Beef industry efficiency

I would not be against selling mine as suckled calves, but sheep numbers always struggle to creep calves and will lose out a touch against calves that will be fitter larger, and in my opinion the most important bit of bloom and sparkle grub puts into a beast, so spring calves are weaned, wintered on silage that quality varies year to year and Trafford gold, so not costing a great deal, then I think where I maybe score over lots is, a, I do spend and look after my pastures, so summer months are beneficial to cattle, not just easy and cheap as you chuck your cattle about and leave them for 5 months and think its cheap despite them not gaining as they could, b, mine and this year will be earlier get a handful of grub, still plenty of grass, but when it comes to selling stores, our biggest buyers are big big finishers, that bit of top means a return in 4/5 months, sell a beast same frame but that bit less condition gets hammered, handful of grub on yearlings sold in august on average costs 40 odd quid, I hope my premiums more than cover that, and beneficial to the next man
 

Henarar

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Somerset
If you want to see some very poorly farmed cattle then take a trip to sedge one sat as some they get in are an utter disgrace as @Henarar can confirm.

There were some Lim stores on sat in the store ring that came from a dairy farm, these cattle were basically skin and bone and must have been living on thin air!
quite right, it must be an art to do them so badly
 

Cowgirl

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Ayrshire
Interesting averages - it makes me feel a bit better about what our steers achieve during their lives, (which works out at about 0.7 - 0.8 kg /day), since they are rare breed cattle and totally grass fed. We are still not very experienced but they seem to take until about 27 - 28 months to be ready but not too fat. We are definitely not starving them, preferring for them to grow steadily, but of course others would not be satisfied with this. Really poor doing cattle, which there must be for this to be an average, presumably are more likely to be suffering from chronic infectious or parasitic diseases, and controlling these is where the potential for improvement lies.
 
I take the woodheads averages with a pinch of salt. They don't allow for a carcase weight at birth ie. 24kg so are immediately skewed to start with.
 

Henarar

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Somerset
Interesting averages - it makes me feel a bit better about what our steers achieve during their lives, (which works out at about 0.7 - 0.8 kg /day), since they are rare breed cattle and totally grass fed. We are still not very experienced but they seem to take until about 27 - 28 months to be ready but not too fat. We are definitely not starving them, preferring for them to grow steadily, but of course others would not be satisfied with this
I would be and its about when we send our blue cross animals to have back for the freezer,
they would probably do a bit more per day and end up heavier ?
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

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  • 100% I’ve had enough of farming!

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Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

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As reported in Independent


quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
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