Which breed/cross for grass only fed beef?

[Man_in_black]

Why would anyone purposely breed something which had trouble giving birth?

For rosette with pretty red ribbon??

 

[Woolless]

For rosette with pretty red ribbon??

To impress their mates with its big arse?

 

[JP1]

View attachment 759074 View attachment 759076
Went to see how to do it properly, today.
1800 acres, they graze 1300 dairy cattle and 500 angus cow/calf pairs, 140 angus heifers.
40-50 year old pasture, ex sheep farm, really quite impressive.
No tractor, but he does have a Cessna 185 for spraying a fishfert/fine lime solution

Almost my dream farm

 

[Man_in_black]

To impress their mates with its big arse?

Mind you, it worked for my missus!!

 

[Chasingmytail]

Angus x shorthorn are about the worst two breeds you could have!

Why is that? Because we have no issues and calving is excellent. This cross came from one of the top commercial breeders from Scotland so Id be interested in your views.
The main issues are slow to finish on grass fed so if you are thinking of low input grass fed then you have to have excellent grass and good systems set up. So before going down this route you need to ensure you know the quality of each field so a small investment in having full soil/grass analysis is vital.

 

[Agrivator]

Can anyone explain why it is sensible to dismiss the use of concentrates as supplements to improve, where necessary, the efficient usage of conserved or grazed grass.
Who would run a car without oil?

And just out of interest: the Limousin was bred in difficult upland conditions. The Aberdeen Angus was bred under housing and feeding condition which were probably better than those experienced by the 'farm servants' who looked after them.

 

[unlacedgecko]

Can anyone explain why it is sensible to dismiss the use of concentrates as supplements to improve, where necessary, the efficient usage of conserved or grazed grass.
Who would run a car without oil?

And just out of interest: the Limousin was bred in difficult upland conditions. The Aberdeen Angus was bred under housing and feeding condition which were probably better than those experienced by the 'farm servants' who looked after them.

They cost money. I'd rather than money was in my pocket than the concentrates company.

It would appear that often those high cake bills don't translate to high profits.

Strategic concentrates use when forage is unexpectedly short is to be applauded. Habitual use avoided. In my view.

 

[JP1]

Can anyone explain why it is sensible to dismiss the use of concentrates as supplements to improve, where necessary, the efficient usage of conserved or grazed grass.
Who would run a car without oil?

And just out of interest: the Limousin was bred in difficult upland conditions. The Aberdeen Angus was bred under housing and feeding condition which were probably better than those experienced by the 'farm servants' who looked after them.

Salers, Gascon, Aubrac,Limousin. All hill breeds in France. The Limmies as they've developed over have changed a bit haven't they?

 

[Weasel]

Can anyone explain why it is sensible to dismiss the use of concentrates as supplements to improve, where necessary, the efficient usage of conserved or grazed grass.
Who would run a car without oil?

And just out of interest: the Limousin was bred in difficult upland conditions. The Aberdeen Angus was bred under housing and feeding condition which were probably better than those experienced by the 'farm servants' who looked after them.

This boy talks sense!

 

[Aspiring Peasant]

If you cost in the value of the land or it's rental value then I don't see grass as a cheap feed.

 

[Agrispeed]

They cost money. I'd rather than money was in my pocket than the concentrates company.

It would appear that often those high cake bills don't translate to high profits.

Strategic concentrates use when forage is unexpectedly short is to be applauded. Habitual use avoided. In my view.

I used to finish AAx in less than 24 months off grass. I also had (and still have a few) belties, which were amazing at growing from seemingly fresh air, and I could sell them to a local butcher for £800+.

Grass is less than half the cost of silage, which is less than half the cost (at least!) of concentrates.

 

[Kiwi Pete]

I used to finish AAx in less than 24 months off grass. I also had (and still have a few) belties, which were amazing at growing from seemingly fresh air, and I could sell them to a local butcher for £800+.

Grass is less than half the cost of silage, which is less than half the cost (at least!) of concentrates.

Grass, when it's simply something that grows, only costs what you rent it for... some like to make it expensive, but that's their own choice.
It's a bit different if you can't manage it, so that it needs replaced every 7 years, but that isn't the grass costing - the management (or lack of) is the real cost, not the grass.
Same with fertiliser, conserving feed, recreational topping, and all the other things that people like to do - this is what good cattle are for.

Using the wrong tools, or using the right tools the wrong way, is a huge cost, IMHO.

 

[Daniel Larn]

Grass, when it's simply something that grows, only costs what you rent it for... some like to make it expensive, but that's their own choice.
It's a bit different if you can't manage it, so that it needs replaced every 7 years, but that isn't the grass costing - the management (or lack of) is the real cost, not the grass.
Same with fertiliser, conserving feed, recreational topping, and all the other things that people like to do - this is what good cattle are for.

Using the wrong tools, or using the right tools the wrong way, is a huge cost, IMHO.

Agreed, but I'd say a little bit of the right management goes a VERY long way.

Permanent pasture with a good clover filled ley is fantastic, but to keep it fighting fit you really need to keep an eye on the grazing and move the animals around often.

In response to the OP, you cant beat a good Angus imho. Even if it's just for the marketing hype. We moved to selling direct last year and it's been the best thing we've ever done.

 

[Kiwi Pete]

Agreed, but I'd say a little bit of the right management goes a VERY long way.

Permanent pasture with a good clover filled ley is fantastic, but to keep it fighting fit you really need to keep an eye on the grazing and move the animals around often.

In response to the OP, you cant beat a good Angus imho. Even if it's just for the marketing hype. We moved to selling direct last year and it's been the best thing we've ever done.

Yep, the decision when the animal meets the pasture has to be the 'man's' decision - so many people leave it to the animals to decide, then wonder why it goes wrong

About the only thing most farmers actually need more of, is electric wires in the way of their machinery - so it becomes too impractical to use it!!

But, what the eff would I know

I'm with you on the type of cattle, especially in time-controlled grazing situations, they are little tanks if bred right. Any beast that can lose over 100kg and keep on truckin will do the job, provided they can put on over 100kg pretty smartly as well.

 

[egbert]

Grass, when it's simply something that grows, only costs what you rent it for... some like to make it expensive, but that's their own choice.
It's a bit different if you can't manage it, so that it needs replaced every 7 years, but that isn't the grass costing - the management (or lack of) is the real cost, not the grass.
Same with fertiliser, conserving feed, recreational topping, and all the other things that people like to do - this is what good cattle are for.

Using the wrong tools, or using the right tools the wrong way, is a huge cost, IMHO.

I'm right with you, although it's site dependant, and far more complex than that when you drill into the maths.

Rotational/paddock systems have a labour cost to apply.
Keeping up trad boundaries here is a huge expense if you want to use all the historic field systems.
I don't, and leave herds of cattle to roam at will, excluding them from mowable ground seasonally to provide fodder for a lengthy winter period when they wouldn't enjoy living off what they could pick.
i'm all for minimising the winter feeding period, and house as little as I can.
However, like the dry stone walls, the labour cost has to be balanced against the politics and expectations around me.

I have run the numbers for a while, but to keep cattle on what I've got with no winter fodder, I'd be likely to have to cut numbers by 50% or more. and when we do get a weeks snow, or a months snow....what happens to them then?
I do run a few unfed on good ground, at very low stocking rates, to watch the maths.

As for concentrate/corn usage.
It's numbers again. and the cost of the cake is only part of the bill. the labour fetching it and carrying it out is something I watch.
Housed stock, where the dumpy bag sits in the feed passage...that's workable.
the building and associated expenses are already there.
But burning road tax fuel in a quad carting it out.....?

mind, the nutrient value of the extra poop probably has a value.

 

[Woolless]

I'm right with you, although it's site dependant, and far more complex than that when you drill into the maths.

Rotational/paddock systems have a labour cost to apply.
Keeping up trad boundaries here is a huge expense if you want to use all the historic field systems.
I don't, and leave herds of cattle to roam at will, excluding them from mowable ground seasonally to provide fodder for a lengthy winter period when they wouldn't enjoy living off what they could pick.
i'm all for minimising the winter feeding period, and house as little as I can.
However, like the dry stone walls, the labour cost has to be balanced against the politics and expectations around me.

I have run the numbers for a while, but to keep cattle on what I've got with no winter fodder, I'd be likely to have to cut numbers by 50% or more. and when we do get a weeks snow, or a months snow....what happens to them then?
I do run a few unfed on good ground, at very low stocking rates, to watch the maths.

As for concentrate/corn usage.
It's numbers again. and the cost of the cake is only part of the bill. the labour fetching it and carrying it out is something I watch.
Housed stock, where the dumpy bag sits in the feed passage...that's workable.
the building and associated expenses are already there.
But burning road tax fuel in a quad carting it out.....?

mind, the nutrient value of the extra poop probably has a value.

It would be the similar here, in that it would require a large drop in stocking rate so that the stock could be carried without conserved feed over the winter. Aftermath is valuable as well for growing lambs. However, that's not to say that there are not lessons to be learnt and efficiencies to be gained by applying some of these techniques.

 

[Kiwi Pete]

I'm right with you, although it's site dependant, and far more complex than that when you drill into the maths.

Rotational/paddock systems have a labour cost to apply.
Keeping up trad boundaries here is a huge expense if you want to use all the historic field systems.
I don't, and leave herds of cattle to roam at will, excluding them from mowable ground seasonally to provide fodder for a lengthy winter period when they wouldn't enjoy living off what they could pick.
i'm all for minimising the winter feeding period, and house as little as I can.
However, like the dry stone walls, the labour cost has to be balanced against the politics and expectations around me.

I have run the numbers for a while, but to keep cattle on what I've got with no winter fodder, I'd be likely to have to cut numbers by 50% or more. and when we do get a weeks snow, or a months snow....what happens to them then?
I do run a few unfed on good ground, at very low stocking rates, to watch the maths.

As for concentrate/corn usage.
It's numbers again. and the cost of the cake is only part of the bill. the labour fetching it and carrying it out is something I watch.
Housed stock, where the dumpy bag sits in the feed passage...that's workable.
the building and associated expenses are already there.
But burning road tax fuel in a quad carting it out.....?

mind, the nutrient value of the extra poop probably has a value.

What sort of stocking rates can you currently run?
Yes, quite a complex task to actually run the numbers, the thing as I see it is that I am quite comfortable with reducing my stocking to align with whatever gives me the best profitability - likewise I have existing housing here for up to 120 cattle.

The possibility here is to make best use of both, obviously the cell grazing best suits a zero-machinery type of operation, so in time it may be more feasible to buy standing grass in than cut silage here .

It's really all down to profitability, if I cut my stocking rate 50% but cut my variable costs 95% then I am better off. With 3 tons of silage and a shed and a farm full of cells, I can actually see my overall output climbing rather than reduction being necessary; this is going from a rotational to a rational grazing system, with about 12 sheep equivalents per hectare being our current stocking rate, zero input.

 

[egbert]

What sort of stocking rates can you currently run?
Yes, quite a complex task to actually run the numbers, the thing as I see it is that I am quite comfortable with reducing my stocking to align with whatever gives me the best profitability - likewise I have existing housing here for up to 120 cattle.

The possibility here is to make best use of both, obviously the cell grazing best suits a zero-machinery type of operation, so in time it may be more feasible to buy standing grass in than cut silage here .

It's really all down to profitability, if I cut my stocking rate 50% but cut my variable costs 95% then I am better off. With 3 tons of silage and a shed and a farm full of cells, I can actually see my overall output climbing rather than reduction being necessary; this is going from a rotational to a rational grazing system, with about 12 sheep equivalents per hectare being our current stocking rate, zero input.

it's hard to put numbers on actual stocking rates for the sucklers...
(App 30) South Devon herd live primarily on app 100 acres of rough, plus a bit of in/bye from which they're excluded in the summer. There's more in the peak summer months, as maiden heifers have usually entered the herd, and older cows/those 'rescued in winter' will be present with the bull.
Say max 45. they share 35 acres on one side of the valley with 70 odd summer cheviot ewes.
app 20 acres is ungrazable due to rocks/gorse/steep/bog, much of the rest is pretty marginal.

Outside inputs... roughly fodder from one acre of mowable per cow, some straw and lick of cake for rescue cases - a dozen thin young cows/cows with smaller/autumn calves might be housed.
My South Devons are seldom fat.
If I shed half of them, they'd live much better, but I'd have to be very active with the swan vesta scrub busters, or steadily lose ground!

Galloways?
one group (most of the daughters of a particular bull) would be 16-20, year round on 70 acres of very rough. Outside input 60-70 odd round bales/equivalent.

Main belt herd summer on a 25,000 acre common, which has a tiny stocking rate in accordance with enviro agreement.

NB all the above ground is in agreement,has huge enviro scores,and has very public access.

Youngstock, summered at more than one yearling/acre of inbye/improved.
One group have stayed put for winter, 18 yearling gals eating 2-3 round bales a week on 8-9 acres and glowing. Wildly too small and out of spec for the supermarket trade, but as healthy and happy as trout in the brook.
A group of SD replacement heifers stock lowland pasture at roughly one per acre (bit higher in the summer, cut back in winter, 8 of them 20 months old, eating 2 round bales per week.
(this is all about logistics. We send someone to that site once a week with a tractor as they're the only beasts needing feed. Mind, they come back a lot bigger than if they'd been here all winter.)

 

[Kiwi Pete]

It is quite difficult to work out a stocking rate from that.
I generally either work on a liveweight/area calculation, or else convert everything to some sort of standard equivalent: NZ generally uses stock units, ie an average sized ewe with a lamb, but I tend to use a 500kg cow as my reference, a sheep being .2 or so, with her couple of lambs.

We peak at about 1600kgLWT/ha if we get the rain to grow the grass, and de-stock according to rainfall, which we have just done.
We're now at around 1200kg/ha of stocking rate, but around 200,000kg/ha in terms of stocking density, enough to effect change.

One of the big benefits I see of moving to a cell-type system is that in bad weather, you're limiting the % of your land area that you bugger up, and those areas can be basically bypassed until the land has healed - whereas with a break-fencing or continuous grazing system it's much harder to do that without a lot of actual work.
With cells you can be on a 10-day or 120-day round instantly, it's an "8-speed auto" compared to a "3 speed manual" if you like.

Continuous grazing effectively gives you about a 6 day plant recovery, as the stock only need a couple of inches of regrowth before they can bite it off again.

 

[M-J-G]

I was on the phone to one of my good mates this morning talking about livestock farming post subsidy, and discussing this common belief that natives that will finish off grass will be the future because lowlands will be all dairy and arable.
A point that I made in the conversation was that here in eastern Scotland, long before subsidies and the EU every farm used to be mixed, where arable land was kept fertile and cattle were kept well fed.

The notion that grass only is the way forward in a non subsidised situation way fall down right there.

Keep the mind open to the ideas of others, but don't forget to think for yourself.