Factors to consider when buying autumn born calves from the dairy herd

Gordon Peppard tells us that a number of winter milk producers are currently calving cows and many of these calves will be sold on to beef farmers to be reared and slaughtered in a calf to beef system. These calves will enter many different heifer, steer and bull beef systems.

There are a number of advantages and disadvantages to consider when deciding whether to buy calves at this time of year or not.

Calf availability

With more and more dairy farmers moving away from winter milk, over 90% of herds are now calving in the spring time making autumn born calves very difficult to source at this time of year. Sourcing these calves often requires direct farm to farm contacts where good relationships have been built up and established between the dairy farmer and the calf purchaser. Due to the tight supply of these calves it can also be very hard to get a batch of calves in a short period of time to fill a shed and to have a significant numbers to run as a grazing group for the next 18 to 24 months.

System of production

Depending on the breed and sex of animal that you want to buy, some autumn born calves can fit very well into a system. For example an October/November born Angus/Hereford heifer calf will be 19/20 months of age at slaughter in May/June when you have the traditionally higher beef price, although you may lose out on substantial breed bonuses at this time of year?

If you are producing an under 16 month old bull, this animal will have a long season making maximum use of grazed grass and they can then be housed for finishing in September for finishing over the winter period when they would naturally be indoors any way.

To the contrary Friesian steers that underperform and are not slaughtered by 24 months of age end up having a third winter period putting them a higher cost production system.

Workload

Many calf to beef producers have substantially increased the numbers of calves reared on their farm over the last number of years. In many cases there are inadequate calf rearing facilities in terms of shed space, labour, feeding stations etc. available on farm, so splitting the calf rearing over an autumn and spring period makes sense to increases the numbers of calves reared and maximise use of existing facilities.

However, the down side to this is, farmers are now rearing calves for almost six months of the year.

Maximising days at grass

A well reared calf in the autumn is well weaned and ready to make maximum use of grazed grass for a long grazing season in year one, they can be turned out in February as weather and ground conditions permit, whereas a late spring reared calf may only be off milk by early July when a lot of the best grass producing months are behind us. Autumn born animals generally consume approx. 70% of their overall diet in the form of grazed grass.

Meeting weight targets throughout animals lifetime

Achieving the desired weight gain targets throughout the production cycle is critical to avoid the need to house animals for a short finishing period after the second grazing season. If the targets, as summarised in table 1, are not achieved, additional costs will be associated with housing animals prior to slaughter or the carcass weight performance may decline.

Table 1: Live weight gain targets for autumn-born steers

Conclusion

Autumn-born, dairy-beef systems where calves are slaughtered at 23-24 months are very viable production system where maximising carcass output from grazed grass is desired. When optimum performance is achieved, the need for winter finishing is eliminated, except possibly where late November/December born calves are purchased and these may require a period of indoor finishing.