Rearing and finishing beef cattle-TB

[stablegirl]

We have sadly had a TB breakdown, we don't know where its come from and obviously don't know how long it will be here, but i don't want to focus on that, its about dealing with it.

We usually sell the majority of our beef calves, which will be 60% Dairy bulls, 20% Blues and 20% Angus.

The others we keep as stores in a kind of ad hoc fashion depending on when i had time to go to the auction etc.

Now we are going to have to rear them ourselves and finish them, we will have space to do it, although it isnt endless so the faster they are finished the better, and we have plenty of forage, but we will have to do it more professionally becasue of the numbers. Previously we just reared them like heifers on straw and 3-4kg of cake (Expesive but its how i like my heifers), but now we are going to have to make it pay(as much as possible).

Do you just rear beef cattle to grow like a heifer (800-1000g a day) until the finishing period then push them and get them away?

How early would you introduce silage? I still have time to make big bales? How long is the finishing period?

How old should i be aiming to get each breed away?

Basically what would you do?

 

[I thats it]

We have sadly had a TB breakdown, we don't know where its come from and obviously don't know how long it will be here, but i don't want to focus on that, its about dealing with it.

We usually sell the majority of our beef calves, which will be 60% Dairy bulls, 20% Blues and 20% Angus.

The others we keep as stores in a kind of ad hoc fashion depending on when i had time to go to the auction etc.

Now we are going to have to rear them ourselves and finish them, we will have space to do it, although it isnt endless so the faster they are finished the better, and we have plenty of forage, but we will have to do it more professionally becasue of the numbers. Previously we just reared them like heifers on straw and 3-4kg of cake (Expesive but its how i like my heifers), but now we are going to have to make it pay(as much as possible).

Do you just rear beef cattle to grow like a heifer (800-1000g a day) until the finishing period then push them and get them away?

How early would you introduce silage? I still have time to make big bales? How long is the finishing period?

How old should i be aiming to get each breed away?

Basically what would you do?

Sorry to hear. Its good your being positive. We had a similar situation 10 years back and we're tied up for 3 years. We intensive finished the bulls ad-lib, but we hit a falling beef trade and got back little more than the cost of the hard feed and straw. Hiefers we grew on as stores till 2years then just an 8week intensive finish at the end, that was much better job
Also as soon as we were clear we off loaded the hiefers store but the bulls half way through the system had to be finished

 

[HarryB97]

I would introduce silage as soon as they are weaned alongside cake. On good dairy quality silage you should easily average 1-1.2kg of weight gain a day with just a few kilos of cake. On this alone angus heifers will finish and steers will just need a bit more energy. I would sell the heifers around 600kg live weight and the steers 650-700kg live weight. If the angus are named sires and the blues are smart I would rear them to around 14 months old and 500kg and sell them to an AFU you will get a good price without the cost and hassle of finishing. I no people who will buy fresians but because they are your own calves I would finish them as the store price is normally 50p + a kg lower than an Angus which will leave you with a much bigger margin despite the odd P grade. You can also take fresians up to 800 kg with out worrying about them getting over fat, they will need more feeding than an Angus though.

 

[dinderleat]

Use sexed semen so with the hope of not to have hf bulls you will loose money rearing them with the current prices.
I would speak to your nutritionist to come up with the cheapest live weight gain ration you can make utilizing your home grown-forage.

 

[stablegirl]

Thank you for the advice, we want to graze then add much as possible too, which I assume is fine pre finishing period.

What is in a typical finishing ration?

What is the typical weights and finishing ages for each breed and sex?

 

[More to life]

Thank you for the advice, we want to graze then add much as possible too, which I assume is fine pre finishing period.

What is in a typical finishing ration?

What is the typical weights and finishing ages for each breed and sex?

Holsteins are currently hopeless but I graze and out winter mine hang them up 21-24 months 315-350 dead . I finish them on good silage and whatever is cheapest there feed hard for about 90 days.

 

[More to life]

In fact I treat all breeds the same.

 

[sidjon]

We've basically been down with Tb since 91, and have tried I think almost every once, depends on shed space but rose veal was the quickest turn around for bw bulls (didn't make a lot of profit, but cattle were at a low risk from tb as fully housed), but now use sexed and blues.

 

[Beef farmer]

@stablegirl how bad was the break down? 1 cow or fully blown?

 

[stablegirl]

2 reactors and 3 ir.

 

[som farmer]

first 3 reactors here Friday, having had no tb issues before, we are thinking about what to do with dairy bulls, luckily we are pretty well all spring calving, just an odd few through the winter, which are I/c to Hereford, so easy to keep them. But, we are just hoping we can get our clear tests before then !
but the dairy bull calves out of the xbred cows, that's a different thing, last year most went to our contractor who wanted them, but he's just sold some for a serious loss, our milk buyer is looking like saying we can't shoot them, (which I don't like doing) so what do we do with them ? next year sexed semen. We use Herefords to sweep, which we like, but do get a fair few red ones, which again are lower value, we are tightly stocked, so it will have to be a housed system, so I will follow this thread with interest !