Jacob Barker set out to improve his bull beef finishing unit’s feed efficiency and daily liveweight gain (DLWG) by up to 0.2kg/day and cut days to slaughter by up to three weeks while reducing costs, and he’s succeeded by making one significant change to the diet.
Mr Barker has embraced alkasystems technology by introducing alkaline cereal-based products that include Home n’ Dry; they each have a high protein content and analyse pH8.5, a level that is having a buffering effect on the rumen which in turn improves intakes, digestion and overall efficiency.
“We wean the calves at eight to 10 months, split into groups, according to weight and sex, house and introduce them to the intensive finishing diet,” explains Mr Barker who works for Agricultural Central Trading and also back home alongside his Dad to manage a 70 to 100 cow Limousin and British Blue single suckler herd together with up to 50 bought in stores based in south Shropshire.
“We’ve been able to improve the bulls’ DLWG closer to 1.6kg/day, up by a significant average 0.2kg/day since we’ve replaced a rolled barley and 17% protein concentrate home mix with ad lib Alkagrain30 and biscuit meal. That performance improvement has enabled us to reduce days to slaughter by two to three weeks and at a reduced diet cost.
Alkagrain30 and biscuit meal. That performance improvement has enabled us to reduce days to slaughter by two to three weeks and at a reduced diet cost.
“Working closely with ACT and Home n’ Dry we’ve been able to improve performance, ease of feeding and reduce feed costs. Nowadays, by 12 to 13 months of age, just over 60% of the bulls are reaching 700kg target weight, up from 45%, killing out at 390-420kg and grading comfortably at 2+ with an odd few 2-.
“We leave the heifers a little longer on a TMR, comprising silage with barley and AlkaProStar each fed at 2kg/day. Since we’ve replaced a protein pellet in the TMR with AlkaProStar we’ve noticed the straw bed has become noticeably drier and the muck firmer. After a certain weight, we introduce the heifers to ad lib Alkagrain30 supplemented with a small amounts of biscuit meal. The majority are butcher grade sold liveweight at 600-650kg and an average 15-17 months.”
Mr Barker has also introduced Alkagrain150 to the dry cow TMR diet. “We wanted to provide a bit more energy to improve for colostrum quality, as well as enhancing grass silage that’s analysed with a low protein content. Overall, we think it’s had a positive impact, and they seem more content – they appear to be happily ruminating. In fact, both the cows and heifers are staying cleaner consequently there’s less risk of health issues, and we’ve been able to save on straw as well as the time it takes to bed down.”
For further help and advice regarding Home n’ Dry, please call the Alkaline on +44(0)1200 613118