Fantasy Farming League sees seven out of ten make a profit

The Fantasy Farming League, supported by Asda, Anglo Beef Processors (ABP) and Lantra, involved 10 teams of three farmers (two beef and one dairy) each managing a pen of dairy bull calves from 12 weeks of age to finishing.

Critically, each team decided their animals’ feed rations and the winning team was the one showing the most profit at the end of the project.

The calves were kept at the college’s National Beef Training Unit. Update meetings were held each month, when guest speakers covered topics such as nutrition, health and the supply chain. Teams could then alter different aspects of the calves’ management, particularly the composition of feed rations.

Market price

Fixed costs of 51p per day were included. Feed costs were regularly adjusted to what farmers would expect to pay and vet costs were what the animal actually incurred. The cattle were sold to ABP at current market prices.

At the end of the competition seven of the 10 teams made a profit, with the remaining three making a loss. The winning team, The Matadors (Rob Rogers, Malton, and Dave Benson and Jamie Leather, both of York) achieved an average profit of £89.08 per head, selling the cattle at an average age of 14.8 months at an average deadweight of 330.3kg. In a closely fought contest the second placed team was just £2.29 per head behind.

In contrast the team at the bottom of the league table made a loss of £32.06 per head, selling at an average age of 14.4 months, at an average weight of 2.89.8kg deadweight.

The cattle were fed a total mixed ration ad lib, which, in most cases, was mainly cereal. The two teams who included maize silage at a rate of more than 50 per cent finished in sixth and eighth places. Of the 10 pens, six had access to ad-lib barley straw, but the winning team chose to feed 0.5kg of hay per head instead of straw.

Surprised

Winning team captain Rob Rogers said: “It was very close and we were quite surprised to win in the end. I think where we scored was keeping a very close eye on feed costs and looking at alternative feeds, but without compromising the diet quality.

“We were given a new feed price guide each month and altered diets accordingly. We decided there was very little difference in the price of hay and straw, but hay has a feed value of 8 to 9 per cent protein, whereas straw has none, so we chose to include this, meaning we could reduce other protein.

“We also included beans, a good cheap source of protein. This enabled us to reduce the amount of expensive bought in concentrate we were using.

“As calves get older feed conversion becomes less efficient, so when they were about a year old we introduced some maize silage, which, at this stage, didn’t affect growth rates, but made the diet cheaper. The teams who had included maize silage from the beginning didn’t get those early growth rates.”

Ollie White, of the college’s Rural Business Research, who managed the project, said: “Although it’s been hard work it has gone very well and thrown up some interesting facts.

“The farmers all say they have got a lot out of it and, after having listened to some of the speakers, they have gone away and reconsidered how they do things on their own farms.

“On the health side, we bought the calves from Devon, which involved a long journey and they did suffer from coughs and colds for the first two or three months and we lost three calves.

“We also had a problem with bloat, which we discovered was as a result of the ration being mixed too finely. But finding ways of resolving the problem and dealing with the affected animals was a useful exercise.

“I think the key facts, which have emerged, are early growth rate is vital, even if it means using a more expensive diet to start with and then switching to a cheaper ration later. Also buying calves with as good a conformation as possible, so they are capable of achieving that growth.

“Interestingly, three of the top four teams, though not the winners, had the youngest average ages at slaughter, which proves that both the fixed costs and feed costs of keeping them longer, has a big impact on profitability.”

• First prize in the competition was a trip to Canada to visit three farms and watch the Calgary Stampede.

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