Beef and Sheep Notes January 2012

On average, beef finishing cattle should be gaining approximately 1.0kg liveweight per day for bullocks and 0.8 kg for heifers. Finishing bulls will achieve liveweight gains well above this, averaging 1.1–1.5 kg liveweight gain per day.  However, farmers are often surprised at the large variation in liveweight gains within groups of cattle. This is due to three factors:-  

The nutrition of the animal is the one that you have most control over at this stage. With cattle now housed for around two months, weighing should be carried out to check target liveweight gains.

In assessing a concentrate ration, quality is the most important factor to consider. A good finishing ration should have a high ME value of at least 12.5MJ per kilogramme dry matter and a crude protein level within the range of 10 -14 percent (as fed) depending on forage quality. To achieve this, the inclusion of high levels of cereal in the ration is recommended.  Maize meal is an excellent high energy feed for the finishing stage and in a high concentrate diet it will have approximately 15 -20 percent higher value than wheat or barley. Generally, it should be limited to a maximum of 50 percent of the overall ration. Barley and wheat are also high in energy; however because of the high content of rapidly digested starch, they need to be introduced gradually - preferably in a bruised form. This particularly applies to wheat.

Other good sources of energy are cereal byproducts, maize gluten and maize distillers.

Citrus pulp, sugar beet pulp and soya hulls have slightly lower energy values but are good sources of digestible fibre.

Rapeseed meal, soyabean meal and cereal by products such as maize gluten and maize distillers are suitable sources of protein. Rapeseed meal, because of lower palatability and maize distillers because of high oil content, should be limited to a maximum inclusion of 15 percent and 25 percent respectively.

All rations should contain a suitable mineral/vitamin mix for finishing cattle and generally be included at 25 kg per tonne.

Feed compounders have many suitable finishing rations within their product range. The rations will vary from compounded pellets and blends to specific rations depending on the needs of the farmer.

Examples of finishing rations are shown below.

An outbreak of scour, can lead to calf losses, and for those that survive their performance can be severely affected impacting on profitability and farm income. There are a number of infectious causes of scour with a different treatment for each cause. The main ones are bacteria such as E.coli and Salmonella, viruses such as Rotavirus and Coronavirus, and protozoa such as Cryptosporidium and Coccidia. (Get an early visit from the Vet for diagnosis before treatment – the earlier this happens the better chance of the correct treatment for the calves and solving the problem). Poor feeding of the calf can lead to a nutritional scour which increases susceptibility to infections.