Ways you could improve your beef and sheep farm

Every farm will have different things to improve that make the biggest difference to the farm business but here is a list of suggested ways (in no particular order) to improve, or questions to challenge a beef and sheep farm.

1. Deal early with succession planning, Ensure you have a will and a lasting power of attorney in place and, where necessary, use an external facilitator so that all family members feel heard and respected. 
2. Could you cope with being shut down with Bovine tuberculosis (bTB)? What changes would you need to make to your system if you were under restriction and could you afford to make these changes? Do you have enough housing for all the stock on your farm if you couldn’t sell any? Draw up a contingency plan.
3. Have good financial discipline stemming from accurate costings, robust budgeting, and financial monitoring. Forward projections should be based on past performance and an understanding of the market, combined with setting realistic goals and implementing plans to achieve them.

• Regularly weigh cattle to monitor performance and health. This can aid in knowing which breeding animals are performing well and which to cull. It can also indicate when animals are ready for sale/slaughter. If cattle aren’t putting weight on, is there a health reason for this?
• Are you too lenient with late calvers from block-calving units? A tighter calving block reduces labour input, increases ease of management, with calves being the same age for vaccination and treatment, and aids sale, with a consistent run of cattle of a similar size and weight
• If finishing cattle you have bred, cost the suckler herd and finishing herd separately and show internal transfers. Do they both make money? If not, change your system
• Aim to calve at 24 months. Any reductions in age at calving can have a significant impact on emissions footprint and increase in herd efficiency. Reducing age at calving has also been shown to increase cows’ longevity
• Consider if an integrated beef scheme could work for you. Guaranteed sale prices when animals arrive on farm can give security and ease management decisions. Visit farmers who are already participating in one. Discuss what challenges they find within the scheme
• Intake of fresh clean water positively correlates to feed intake and is essential to productivity. Growing and finishing cattle consume between 15–75 L of water each day, so a good supply is needed to meet demand at peak times. Minimise feed contamination into water tanks
• The transition from grazing-based diets to silage-based diets should happen gradually to give the rumen time to adjust. Without this, cattle are at a greater risk of having acidosis, stomach ulcers and liver abscesses
• Weaning calves should be creep-fed for 3–6 weeks before housing to help develop their rumen and avoid any dips in intakes at a time when they need it most

• Could your system finish lambs early and hit the higher-priced lamb market? What would be the additional costs on your farm system? Do you have enough early spring grass to lamb earlier? Can creep feeding lambs to increase their DLWG prove profitable to catch higher lamb prices? Have you done the sums?
• Do you have the right number of rams for your system? Ewes that have run with a teaser or that have been implanted with CIDRs/sponges will require a higher ram to ewe ratio than those that are turned straight to the ram
• Ensure ewes are in the correct body condition for tupping. Body condition score ewes pre-tupping and consider feeding concentrates to thinner ewes if needed to increase body condition. Plan their grazing platform to move onto a fresh platform two weeks prior to tupping for flushing
• If feeding lamb concentrates, consider what age they are fed. Feeding a greater volume of feed to young lambs should increase gain from feed compared with heavy feeding at an older stage as their feed conversion rate will reduce with age
• Challenge yourself to improve lamb weaning percentage. Identify where most losses occur and aim to make changes to reduce these. Is there a need to look at vaccination protocol or husbandry practices at lambing?
• Identify problem ewes at lambing. Ewes that prolapse, refuse to take their lambs or have problems with mastitis are costing you time and money. Ensure these are not bred from again. EID systems can make for easy recording

• Minimise nose-to-nose contact and contamination from neighbouring fences where possible. Consider a grazing rotation that avoids neighbouring livestock being over the fence at the same time; use these as cropping fields if needed or add an electric fence 3 m from the boundary
• Visit other farms to see how their systems may differ from yours and if some of their practices might work on your farm. Having a different perspective might give you some useful tips to go away with, or make you happier with what you have at home
• If you share equipment/machinery with other livestock farmers, disinfect equipment before it leaves your farm and on its return. Ensure it leaves your farm clean and comes back to your farm clean to reduce disease transfer risk
• When buying rams or bulls, consider looking at estimated breeding values as well as what the animal looks like. EBVs can be a useful tool to show traits such as calving ease, eye muscle, weight gain and litter size
• Take note when buying stock of where they’ve come from. If these animals perform well, then call the sellers when you’re ready to buy again and consider giving a little more for animals that you know thrive in your system
• When feeding any animal, hygiene is key, but it is especially important with younger animals as they are developing their immunity. Ensure feeding equipment for calves and lambs is cleaned and sterilised properly after every use

• Increase the area of herbal lays. Herbal lays are noted for being a natural anthelmintic (wormer). Adding more herbal leys in to a rotation alongside rotational grazing could significantly improve the worm burden on farm, and there’s further support for them in England too now
• Consider use of rotational grazing to maximise grass growth, as well as increasing grass quality and lowering wastage. Improvements of 1–2 tonnes DM/ha are achievable. There are added benefits of giving grassland a rest period, such as reducing worm burden by regular rotation
• Consider increasing reseeding; this should increase grass productivity and quality, aiding in reducing purchased feed and fertiliser. An increase in yield of 1 tonne of dry matter grown per hectare is achievable on most farms with this approach. Aim to reseed at least 10% each year
• Consider outwintering if your soil types suit and growing winter forage crops – they are a low-cost source of feed and can work well on free-draining land. It can be a much cheaper system than investing in infrastructure and these fields can then join in the reseeding rotation

Look after your workers. Provide staff with good welfare facilities above the basic requirements, such as a kettle, microwave, toaster, shower, etc. Aim to develop your staff, funding courses if possible. A happy staff member is a more productive staff member.

• Use of EID tags and compatible monitoring systems can reduce labour and increase accuracy and efficiency of recording when weighing livestock and adding in management notes about specific animals
• Monitor lamb and prime cattle condition in order to meet the correct fat coverage at sale. Lean or overfat animals will likely result in a reduced price. Most abattoirs have fieldsmen that can come out and aid in selection – this can help from time to time to keep your eye in
• Use a plate meter to monitor grass growth. Measuring grass can identify if you have enough grass in your grazing platform to meet your animals’ requirements and can you shut some more fields for silage. It can also identify which fields should be reseeded
• Analyse soil (including pH levels) and organic manure – ensure efficient use of organic and inorganic fertiliser. Apply nitrogen at optimum rate and timing for crops, maintain clover content of swards, consider covering slurry stores and injecting slurry
• Clearly identify animals that are being treated or have been treated with medication so that all staff know which animals are undergoing treatment. This is highly important when it comes close to animals being slaughtered so that none are sold within a withdrawal period
• Forage analysis is an important insight into energy and protein values of home-produced forage. This can indicate if there is adequate feed value in silage or if cattle require additional supplementation, depending on what is expected of the animal – is it a maintenance or a growing diet?

• Plan your maintenance jobs. If housing facilities require attention, do this well in advance of animals being housed so that when the time comes, animals can be housed at short notice. Maintain livestock fencing prior to turning out. Chasing escaped animals costs time and causes frustration
• Invest in good, safe handling facilities. This will minimise stress on animals, as well as creating a safe environment for all involved to work in. If looking to update handling, keep an eye out for possible grants that can fund 40% towards fixed or mobile handling facilities
• Do not underestimate the importance of ventilation. Good airflow in housing is key to animals’ health and to reduce problems like pneumonia. Smoke-bomb sheds to analyse airflow. Consider which way the weather comes and if you could open the shed up
• It’s important to keep the feed space and feed offered clean and well in reach for the cattle; a smooth floor material will make consumption easier. An easily accessible feed space will reduce the labour needed to push feed and remove waste feed
• Make best use of the shed space you have. In a number of beef and sheep systems, costly infrastructure, such as sheds, is only utilised for the winter months. Consider what other uses you could have for the building outside of these times to increase revenue
• Have adequate slurry storage to last the winter so that slurry can be used at the optimal time. Targeting application after a silage cut can make much more efficient use of slurry rather than taking it out to the driest field in the winter because the store is full

• Consider the size of livestock trailer you need. Would hiring a lorry be better? Moving stock in a larger group can be less stressful on the animals and more efficient. Hiring a lorry to take one load of stock that might otherwise take you four loads could save you time and money
• Look after your machinery. This can be as simple as using a power washer on equipment when it is put away. Manure can degrade metalwork, ultimately decreasing its lifespan. Blow out air filters; change engine filters in line with recommendations; use the grease gun when required