Monitor farm beefs up production

THE advantages of discussing cattle husbandry issues within a group of beef farmers is now bringing about profitable herd management changes in the beef enterprise on a Borders farm.

Brothers Neil and Keith Thomson, who farm 1,600, mainly arable acres, over three units near Kelso, run a suckler herd of 120 predominantly Limousin cross suckler cows.

They have been part of Quality Meat Scotland's monitor farm network since 2007 and the process has yielded numerous benefits to the enterprise.

The Thomsons have been encouraged by the community group of local farmers to tighten their calving period, condition score breeding females and identify and cull the poorer performing cows. In addition, bull calves are now castrated, instead of being finished entire.

Early in their term as monitor farmers, the brothers started to condition score their cows, batching them into three groups – "fit", "moderate" and "thin, along with moderate first calvers" – and fed them accordingly to get them into ideal condition for calving.

"We had serious calving difficulties in 2009, with a bunch of over-fat, bought-in heifer replacements," explained Keith. "This certainly emphasised the importance of having females in the right condition at calving."

"The weaning weight and growth rate information has helped us identify the cows which produce the poorer calves," said Neil. "With OTMS (Over Thirty Month Scheme] finished, there's now a decent price for cull cows, which certainly makes it easier to cull under-performers. Coupled with the removal of the pre-96 cows, this has given us a much younger herd.

"The benefits of the tighter calving definitely out-weigh the negatives. Average weaning weights are much improved and the cattle are more even. And while there's still some variation in size and weight in the young stock, it's far less than before when there were late-born stragglers whose dams we struggled to get back in calf."

The Thomsons have recently joined the Premium Cattle Health Scheme and will be screening cows for Johne's disease. The cows are vaccinated against bovine viral diarrhoea (BVD), with bought-in replacements tested prior to vaccination.

On 13 June, the Thomsons are holding an open day on their farms. All are welcome. There will be a number of working demonstrations of farming activities which will be of interest to farmers, and informative to non-farmers, keen to learn more about how their food is produced.

For more details about the Borders monitor farm, including the dates of forthcoming meetings, please contact facilitator Donald Dunbar.