Creating a more productive suckler herd

Farm vet and pedigree Aberdeen-Angus breeder, Hugh Thomson, believes too many farmers are chasing the higher prices offered by Continental-type calves in the store ring – at the expense of cow health, calf survivability and ultimately profit margin – rather than choosing an easier-calving native breed.

“As a vet, I often see farmers having to constantly monitor their Continental breed cows for three or four months at calving time,” he says. “Although they’ll get calves on the ground, which will go on to sell well in the store ring and make slightly more per head than some of the native breeds, many of the calves won’t have made it at the beginning or some will have needed to come out by c-section.”

Previous work done by SAC Consulting showed that many calves that had come through the post-mortem lab, which had died in the first 14 days of life, had fractured ribs and injuries that resulted in them dying quickly due to a traumatic birth and failure of passive transfer.

To tackle this, he believes selecting animals for calving ease will not only make a farmer’s life easier, but also ensure the long-term health, welfare and productivity of the herd.

“We know cows that have had an assisted calving tend to take longer to conceive, so your calving interval is delayed, while calves are left trailing behind those born at the start of the calving season.”

Hugh adds: “When you factor in that later-born calves can be 60–70kg lighter at weaning – based on a daily liveweight gain of 1.2–1.4kg – that weight difference alone can be worth £100–150 under current market conditions.

“There’s obviously a financial implication to this later calving, but there’s also an increased likelihood of premature culling for that cow as she moves further towards the end of the breeding period and gets limited opportunities with the bull.”

He recommends selecting native breeds which tend to be easier calving and paying close attention to Estimated Breeding Values (EBVs) for traits such as calving ease, gestation length and birth weight.

“Once farmers switch to an easier calving breed like Aberdeen-Angus, they have a reduced vet spend on intervention and they end up with more calves to sell,” he concludes. “It’s not all about the weight or headline price of each calf; it’s about how many calves you have to sell from the cows that got in-calf and the overall margin achieved once sold.”

Read more livestock news.