Dairy Beef: Finishing young Holstein Friesian bulls
It is critical that young Holstein bulls don’t commence finishing until they have been grown correctly.
Apart from specialist finishers, there are plenty of young black and white bulls born in the spring of 2022 on farm at present for various health, monetary and logistic reasons. As we head into late spring, many of these bulls are now going on heavy finishing diets with the aim of slaughter under 16 months.
There are a lot of opinions out there about the right way to finish these bulls. You need these bulls to finish at target weight, target age and target grade to optimise returns and for this to be achieved, then they must gain substantial weight every day of their lives.
Setbacks in thrive should be avoided at all costs. You must take maximum advantage of the hormonal effect of young bulls to optimise profit through optimum Feed Efficiency. At this point, spring-born 2022 bulls will be turning 16 months over the next six to ten weeks and must be on the final push by now.
Feeding bulls meal at grass is a difficult strategy to implement. For many, the easiest option may, in fact, be to bring them inside and start finishing them.
Young Friesian bulls for slaughter under 16 months have no business grazing in the final finishing period if you want to achieve the target performance, weight and grade.
- Are they grown well enough to finish?
- What is your target market? What weight, age, and grade do buyers require?
- What feeds are available to you and what will they cost?
- What is the quality of the forage available like? Most grass silages have no place in a bull-finishing diet.
It is critical that these bulls don’t commence finishing until they have been grown correctly. This is one of the main reasons that bulls don’t kill out well, badly grown stock will never finish properly. If they are not grown properly, they may begin a growth spurt during the finishing period resulting in poor confirmation and kill-out percentage.
Increasing the daily weight gain in the final months of finish will increase the confirmation of the animal and the lean meat yield of the carcase.
While it’s not possible to turn them into continentals, it is possible to move a proportion of P+s to Os and Os to Rs.
The first thing to remember is that a young Holstein Friesian bull's finishing period should be 100 to 120 days long. Less than that, and you will not achieve acceptable fat covers.
When deciding on a diet to achieve target weights in bulls, ensure the total diet has a high-energy density and don’t overfeed protein.
Exact specifications are weight and breed-specific. Ensure that the ration contains sufficient fibre to maintain rumen function and that there is clean fresh feed in front of the Bulls for 22 to 23 hours per day.
Ideally, fresh feed should be provided every day to encourage intakes.
The source of forage used to finish dairy bulls needs to be top quality. Low-quality forages have no role in getting the final cover on bulls.
Good quality forage can significantly reduce overall finishing costs and can also provide an essential source of structural fibre. Good quality maize silage, wholecrop cereals and beet provide excellent forage energy sources for bulls, in conjunction with a balanced concentrate.
Unfortunately, very few grass silages produced each year on Irish beef farms are suitable for an intensive finishing diet. Planning should start now for bulls to be finished in 2024 when making silage and cropping decisions this spring.
Ad-lib feeding of concentrates may be the best option for black and white cull finishers if only average silages are available. Some get confused with the term Ad-lib. It can be described simply - the cattle must have access to meal 24-7. They must also have access to good quality clean straw at all times.
Hay is a poor substitute for straw as it does not promote optimum rumen function depressing intakes and ultimate weight gains in Bulls. Ad-lib finishing of bulls is the most reliable way of getting consistent performance in finishing young bulls. Cereal prices are dropping at present.
The best concentrates for finishing bulls need to include high levels of cereals such as barley, wheat, maize meal and oats. Digestible fibre sources such as soya hulls and beet pulp are useful to maintain rumen function in these intensively fed animals.
Protein, while not required in large amounts for finishing bulls, is required to encourage intake and balance the energy provided for optimum weight gain. Ask your feed supplier for the UFL or ME value of the concentrate you are considering for your Bulls.
A good quality mineral spec is also very important. Most meal providers have a bull Beef ration in their portfolio.
Many finishers will introduce straight maize meal to their current concentrate as a means of achieving the final cover on Bulls over the last 30-40 days.
There is no problem changing concentrates during the finishing period if the transition is managed properly. If the mix is wrong, there is no point in persisting with it and having poor results.
Managing the acidosis risk is very important in intensively fed stock. Observe dung consistency and intakes, while any dietary changes should be gradual.
Water is a critical element to get right when you step up feeding for Bulls. It should be clean and in plentiful supply. If cattle don’t drink, they don’t eat, and if they don’t eat, they don’t thrive.
Make sure that your cattle have enough space in the shed to achieve optimum performance. They must all be able to lie down and get to their feed without having to walk all over others.
- Is there adequate ventilation as we head into warmer weather?
- What surface are bulls on? Is it comfortable enough for high-performing stock?
