Farmer Focus: A comparison of different breeds of male calves
Matthew Brownlee ©Steffan Hill All our male bred calves have now been housed and were weighed on 20 November – the overall average weight turned out to be 378kg.
It was interesting to compare the average weights of the different breeds.
We had 41 bull calves – nine Stabilisers, 13 Herefords and 19 Charolais.
The Stabilisers produced the highest average weight at 386kg, followed by the Charolais at 370kg and the Herefords at 367kg.
The heaviest calf was a Stabiliser at 472kg, closely followed by a Hereford at 446kg.
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It is worth noting all the Stabiliser calves and most of the Hereford calves were bred from heifers, whereas all the Charolais calves were bred from cows.
Although there were only nine Stabiliser calves, their weights and conformation were still very impressive.
With 35 heifers going to the Stabiliser bull this year, we now look forward happily – after initial concern when we changed from our all-Charolais stock bull policy.
See more: Farmer Focus: Breeding season has gone very well
Despite being the lightest, the Hereford calves are still very pleasing.
Before having the calves on the ground, I would have expected the Charolais calves to be the heaviest and there to be very little difference between the Hereford and Stabiliser calves.
They are batched in sizes and will all be fed the same diet, so it will be interesting to see how the daily liveweight gain varies across the breeds between now and finishing – and ultimately the difference in carcass weights.
With the Christmas kill now under way and no uplift in beef prices in Northern Ireland, it is again looking like another long winter for the beef finisher.
With factories maintaining poor beef sales, let’s all have sirloin roast instead of turkey this Christmas!
Matthew Brownlee farms 121ha alongside his father in County Armagh, Northern Ireland. They run 100 Limousin cross suckler cows and buy in store cattle to finish.