At our Beef Discussion group meeting in November, we spent some time discussing the feeding of beef cattle and the importance of knowing what you are trying to achieve during the feeding period.  Do you weigh your cattle when they come onto the farm and then calculate what the average daily live weight gain (DLWG) needs to be, in order to achieve the target end weight when the animal leaves the farm, either to slaughter or to a finishing unit?  If you don’t you should be, otherwise how do you know if the animal is on target to achieve the target weight and whether your feeding system needs to be altered to achieve that end weight?

We also looked at how food conversion ratios alter over the growth of an animal based on its age, the table below from the AHBD Beef – Better Returns Programme, shows clearly that once animals get to 24 months of age the quantity of dry matter required to gain an extra 1 kg DLWG is massive and probably beyond the animal’s normal dry matter intake, i.e. 2-3% of body weight.

The group concluded that the key to feeding beef cattle and gaining the desired performance was quality forage, the higher the ME of the silage the lower the concentrate requirement.  The same report by the AHDB indicates that an extra 4 kgs of concentrate is required to provide the same energy levels in a diet if the silage is only 9.5 MJ ME/KgDM compared to 11.5 MJ ME/KgDM, with a cost of an extra 40 pence per day per head.  How does your silage compare?

If you would like to discuss this further or would be interested in joining the Beef Discussion Group, then please contact Phil Cooper at pcooper@fcgagric.com or your local FCG office.