Weight gains on kale ‘acceptable’

That was the finding of a study by Jimmy Hyslop from the Scottish Agricultural College, which set out to determine the liveweight changes in weaned spring-born suckled calf steers grazing kale and to assess the dirtiness of steers’ hides at the end of the kale-grazing period.

“Under appropriate field conditions, we saw daily liveweight gains of 0.37kg to 0.44kg for the kale-based systems. The daily liveweight gain of the control group, which was housed and fed a wholecrop and cereal-based concentrate ration, was 0.6kg,” he said.

“The kale-based system gains were significantly lower, but they were acceptable,” he added.

Since the de-coupling of CAP subsidies from actual animal production, lowering the costs of finishing cattle production systems is one of the key challenges facing the beef industry.

“One of the largest costs associated with finished cattle production from spring-born suckled calves is the cost of over-wintering the weaned steer calf,” said Dr Hyslop.

His trial, which set out to evaluate lower-cost kale grazing systems, involved a total of 45 spring-born suckled calf steers, of mixed breed types, that were allocated one of three winter feeding groups: kale grazing and straw; kale grazing and silage; and ad-lib whole crop cereal silage and 2kg/head/day of a cereal based concentrate.