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The batch of 49 steers in Newford Farm are now settled indoors on a finishing diet of 6kg concentrates and ad-lib silage.
The farm has done a deal for its 2019 finishing ration, with a breakdown of ingredients listed in Table 1.
The ration, costing €244/t in bulk form, has a crude protein content of 11.4% and a positive energy value of 0.95UFV.
Table 2 summarises the finishing blueprint for 2019. Taking an average intake of 25kg silage per day valued at €30/t and 6kg concentrates, the daily finishing cost is €2.21/day.
Performance on such a diet has averaged in the region of 1kg liveweight per day in recent years. Similarly, the kill-out has averaged from 51.5% on a silage-concentrate diet to 54% in 2018 when finished on ad-lib concentrates. Based on a kill-out of 52.5%, steers should gain in the region of 0.52kg carcase per day.
With a current beef price of €3.65/kg (base of €3.45/kg and 20c/kg in-spec bonus), the value of carcase gain will not be sufficient to cover finishing costs. Therefore, the focus will be to draft cattle once they reach a sufficient level of fat cover.
Heifer performance
The individual slaughter performance of the 14 heifers drafted last week is detailed in Table 3.
The average liveweight was 605kg, with an average kill-out of 52% and carcase weight of 315.5kg. There was one heifer with a fat score of 5- but this can be attributed to a delay in drafting due to the beef protests.
A further 16 heifers are also in a backlog for slaughter and are due to be slaughtered on Tuesday.
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