Finishing cattle at grass in August last year. These heifers were receiving 3kg/d concentrates.
It is often said that there is as much variation within a breed as there is across breeds, and looking at the production data from the Thrive demonstration farm for the 2019-born stock this certainly holds true.
With all the 2019-born animals now slaughtered, we are able to look at some of the facts and figures from the group.
We must remember that this is a relatively small sample size and therefore we must be careful with any extrapolation of the data to a national scale.
SHARING OPTIONS:
There are over 40 paddocks on the demo farm and each of these can be sub-divided to help increase the grazing pressure when required. \ Philip Doyle
Top-quality grassland management is a must on dairy-calf-to-beef farms. Grazing these animals is very different to grazing suckler cows. They are unforgiving if grass is not kept correct in front of them at all times.
From looking at the performance of the programme farmers, it is clear to see that the biggest difference between those excelling at grassland management and those that can do better, is that the best performers are consistently measuring grass. We keep alluding to the fine margins that these systems operate on. Gaining an extra 0.1kg/day of liveweight at grass may not seem like much, but over a grazing season this could mean an additional 20kg of liveweight, or at current beef prices an additional €42 of carcase output.
Brian Geraghty, Dysart, Co Roscommon
Brian operates a dairy-calf-to-beef system on a 52ha leased farm in Dysart in south Co Roscommon. Of this, about 20ha of it would be rough grazing, with the remainder good grass growing ground.
In 2020, Brian reared 92 Angus heifers. Taking advantage of the good weather conditions last spring, Brian reared most of the calves at grass and achieved a daily liveweight gain of 0.9kg/day over the rearing phase. This spring, high calf prices have meant Brian has stayed out of the market as he struggled to see a return on investment at the current calf price.
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Title: Thrive weekly roundup: yearling grazing targets and rearing 150 calves
In this week s Thrive roundup, Declan Marren outlines grazing targets for yearling cattle over the next few weeks and provides an update on rearing 150 calves on the demonstration farm.
SHARING OPTIONS:
The increasing use of beef AI and increasing use of high-Dairy-Beef-Index sires will help to improve the beef value of dairy beef calves.\ Philip Doyle
Of the 1.5m or so dairy cows that calve in spring, less than half (46%) are to a beef sire.
Most of these beef sires are Aberdeen Angus and Hereford. Between 2019 and 2020, there was an 11% increase in beef-sired calves from dairy cows.
At the same time, the number of dairy female calves from dairy cows (future herd replacements) has remained static. So while dairy cow numbers are increasing, a greater proportion of cows are going in calf to a beef sire.