The Beef Edge

As calving season approaches on the Newford farm, Farm technician Michael Fagan gives an insight into the preparation in advance of calving and a review of performance of the herd in Athenry where there are 76 cows and 17 heifers due to calve from the start of February for 10 weeks. The cows are all in-calf to 5 star terminal bulls.

Michael explains that cows are currently on ad-lib silage 66-68 DMD. However, heavy cows with good conditional score are having their silage restricted. 100g of a pre-calving mineral is given on top of the silage each day since the 1st of December 2021.

All cows have been treated for fluke and lice. Lime is spread on the slats each day on the slats, which helps to control any bugs and it also helps to keep the cows’ udder and teats clean. Micheal describes the vaccination programme pre calving also, and talks through the steps taken when cows and heifers are calving.

Newford yearling heifers were housed on the 7th December due to the good autumn. On Thursday 20th January they were let back to grass. They were turned out at 411 kg and they achieved an average daily gain from birth of 1.12 Kg/head/day. The aim is for a live weight of 555 Kgs at a 52 % kill out. The male weanlings were housed on the 18th November and on the 6th of January were 396 kg and they achieved average daily gain since housing of 0.67 kg/head/day.

Michael describes how last year there were 38 steers of which 9 were finished off grass with concentrates. The rest were finished indoors. They graded R= 3 – with an average live carcass weight of 357 Kg at 21 months of age. There were 56 heifers of which 38 were finished off grass with concentrates. The rest were finished indoors. They graded R= 3 – with an average carcass weight of 311 Kg at 20 months.

For more episodes and information covered on the Beef Edge, visit the show page at:

https://www.teagasc.ie/thebeefedge

Produced on behalf of Teagasc by LastCastMedia.com

As the registered farm partnership deadline approaches on 11th February 2022, Teagasc Collaborative Farm specialist, Gordon Peppard, gives an insight into what you need to do to set up a farm partnership, its benefits and implications.

At this time of year farmers start considering various farming options in advance of submitting the basic payment in May. Gordon explains that Registered Farm Partnerships (RFPs) are one of a number of collaborative farm business structure arrangements that will play a key role in the improvement of the social and structural demographics of Irish farms.

Some of the current challenges facing Irish farmers are: age profile, land fragmentation, smaller farm size, financial viability, rural isolation, and farm safety.

RFPs provide a framework where farmers can work together in a formal business arrangement, where the profits of the business are shared among the partners in that business.

For further information:

https://www.teagasc.ie/rural-economy/farm-management/collaborative-farming/succession-farm-partnerships/

On Registered Farm Partnerships:

https://www.teagasc.ie/media/website/rural-economy/rural-development/diversification/1-Farm-Management----Registered-Farm-Partnerships.pdf

And on the DAFM website:

https://www.gov.ie/en/service/b29f0-register-farm-partnership/

For more episodes and information covered on the Beef Edge, visit the show page at:

https://www.teagasc.ie/thebeefedge

Produced on behalf of Teagasc by LastCastMedia.com

With technologies increasing on farms every year, on this week’s episode of the Beef Edge, John Heslin, MSD Animal Health Market Access and Marketing Manager, and part time beef farmer, gives his insights in advance of calving and breeding season.

John describes how he farms with his father in Co. Westmeath operating a suckling to store and sometime finishing system. With all family members involved it makes work-life balance easier as both John and his father also work off farm as well as John being on the football field for Westmeath and St Loman’s Mullingar, GAA.

John describes how having a calving camera is such an asset as he lives off-farm and his father lives on-farm and they both work. A calving camera allows them to keep an eye on the cows from their phone even if John is away with work.

He highlights that, to reduce labour due to sick calves, they will vaccinate cows pre-calving. Obviously, sire selection is an important factor to minimise calving difficulty, and the fact they use 100% AI, heat detection is an issue when it comes to AI, so John installed ‘SenseHub’ which sends alerts to his phone if the animal is sick or in heat.

Since 1st January 2022, all new cattle tags that farmers are ordering are electronic identification EID tags and from July all calves born will have to have EID tags, but John has been using EID tags for the past 2 years and discusses a number of benefits from using them.

For more episodes and information covered on the Beef Edge, visit the show page at:

https://www.teagasc.ie/thebeefedge

Produced on behalf of Teagasc by LastCastMedia.com

Kicking off the first episode of the Beef Edge podcast for 2022, Ronan Delany from Co. Meath gives an insight into his mixed farming system, how he has managed to meet the challenge to reduce age to slaughter and his plans to progress in the year ahead.

Ronan buys in 200 heifers per year and finishes the majority from grass at an average of 19.5 months of age.

Ronan describes how he buys a variety of breeds of heifers online and due to online bidding, he is buying heifers in marts he would never have stood in before and it makes his life so much easier, he explains.

He also has a flock of 400 ewes which he says has multiple benefits in his mixed beef and sheep grazing system.

Looking to 2022, Ronan hopes to grow more grass and increase the number of heifers he is finishing.

For more episodes and information covered on the Beef Edge, visit the show page at:

https://www.teagasc.ie/thebeefedge

Produced on behalf of Teagasc by LastCastMedia.com

On the final episode of the Beef Edge podcast for 2021, Teagasc Head of Drystock, Pearse Kelly, joins Catherine Egan to look back on the year gone by and to discuss what is expected in the New Year and the outlook for 2022.

In many ways, 2021 was a good year on cattle farms and Pearse outlines how beef prices began to rise in the spring and, like the tide that rises all ships, weanling and store prices followed and have remained buoyant.

The recent Teagasc outlook and review webinar showed that steers, weanling and store prices all increased. Steer beef prices rose by 12% in 2021 which also resulted in higher weanling and store prices.

In order to generate output you require inputs and they too have increased on average across all the cattle systems by about 8% in 2021. Pearse highlights that while predictions suggest we may see some increase in cattle supply in 2022, it will be only marginal and is likely to come on stream in the second half of the year.

Looking forward to the year ahead Pearse says that the Future Beef Programme and Dairy Beef 500 Programme will be the main flagship programmes in the New Year with farm walks expected on some of the farms in early 2022. Pearse also hopes - Covid allowing – that there will be a ‘Beef 2022’open day in Teagasc Grange in July.

For more episodes and information covered on the Beef Edge, visit the show page at:

https://www.teagasc.ie/thebeefedge

Produced on behalf of Teagasc by LastCastMedia.com

For the 100th episode of the Beef Edge podcast, Catherine Egan is joined by Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Charlie McConalogue, to find out what beef farmers can expect from the new CAP, to discuss markets for Irish beef abroad and what is in store for the future of the Irish beef sector.

The Minister told the Beef Edge that beef farmers will be supported in the next CAP.

‘The core support proposed for beef farmers is the Suckler Carbon Efficiency Scheme which will build on the work of the BDGP which came before it and also elements of BEEP-S and beef schemes to help drive the environmental and productivity efficiency on farms. It will deliver €150 per cow on the first 10 cows as opposed to the €90 per cow in the first 10 under the BDGP.'

For more episodes and information covered on the Beef Edge, visit the show page at:

https://www.teagasc.ie/thebeefedge

Produced on behalf of Teagasc by LastCastMedia.com

With Liver Fluke costing Irish farmers €90million every year, Teagasc Advisor Gary Fisher, joins Catherine Egan on this week’s Beef Edge podcast to give an insight into fluke treatment on farm, when to dose and what products to treat each stage.

Liver Fluke is a parasite on many farms and Gary explains that recent high temperatures and the extended grazing season may lead to high fluke levels on farms this year with the DAFM Liver Fluke forecast indicating high disease prevalence along the west coast.

Gary describes the life cycle of fluke and the importance of using the correct product to treat the correct stage and he advises that farmers sampling for BEEP-S that would have results back from the lab, if they had a negative liver fluke result, it would not necessarily mean they had no incidence of liver fluke. Due to the life cycle of the parasite and the fact that the samples were taken before 1st October, it means the eggs may not have been in the testing sample.

The Animal Health Ireland Beef Health Check Report is also a useful tool to help farmers check how successful their treatment plan is with the farm history and land type important factors to consider.

For further Information:

DAFM Liver Fluke forecast:

https://www.gov.ie/en/press-release/d5152-liver-fluke-forecast-november-2021/

Beef Health Check Video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1CdI-_wvQw

Liver Fluke the facts:

https://animalhealthireland.ie/assets/uploads/2021/06/PC-Liver-Fluke-2021.pdf?dl=1

Rumen Fluke - the facts:

https://animalhealthireland.ie/assets/uploads/2021/06/PC-Rumen-Fluke-2021.pdf?dl=1

For more episodes and information covered on the Beef Edge, visit the show page at:

https://www.teagasc.ie/thebeefedge

Produced on behalf of Teagasc by LastCastMedia.com.

Martina Harrington, Teagasc’s specialist and programme manager, gives an insight into the new suckler beef demonstration farm programme on this week’s Beef Edge podcast.

Teagasc’s Future Beef programme comprises of a network of 24 demonstration farms positioned right across Ireland.

Each farm is representative of their region in farm size, soil type, system, stock numbers etc. The farm size ranges from 13ha to 122ha, while the herd size ranges from 14-suckler cows right up to 112 cows.

The systems range from farms selling weanlings, finishing heifers and steers to producing under 16 month bulls, whilst four are also buying in dairy bred calves.

Martina explains that when designing the programme, they wanted an ‘Operation Transformation’ type model, where there would be one farmer as ‘a leader’ for the majority of systems within the beef sector.

As part of the Future Beef programme, Martina says that the programme will be supporting farmers to adopt technologies new and old to reduce the level of GHG and Ammonia emission from their farms.

Improving water quality and increasing biodiversity on farm are also key aspects of the programme and Future Beef will work closely with the ASSAP programme advisors to inform the participants what can be done on farm to reduce agriculture impact on water quality.

Through farm walks, discussion group visits, press articles, regular updates on the website and social media, the Future Beef programme will show these technologies working on 22 commercial farms and 2 non-commercial farms.

Alongside Martina will be Gabriel Trayers and Aisling Molloy, plus local, regional unit Teagasc Business & Technology advisors and Teagasc researchers who will all be involved in the programme.

For further information:

https://www.teagasc.ie/animals/beef/demonstration-farms/future-beef-programme/

Find your nearest programme participant here:

https://www.teagasc.ie/animals/beef/demonstration-farms/future-beef-programme/farmers/

For more episodes and information covered on the Beef Edge, visit the show page at:

https://www.teagasc.ie/thebeefedge

Produced on behalf of Teagasc by LastCastMedia.com.

Chris Daly from ICBF joins Catherine Egan on this week’s episode of the Beef Edge podcast to explain the new Commercial Beef Value (CBV) which will be launched at the Teagasc Virtual Beef Conference next week on 6th December at 8pm.

Chris explains how it is a new tool being made available for farmers buying in cattle and bringing them on to finish to know what the genetic merit is.

The euro value will be available for commercial suckler males and uncalved females, dairy males and dairy cross males and uncalved females being brought to finish.

It is comprised of the following traits: carcass weight, carcass conformation, carcass fat , feed intake and docility.

Chris highlights that while there will be a range across the breed, the within breed ranges will be very interesting to farmers.

Farmers will be able to access their animals’ CBV under their Herdplus account in the coming weeks.

Chris says the plan is that it will be rolled out in marts in early 2022 to be available for farmers purchasing cattle to see the CBV on mart boards.

The Teagasc Virtual Beef Conference takes place on Monday 6th & Wednesday 8th December at 8pm. It is free to tune in and you can register in advance at:

https://www.teagasc.ie/beefcon21/

For more episodes and information covered on the Beef Edge, visit the show page at:

https://www.teagasc.ie/thebeefedge

Produced on behalf of Teagasc by LastCastMedia.com

With fertiliser prices skyrocketing, Teagasc Specialist Mark Plunkett is on this week’s episode of the Beef Edge podcast with an update on the outlook for the coming months and what can you do to maintain margins in light of further possible increases.

The current fertiliser price increases are unprecedented and Mark explains why they have risen so dramatically - which have been caused by a number of factors across the world.

While Nitrogen has spiralled out of control in the past year, Phosphorus and potassium have also increased in price but not to the same extent and from Mark’s experience, prices are set to remain for early 2022.

On a recent podcast Teagasc advisor John Kelly spoke of rising concentrate prices and in light of these fertiliser price increases, Mark advises farmers to take soil samples and see what nutrients are required on your farm.

Then start by correcting pH and making savings on soils at P & K Index 4. With 42% of soils deficient in lime, correcting lime will be a big help to release nutrients in the soil with nitrogen released worth up to €150/Ha.

In relation to silage ground, Mark advises farmers to maximise nitrogen value of slurry by using low emission spreading techniques, applying in the spring under cool & damp conditions.

For further information contact your local Teagasc advisor or to arrange taking soil samples find out more here:

https://www.teagasc.ie/crops/soil--soil-fertility/soil-analysis/soil-sampling/

For information on low emission slurry spreading:

https://www.teagasc.ie/media/website/publications/2020/Low-Emission-Slurry-Spreading-Factsheet.pdf

And for more information on applying lime:

https://www.teagasc.ie/news--events/daily/grassland/new-lime-factsheet---the-facts-on-applying-lime.php

For more episodes and information covered on the Beef Edge, visit the show page at:

https://www.teagasc.ie/thebeefedge

Produced on behalf of Teagasc by LastCastMedia.com