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Reducing the cost of finishing continental dairy-bred steers
Friday, 11 October 2019
Feed typically represents 75% of variable cost of finishing beef cattle and with forages being cheaper than cereals there is an opportunity to reduce this cost.
If farm resources are available to make, store and handle forage, the replacement of 75% of cereals with well-made good quality high energy (25+% starch, 10.5+ ME) whole crop should be considered.
Harper Adams and AHDB are researching the effect of replacing cereals with fermented whole crop wheat (WCW) a high energy forage on continental dairy-bred steers reared through to slaughter at 16‒17 months old.
The study looked at four diets, formulated to supply similar quantities of protein:
- Cereals, ad-lib (Cereals)
- Cereals 75%, whole crop wheat 25% (WCW25)
- Cereals 50%, whole crop wheat 50% (WCW50)
- Cereals 25%, whole crop wheat 75% (WCW75)
Diet costs were lowest for the WCW75 treatment, similar for the both cereals and WCW50, and the highest was the WCW25 treatment.
Animal performance on each diet
|
Animal performance (kg) |
Cereals |
WCW25 |
WCW50 |
WCW75 |
|
Start weight |
405.5 |
405.8 |
405.0 |
405.7 |
|
Slaughter weight |
641.0 |
639.8 |
632.5 |
640.4 |
|
Days to slaughter |
152 |
153 |
157 |
166 |
|
DLWG |
1.59 |
1.53 |
1.45 |
1.42 |
|
Age at slaughter (days) |
499 |
500 |
505 |
517 |
Financial results
|
|
Cereals |
WCW25 |
WCW50 |
WCW75 |
|
Carcase price (£/kg) |
3.39 |
3.42 |
3.39 |
3.35 |
|
Carcase value (£) |
1,187 |
1,185 |
1,152 |
1,149 |
|
Total feed cost per head (£) |
306 |
352 |
320 |
284 |
|
Daily feed cost (£/head) |
2.03 |
2.30 |
2.04 |
1.70 |
|
Feed cost/kg live weight gain (£/kg) |
1.30 |
1.51 |
1.41 |
1.20 |
|
Feed cost/kg carcase gain (£/kg) |
1.91 |
2.25 |
2.13 |
1.85 |
|
Margin over Feed (£/steer) |
234 |
181 |
188 |
226 |
|
Margin (£/kg carcase gain) |
1.47 |
1.17 |
1.26 |
1.50 |
Margin (£/kg carcase gain) were similar for the Cereals and WCW75 but lower for the WCW25 and WCW50 diets. Therefore farmers should finish cattle on either ad-lib cereal systems or consider replacing a significant proportion of cereals, i.e. 75% with a high energy forage.
The second year of this project will evaluate different proportions of whole crop and red clover silage with diets based on 25% cereal and 75% forage. The inclusion of red clover in the rations should eliminate the requirement to purchase supplementary protein with the diet being potentially all home grown feed apart from minerals.
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