Does it really use less land? Where does the grain come from and what is the cost of keeping that acre in grain production?
UK Feed lots ?
- Thread starter Clive
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ollie989898
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North America yeah? Land in production of various grains= sh1t loads. yields ranging from impressive to barely worth putting a combine over. So much grain they can't possibly eat it themselves or export it all, answer? Feed it to beef and make it into a far more attractive product. $$$$'s.
Some seriously big players in the beef game globally.
Yes. Lots of grain here ends up graded a feed. Not enough third world countries with money to buy it all. Especially the feed barley that doesn't make it for malt. Any acres used for feed grain is generally going to be used for crop no matter what, just a variety of factors have lead to it being feed grade instead.
And if you were to translate the feed they require as grain into forages instead, then the acres required to produce the same amount of energy, gain and animals skyrocket.
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Check out Rhys Williams on Twitter. He's grass rearing replacement heifers on grazed grass in NW Wales. He's producing some seriously impressive figures for kg/ha/year.
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Not convinced by that. US grain yields (especially on the poorer land you are talking about) are less than 4t per ha (harvested). I don't know what that equates to in dry matter, but I'm guessing it's less.
Properly managed grass grazing paddocks can yield up to 14t per ha per annum.
I could well be wrong though, but the above suggests to me that grazed forage is a more land efficient way of feeding ruminants. Am I right in thinking not all kgs of dry matter are created equally? eg 1kg DM of grain is more calorific that 1kg DM of grass?
I know very little of cattle, especially finishing, so I could be talking bullocks...
NZDan
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- Location
- Broomfield, New Zealand
270kg - 320kg Cwt
Wintered on fodder beet and spring/summer on grass.
I think you might be crossing your areas there.
Yes yields in the US can be at 4t per ha but I doubt many areas manage 14t of grass. That sounds like a UK yield.
You're right in that not all dry matter is equal. While ruminants require a certain percentage of long stem forage for their digestive systems to function properly, they do get more bang for the buck from grain. An example of a substitution that should provide similar protein and energy amounts is 11 lbs of grass hay vs 6.6 lbs of barley.
As a general idea of what can be expected yield wise here though, here's some provincial averages from last year (2015). I'll note that last year was a drought in many areas of the province so yields are low on many things but even then you'll notice that forage yields rarely supersede grain yields by much - the exceptions being green feed and silage. However farmers don't grow large quantities of green feed and silage to sell. And this is not an area that can supply much more than second cut hay most years and there is no second cut silage.
Spring Wheat - 1.3 mt/acre
Barley - 1.5 mt/acre
Silage - 4.39 mt/acre
Greenfeed - 2.17 mt/acre
Not Irrigated 1st cut Hay - 0.8 mt/acre (I don't think anyone really got a second cut last year which will explain why I can't find numbers for that!)
Ruminants are by far one of the best ways to efficiently utilize forages. Especially areas inaccessible or unsuitable for cropland. This is what they do in the summer here out on pasture although it doesn't work for winter. However any land suitable for crop is pretty much used for crop, that's where the money is generally. So the growing season comes and goes and you end up with yields similar to those above, now it's time to feed the animals for winter. Cost wise you'd be looking at this (I'll use 2015 prices since I used those yields)
Feed Wheat - $214.92 / tonne
Feed Barley - $201.17 / tonne
Silage @60% mst - $66 / tonne
Greenfeed - $163.14 / tonne
1st cut grass hay - $242.51 / tonne
Straw - $74.95 / tonne (I included this as it's generally the long stemmed fibre used in high grain diets)
Now considering, especially from a feedlot point of view with thousands of animals, that you get better ADG off higher grain diets, have to use less per animal, there's less potential for waste AND it's generally cheaper per tonne - especially when considering the first two factors in tandem - you've got the base for a popular grain diet.
Does this mean less land is used for the cattle though? Well since yields are generally higher per acre for the grains than forages and the cattle finish quicker on high grain diets, yes. Silage is a cheap forage option however it doesn't produce enough per acre to make up for how much needs to be consumed to equal the gain and length to finish of a grain diet. Also, because it's cheap, farmers don't grow it to sell it, no profit. And the feed grains are all just excess byproducts of the arable guys.
At one point I thought I had a little brochure that gave amounts of grain consumed to finish vs forage however I can only find vague ones that say "Less feed is consumed over a shorter period of time on grain" which tells nothing. I'll have to see if I can find it. I take all brochures here with a grain of salt as a lot of it is grain finishing, feedlot propaganda but it's a good numerical base LOL
Now as these numbers are all prairie yields, if one was to switch them out for UK yields and costs it could easily be a whole different game there. It may be cheaper and more economical to finish on higher forage diets there. The added length of time might not be such an inhibiting factor when you can get 3 or 4 or more cuts of forages off. Especially as finishing populations there seem to be more bubbles of smaller groups of animals instead of the less bubbles of many, many animals here. It would take a great shift in land use mentality here to be able to pull off forage based finishing even close to the numbers put out by feedlots.
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- Bedfordshire
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Sorry I can't seem to find anything
He did a Nuffield scholarship report "Wealth Creation Through Dairy Farming". He is also mentioned in Michael Blanche's report "The Farming Ladder".
ollie989898
Member
The rainfall in the US is not reliable enough to grow massive quantities of forage as we are used to in the UK or NZ or Europe, some areas yes do get enough rain to grow forages as we would, others use irrigation which is questionable if you begin using it to grow forages to be honest.
A lot of Irish producers in particular can get 14-15 tonne/acre in grass for first cut. I have one or two guys who can get it quite regularly here. But in the US, with different species of grass altogether and some very peculiar soil and geology about, it's a different game.
The Americans in both hemispheres are very good at producing a LOT of grains by virtue of the area they farm.
The world simply does not have equal demand for shedloads of carbohydrates in load grade form. As such, a lot of it is fed to a pig or cow, or into bioethanol.
A lot of Irish producers in particular can get 14-15 tonne/acre in grass for first cut. I have one or two guys who can get it quite regularly here. But in the US, with different species of grass altogether and some very peculiar soil and geology about, it's a different game.
The Americans in both hemispheres are very good at producing a LOT of grains by virtue of the area they farm.
The world simply does not have equal demand for shedloads of carbohydrates in load grade form. As such, a lot of it is fed to a pig or cow, or into bioethanol.
multi power
Member
- Location
- pembrokeshire
They are not what you would call finished, they just hang them up when grass runs out, just mince the whole carcass
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Sounds like the best use of B&W bulls to me. Even at £1/kg LW if one can produce 1,000kgs of live weight per ha per annum it looks pretty profitable.
The problem would be finding suitable fields (no public access) and a processor open minded enough to take them.
Just had a quick Google. Major supermarkets selling beef mince at £6-£8 per kg. Assuming a kill out of 50%, then a mark up of 300-400% should be enough to split between processor and retailer.
multi power
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- pembrokeshire
It's all about best use of feed, weight or grade doesn't matter
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As long as that translates into profit, agreed!
Market yourself. A dairy I know here can't keep up with demand for lean ground beef. When he's got orders he'll take a cull in and just get her as all ground beef. Can't remember what he charges but after he's done it for years he's got such a big customer base even in his small town that he doesn't take many culls to the auction anymore.
Imagine if he actually put effort into marketing it he'd have more demand than he has cows at his small dairy.
He doesn't do it with his bull calves afaik, those are all sold as calves. Think it's more a workload and set up thing than capability.
Imagine if he actually put effort into marketing it he'd have more demand than he has cows at his small dairy.
He doesn't do it with his bull calves afaik, those are all sold as calves. Think it's more a workload and set up thing than capability.
NZDan
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- Location
- Broomfield, New Zealand
Almost but not quite, price changes at 270kg cwt up to 445kg cwt get animals to the cut off weight is critical. The meat which is almost devoid of fat is minced it is used exclusively for hamburger patties.
How do you go on doing muck for straw if the farmer has straw from other places and he ends up bringing you black grass in something we have allways bin worried about doing
I worked in a Canadian feedlot 25 years ago for a season ,
Cattle were grazed over summer , and into feedlots for winter , fed whole crop silage with added grain via feed wagon , not adlib , each beast came to trough to eat , each pen of maybe 300 had a handling system to split out and treat , it was amazing how easy a sick one could be split , but outside there wasn't many to split
The secret there is the frost , dries up the muck and bedded , 50 percent of pen twice a week to maintain a dry area to lie on , once they had eaten they were lying happy for rest of day
Worst time was in spring when frost was lifting and late cattle weren't away , used a lot more straw
Never tasted steak like it ,
Cattle were grazed over summer , and into feedlots for winter , fed whole crop silage with added grain via feed wagon , not adlib , each beast came to trough to eat , each pen of maybe 300 had a handling system to split out and treat , it was amazing how easy a sick one could be split , but outside there wasn't many to split
The secret there is the frost , dries up the muck and bedded , 50 percent of pen twice a week to maintain a dry area to lie on , once they had eaten they were lying happy for rest of day
Worst time was in spring when frost was lifting and late cattle weren't away , used a lot more straw
Never tasted steak like it ,