The weighing scales doesn’t lie
Regular animal weighing throughout the year gives the knowledge and power to make informed decisions early. Gordon Peppard, DairyBeef 500 Advisor, tells us more on how to use the information generated through weighing for better decision making.
Weighing cattle is an important management tool on all beef farms, and on DairyBeef 500 Campaign farms it is no different. They have found it essential to weigh their cattle a number of times during the year; at a minimum animals are weighed at turn out, mid-season and at housing. Completing these regular weighings allows them to frequently monitor animal performance and to make timely decisions and plan for the rest of the year.
In the next few weeks, all the DairyBeef 500 farmers will complete their mid-season weighings. Some farmers will carry out this task with their own facilities and weighing scales, others will utilise the ICBF weight recorders who will come in and do the animal weighings for them.
So, what use can the farmers make of their animal weight information?
Monitoring animal performance
When animals are weighed regularly, the weight of each animal can be tracked and it is easy to see if they are achieving their target daily live weight gain. Where these targets are not been met, farmers can immediately put in remedial actions to try and get the animal back on track.
These actions can range from improving grass quality, extra feed supplementation, dosing, vaccination, veterinary assessment and treatment etc.
In general, dairy calf to beef animals should be achieving a daily live weight gain of 0.7-0.8kg/head/day over the first grazing season. Over the first winter period, daily gains of 0.6-0.7kg/head/day should be the target. And for the second grazing season, depending on the breed and sex of the animal, gains of 0.9kg/head/day to over 1kg/head/day should be expected from turnout to grass.
Where weight gains falls below any of these targets, a focus must be placed on all aspects of the system at farm level. This is to ensure a timely solution is found to rectify the issue and an extended period of weight loss is not endured, which would negatively affect performance and profitability in the long term.
Animal health
Previous research has shown that animals effected by pneumonia, grow slower, take longer to finish and cost more to reach slaughter. Underlying health issues can often be picked up by regular weight recording.
Good animal health is essential to good animal performance. If a strong animal health protocol is in place and performance is still compromised then there is a need to look at other areas and in particular nutrition, in terms of quantity and quality of feed that is in front of the animal, whether that be grass or silage.
When dosing animals, having exact information on the individual weights of all animals allows more accurate dosing of animals and increased efficiencies in the system.
Forecast when animals will be ready for sale
Up to date weight data of animals allows a finishing plan to be put in place early. It means animals of a similar weight can be grouped and fed together without the inefficiencies of feeding all animals in the group.
Early-maturing breeds such as Angus and Hereford, particularly heifers, may be finished off of grass before a second winter housing period is required. These animals generally don’t have the scope to grow into heavier carcass weights to justify indoor feeding over the winter months. When animals are being weighed in July, heifers in excess of 400kg with some tail and shoulder fat cover may well be suitable to target for slaughter after a short period of meal supplementation in September/October and these animals can be selected out based on having weight data for them.
A similar feeding protocol may also be implemented on farms operating steer systems, with the target of having steers weighing 490kg by mid-September before the introduction of concentrates. Where good performance is achieved up to the end of November, these steers have the ability to kill out as 275-280kg carcasses at 21 months without the need for indoor feeding, when grazing conditions allow. When selecting steers for this system, more extreme animals should be avoided and those with easier-fleshing abilities work best.
Again having the knowledge of accurate weight information, allows decisions to be made early, reducing the animal housing and feed required over the winter period.
Summary
As can be seen, regular animal weighing throughout the year gives the knowledge and power to make informed decisions early. It provides the opportunity to frequently assess if animals are at the correct weight for age. Poor animal performance can be identified and remedial action plans can be put in place early to correct it, without significant weight loss over a longer period. Weighing allows for increased efficiencies in that animals of similar weights can be grouped together for finishing and more accurate dosing rates for parasites etc. can be achieved based on dosing to the actual weight of the animal rather than on an estimated weight.
Gordon Peppard is an advisor on Teagasc’s DairyBeef 500 Campaign. To find out more about DairyBeef 500, click here.
Also read: Dealing with the current weather conditions on beef farms