John Elliot
JOHN Elliot, who runs the Rawburn pedigree Aberdeen-Angus herd, along with his family, in the Scottish Borders, explained how the main aim of their business was to breed fuel-efficient profitable cattle.
They calve 400 cows and sell 130 bulls annually, with 85% going to, mainly commercial, beef herds, as well as embryo and semen.
He explained that they had always focused on performance recording, but in recent years the emphasis had been on breeding for feed efficiency.
He said: "About 75% of all costs are feed-related and we knew if we could make inroads into that, we could make savings, as well as achieve environmental benefits.
"Feed efficiency is accurate and easy to measure and has high heritability, but the problem is the cost of the hardware.
"Initially, we looked at the Grow Safe system which was being used in North America, but it was too expensive.
"Instead, in 2019 I travelled to the US at saw numerous top herds, including Nichols Farm in Iowa, where I bought the bull, Nichols Expectation, which went on to have a dramatic impact on our herd.
"Today, eight of the top 10 combined index UK Aberdeen-Angus cattle have him in their pedigree."
Mr Elliot explained that by 2020 they felt they had reached a ceiling with breeding from available EBVs and need to move their programme to the next level and by this time technology had improved and costs reduced.
He said: "We invested £130,000 in a system to measure feed efficiency. It has eight bunks enabling us to trial up to 70 animals.
"Feed is weighed before and after every visit and allocated to an animal and they are weighed every time they drink. Each trial lasts 50 days with 10 days warm-up."
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Trial results
The first results showed a big variation with a 1kg weight gain being achieved from 3.06-5.68kg DM and averaging 4.38kg DM.
Mr Elliott shared data showing that two bulls which started and ended the trial on the same weights showed a £192/head difference in feed costs from weaning to slaughter.
If the more feed-efficient bull transmitted 50% of this saving to its progeny, at £96/calf, it could save a producers £9,600 in feed costs, as well as other benefits, over 100 calves.
Six bulls were also trialed at 12 months old and again ant 15.5 months old and the rankings remained the same, although they did require 1.12kg more DM per 1kg weight gain, demonstrating the efficiency of youth.
Mr Elliot also pointed out there was no visual difference in the more efficient bulls and the same efficiencies were also mirrored with cattle at grass.
He said: "The invisible gains are a feed cost reduction of 25% from the best to average cattle, reduced methane emissions and cattle which produce more output per acre."
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