HOW THEY KILLED OUT

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30901, 6 November 1965, Page 8

HOW THEY KILLED OUT

The cattle were killed off at. 600 to 7301 b liveweight between nine and 12 months of age. Mr Scott said the objective was to produce a tailor made article that was well fleshed, with little waste fat, that would appeal to the customer’s eye and with a high degree of tenderness.

Mr Scott said that a comparison of cross-sections of the ribs of an 11-month-old beiast fattened indoors and of a two-and-a-nalf-year-old beast fattened outside in the traditional manner, both selected at random, had showed that while there was no significant difference in the size of the eye muscle between the two, the main difference was that the older beast had a fat covering over the rib of about an inch and a half while the young indoor-fattened beast had a thin layer of fat. But until the grading system was adjusted to provide a worthwhile premium for this type of high quality indoor-fattened beef, Mr Scott said that there was no inducement to farmers to produce this sort of beast for killing for local consumption or for export. Premium - In his case he had sold his cattle to two butchers who had paid a premium of 2d per lib for them. The ideal, he said, would be to have an arrangement with a butcher for a year round supply of these sort of cattle at a stated price with calves coming in and going opt of the shed.

Mr Scott found that Aberdeen Angus-Devon cross calves made the fastest growth rate in the shed—slightly under 31b of liveweight a day and at about 3401 b dressed weight and 10 months of age these cattle averaged about £32. After the Aberdeen AngusDevon cross, he said, came the straight Herefords and then the Hereford-Aberdeen Angus cross and finally the straight Aberdeen Angus. The killing out 'yield of the cattle had been more than 50 per cent with no trimming being necessary. In the last season, Mr Scott said that the cattle held indoors ate just on 35,0001 b of barley at an average of about 6241 b per beast, about 4341 b each of lucerne hay and 1601 b each of other hay. These were averages and obviously some cattle ate considerably less and others much more. On Kirkstyle all feed, including barley, was grown on the place but Mr Scott has costed the experiment both on this basis and if the feed had been bought in. Here is his balance sheet for the exercise: Bought in Own feed £ £ Straw 60 60 Lucerne hay 150 46 Other hay 37 15 Labour 23 23 Barley ~ 262 97 Calves .. 1008 1008 Total .. 1543 1249 Receipts .. 1508 1508 Result .. —35 +259 The calves were bought in at an average of £lB each and the cost of barley was estimated at 8s per bushel for the purposes of this exercise. Production costs were assessed for home-grown feed. The barley grown on the farm averaged 80 bushels to the acre and Mr Scott said that the yield of barley would have a strong bearing on the economics of the exercise as X

a low yield would make it uneconomic.

The evidence from this was that if all feed had to be bought in the proposition would not be economic. Factors of considerable importance were obviously the price of the calves bought in and the ultimate price received for the finished product. The surplus per head where the cattle had been fed on home-grown feed had been £4 12s 6d. The proposition where all feed was grown on the farm, but not necessarily all the animals bred there, became more attractive. In this context for a third of the year the return was about £5 per head and this represented about £l5 a year, which might not be achieved with outside fattening. It was not impossible to obtain more than £3O a calf at under a year of age and with an improved ration this might be pushed up to £4O or more. On their type of country which was extremely wet underfoot in the winter they could not hope to fatten cattle at that time of the year. All that could be done was to carry them through the winter in store condition and hope that it would be possible to make up for what they had lost during the winter in the following summer. This also did not take into account

that there was a wastage outside in the winter through deaths, whereas their experience had been that there had been no losses indoors during the winter. This was quite important from an economic point of view. Looked at in this light the proposition became more attractive. Mr Scott said that a possibility was to buy in cattle at about the yearling stage after the winter when they had more frame and fatten them in the following winter. They had fattened one animal —it was a dairy breed calf born about November. It had been killed at about 18 months and had dressed out at about 4601 b and returned about £42. In the first season 10 bull calves and two steer calves had been fattened inside. The bull calves had grown faster than the steers, he said, but the bull calves had not been an economic proposition as bull beef could not be sold over the counter, although actually little difference could be detected in the quality of the beef from the bull and steer calves. Mr Scott does not intend to fatten indoors next winter, but he says that they are now in a position to know what to do and to improve on the procedures that they have used in the last two seasons.