Increased output with autumn suckler herd

Ian Gowdy, along with his father John and his uncle Jim, keep beef and sheep on just over 200 acres of owned land, split into three blocks on the Ards Peninsula in Co Down.

The farm traditionally brought store cattle through to finishing, but with increased competition in the local marts for diminishing numbers, and tight margins, the decision was taken in the early 2000s to start a suckler herd.

There are now 60 spring calving suckler cows on the farm, along with eight autumn calving cows and 10 heifers due to join this smaller group in 2016. The aim is to get to 30 autumn calving cows.

According to Ian, there are a number of reasons why they have decided to target more output from the farm by introducing an autumn-calving herd as opposed to increasing the number of spring-calving cows.

The main issue is probably the pressure on grass supplies and facilities in the spring. In total, 170 ewes are also kept which tend to remove any early grass. A late spring can leave the farm running tight for grass and delay turnout of cattle. “I don’t think we could work with any more cows calving in the spring,” said Ian.

The other issue is the significant dip in finished beef prices that has occurred in the late spring over the last few years. The Gowdys keep most of the male calves entire and finish as bulls at around 14 months. It means the majority of spring-born bulls hit the market in May each year.

“Our aim is to keep the autumn calves as bulls, push them on, getting as much weight gain at grass as possible, and the cattle slaughtered before Christmas each year,” said Ian.

Replacements

The Gowdys are in the fortunate position of being able to source suitable replacement heifers from a local dairy farmer still working with predominantly British Friesian breeding. The cows have good milking ability and because they are bucket-reared, temperament is excellent.

These Limousin cross British Friesian heifers are bought at around 15 months, and, in the past, have been initially crossed to a Limousin bull. However, over the last two years, heifers have been artificially inseminated to the Aberdeen Angus. Resultant male calves are run as steers to avail of Angus bonuses. Replacement heifers are all calved at two years old.

Mature cows are crossed to the Charolais, which has resulted in high weight gains to slaughter and the ability to take cattle through to heavy weights without becoming overfat. This year, spring-born Charolais bulls averaged 424kg at 14.5 months at fat class three.

Weaned

The latest batch of spring-born Charolais bulls were weaned by the end of September. Bull and heifer calves are kept separate all through the grazing season, with the bulls receiving creep feed from mid-July and the creep feeder only introduced to the heifers two weeks pre-weaning. All calves are vaccinated against pneumonia and dosed for worms pre-weaning.

The weaning process this year involved removing five to six cows from the batch every few days. These cows were kept in a well-fenced field away from the calves.

“It took us around two weeks to wean 25 to 30 cows. Taking small groups of cows away each time works well, but you need dry weather or you could end up with a lot of poaching damage,” said Ian.

Dry cows at housing are receiving silage at night and straw during the day.

When weighed on 1 October, the Charolais bulls averaged 375kg which is 30kg less than in 2014. Ian attributes the lower weights to poor weather after turnout at the end of April.

At housing, the bulls are kept in the straw-bedded area prior to moving on to slats fitted with rubber later in the winter. They initially receive silage as well as just over 3kg of calf grower, but will be gradually built up on to a 16% crude protein finishing ration containing barley, soya, distillers and sugar beet pulp, fed ad lib along with silage and straw as a fibre source.

The target is to achieve 1kg of carcase gain per day to finishing by the end of April 2016. The lightest of the bulls will be taken out, castrated and finished as steers next autumn.

“Our aim this year is to slaughter the bulls at 400kg, given that there are potentially more penalties to be applied on heavy cattle this winter,” said Ian. He accepts that might mean slaughtering some of the bulls as fat class 2+ rather than fat class 3.

Given the efficiency of gain of bulls, and the fact that they have a market outlet via ABP, Ian is reluctant to move away from the system. There are two Charolais bulls on the farm, both in the top 10% of the breed for performance-recorded figures. A newly purchased young bull has excellent figures for calving ease. “It is one of the figures I look at most closely,” said Ian.

Calving of the spring herd this year started on 10 March, with the majority calved by mid-April and only three cows slipping into May. The stock bull is normally taken from the cows at the start of August each year.

With Ian and John both living away from the main yard where cows are calved, a camera system was installed under the farm modernisation programme. At calving each cow is milked, and the calf fed using a bottle or a stomach tube.

Finishing

As well as the suckler-to-beef enterprise on the farm, slightly over 100 store cattle (steers and heifers) are also finished each year. Cattle are normally bought in at around 15 months. During the finishing period, they are fed on good quality silage (ME 11.5) and homegrown barley.

In common with similar farms, buying heifers that turn out to be in-calf can be an issue, but in the case of the Gowdys, this has also exposed them to the problem of bovine viral diarrhoea (BVD). “We have had three PIs in the last three years – all calves from bought-in heifers that turned out to be in-calf. We put them all down once the disease was confirmed,” explained Ian.

All breeding stock on the farm are now routinely vaccinated for BVD and the Gowdys are taking part in the voluntary phase of the BVD eradication programme.

Grassland

In terms of grassland management, the Gowdys have been working closely with their local CAFRE adviser John Sands, to improve both the output and ultilisation of grazed grass. They were hosts under the CAFRE grass monitor farm project, and have been gradually making progress towards setting up a network of paddocks across the farm.

“Our target is to work with three-day paddocks, although we might extend that a little by grazing dry autumn calvers behind to ensure excellent utilisation of grass. We used to run a set-stocked system, and the cattle only got a shift when the grass was gone. The main benefit of rotational grazing is that it allows the grass to recover,” said Ian.

Work is progressing this winter to put a mains-fed electric fencing system in place on the home farm. As well as about 12 acres of barley, the other enterprise on the farm is a flock of 170 ewes. Around 100 are Suffolk Cheviot ewes crossed to Charollais rams, with the remainder, a pedigree flock of 70 Charollais ewes.“We aim to run the pedigree ewes in the same way as the commercial ewes. They don’t get any particular preferential treatment,” said Ian.