9 February 2021
A Welsh livestock farm is averaging post-weaning weight gains of 1.5kg a head a day in its intensively reared bull beef cattle since opting for a feeding strategy based entirely on homegrown feeds.
Before making the switch to growing all nutrition on farm, the entire ration of the Stabiliser bulls at Bodwi, near Pwllhelli, had come from purchased concentrates and straw; there were no home-grown ingredients in the diet.
The Griffith family have now adapted the system to reduce the cattle’s cost of production by growing spring barley and feeding this while increasing the proportion of forage in the ration from 15% to 40%.
They are rearing 75 2020-spring born bulls on this system as one of their projects as a Farming Connect demonstration site.
The cattle were weaned on 15 October 2020 at an average of 287kg and their daily liveweight gains (DLWG) are now averaging 1.5kg.
During a recent Farming Connect webinar, father and son, Edward and Ellis Griffith, said their aim was to reduce production costs and increase the farm’s environmental sustainability.
The business runs a closed herd of 140 April and May-calving Stabiliser suckler cows and 1,150 Suffolk-cross ewes on Bodwi and at nearby Tyddyn Gwyn as well as 280 acres of tenanted land 18 miles from those holdings.
The intention in their bull beef system had been to capture all the cattle’s protein requirements from forage but, due to difficult growing and harvesting conditions in 2020, quality was lower than expected at 25% dry matter, 10MJ/kg ME, 14% crude protein and 50% NDF.
To counter this, they opted for alkalisation of the grain with an ammonia treatment to produce an alkaline, high starch feed material with increased protein.
Iwan Vaughan, a nutritionist working with the Griffith family on the project, said the focus in future would be on improving silage quality as a protein and energy source.
“To reduce costs further it is all about the forages, on the Lleyn Peninsula, grass silage is the obvious choice,’’ said Mr Vaughan, a speaker at the event.
To improve quality, it is important to cut silage at the right time and rapidly wilt to preserve nutrients, he advised.
“The longer the crop is wilting for, the increased nutrient losses we get,’’ said Mr Vaughan.
The target is to achieve 30-35% DM silage within 24-48 hours.
The best grass silage will always be produced in the peak growth period from April to early June.
“Target cutting first cut for growing and finishing stock in mid to late May if stocking rates allow,’’ said Mr Vaughan.
His preference is clamp silage because higher intakes can be achieved due to chop length and consistency within the pit, but if no pit is available the economics of creating one are unlikely to outweigh that shortcoming in baled silage, he added.
The project at Bodwi had demonstrated that it was possible to feed bull beef on homegrown feed sources without sacrificing growth, said Mr Vaughan.
“In doing so, farmers can reduce purchased feed cost and the carbon footprint per kilogramme of protein produced,’’ he added.
The Farming Connect project will estimate and compare the carbon footprint of the previous system of finishing on bought-in concentrates with the adapted system based on homegrown spring barley.
Farming Connect, which is delivered by Menter a Busnes and Lantra, has received funding through
the Welsh Government Rural Communities - Rural Development Programme 2014-2020, which is
funded by the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development and the Welsh Government.