grazing cattle this summer when the cost of grass versus the value of the weight gain was taken into account.

Included below are some basic areas that will need attention if farmers decide to feed cattle to finish this winter.

Targets

The cost of gaining weight indoors on a forage and concentrate diet is much higher than at grass.

However, if the right amount of thrive is achieved on finishing stock, they should come close to covering their costs or clearing a margin in most years.

For dairy-bred steers, a target of 1.0-1.05kg/day should be achieved on top-quality silage and 5-6kg concentrates.

Dairy-bred heifers should achieve around 0.85-0.9kg/day indoors to finish on top-quality silage, plus 3-4 kg of concentrates.

All finishing cattle should be weighed at housing and again mid-way through the finishing period to assess performance.

If cattle are not hitting weight gain targets, changes may be needed to some aspects of the finishing regime on the farm, be it concentrate type; rate fed; space allowance; parasite control; water quality and quantity. Changes made early on can avoid extra expense later in the winter.

Balancing diets on silage quality

It is unlikely that farmers will be able to finish animals on grass silage alone, even with high dry matter digestibility (DMD) silage. Some concentrate supplementation will be needed, however the better the quality of silage offered (in excess of 72% DMD), the less concentrates required to finish animals.

When feeding a fixed total quantity of supplementary concentrates over a set finishing period, it doesn’t make any difference to performance whether you feed it at a flat rate, at a stepped increasing rate or ad-lib towards the end of the finishing period.

There are no animal performance or feed efficiency benefits from feeding the same quantities of silage and concentrates as a total mixed ration or separately.

Additional meal supplementation will be required to improve the overall energy/protein density of the diet where silage quality is sub-optimal.

Growing and finishing animals have varying requirements for energy and protein – one concentrate will not do both.

This can create practical issues for farmers finishing smaller numbers where one meal bin is used on farm.

Ensure animals are adequately provided with minerals, either through the concentrate or additional supplementation.

Winter meal requirements

The table below outlines how much concentrates are required based on various silage qualities. A silage test carried out by a lab is essential to establish the quality of silage you are feeding.

 Table 1: Guideline daily feeding rates based on silage quality (DMD)

Energy is typically the most limiting factor in beef diets. In terms of finishing rations, a UFV greater than 0.92 is necessary.

After energy, protein is the next limiting factor in the winter diet of dairy-beef animals.

Always balance the protein content of the concentrates with the protein content of silage. 11-14% is needed for finishing rations. Minerals need to be provided in the ration or separately.

The percentage of different ingredients in your ration will dictate the level of energy and protein. Some farmers buy a ration based purely on the protein content, when in fact they should be buying it based firstly on the level of energy, and then on the percentage of protein.

Both are critical for liveweight gain over the winter. Feedstuffs in Ireland are assigned two net energy values – UFL (for lactating animals) and UFV (for maintenance and weight gain in finishing animals).

One UFL is equal to the energy content of 1kg of dried barley and all feed ingredients are expressed relative to barley.

The table below shows that some ingredients have lower levels of energy than others. For example, palm kernel has only 85% of the energy of barley and wheat feed has only 75%, even though in both cases they have a higher protein value.

Table 2: Ingredient value and function

Every farmer should know what ingredients are in their ration, and if you look at the label on the bag or the delivery docket, it will list the ingredients in descending order from the highest inclusion rates to lowest inclusion rates.

Most compounders bind rations together with molasses at 2-5% inclusion rates, so any ingredients listed after molasses are at very low levels.

Minerals and vitamins are also a key component of any ration and will be included at rates of 2% in most rations.

Water intake

The water requirement of finishing cattle depends on the proportion of dry feeds i.e. concentrates in the diet.

Animals on an ad-lib diet will have a much higher requirement for water than animals on a grass silage-based diet.

Under normal conditions (free access to feed, silage, etc. and water), an animal will consume approximately 20L of water over a 24-hour period. This could be 1.5-2.0 times greater for ad-lib concentrate systems.

Drinker size is important for finishing cattle. Small-nose-type drinkers are not suitable as they will restrict the level of water intake at any one time.

Drinkers should also be installed in such a way that they can be cleaned out easily on daily or twice daily basis.

Space allowances

Trials carried out in Teagasc Grange on space allowance on concrete slatted floors have shown that 2.5–3.0m² is adequate for finishing cattle.

A space allowance of 2m² was shown to reduce the level of liveweight gain on slats.

For cattle on straw bedding, a space allowance of 4m² is required. For cattle being fed concentrates it is recommended each finishing animal has 600-650 mm at the feed barrier.

Summary

While farmers are sceptical of the merits of entering an intensive finishing period this year with inflated feed prices, there are a large number of farmers in fixed systems that require a certain amount of stock to be slaughtered out of the shed.

For these farmers, it is essential that the above targets are achieved in terms of liveweight gain and also that farmers ensure stock have no setbacks in terms of herd health along the way.

Finishing cattle is a gamble every year; it paid off in spring 2022, hopefully we will be saying the same of spring 2023.

Dairy Beef 500 Campaign

Given the large increase in the dairy herd in recent years and the resulting number of beef calves that will be reared to slaughter stage in Ireland over the coming years, Teagasc has established the Dairy Beef 500 Campaign.

This campaign will incorporate a number of dairy-beef initiatives including: Demonstration farms located nationwide; a stand-alone demo farm unit in Co. Tipperary called Ballyvadin farm; a large emphasis on knowledge transfer with a particular focus on discussion groups; along with new dedicated dairy beef courses for farmers and a supporting research and education programme.

The DairyBeef 500 Demonstration farms are sponsored by Corteva Agriscience, Drummonds, Liffey Mills, Munster Bovine, MSD Animal Health and Volac. The Ballyvadin demonstration farm is sponsored by Shinagh Estates Limited and Dawn Meats.