Dairy bulls are helping resolve some of the throughput issues facing a Scottish abattoir operator in the wake of cattle numbers in the national suckler herd falling.
A new initiative involving dairy farmers’ co-operative First Milk, animal feed firm Harbro and meat processor Scotbeef has created a market for dairy bull calves, which are still often culled at birth as they are viewed as worthless by dairy farmers.
Hundreds of them are now being finished by number of specialists, including farming entrepreneur Fred Duncan, one of the founders of the former Grampian Country Food Group. Three of the units in his 9,000-acre farming business, Duncan Farms, are being used – Woodhead of Laithers, Shielburn and Muirden, all near Turriff.
The calves are acquired by Scotbeef from First Milk members and initially contract reared by Stuart Reid, of Cauldhame, Stewarton, and Archie Hamilton, of Barrasgate, Cummertrees.
They then move to the contract finishing units at about four months when they are between 150kg-180kg. The aim is to grow them to 520-550kg by 13 months.
Scotbeef is now handling about 50 finished bulls weekly. Most of the beef from them goes to make burgers sold by restaurant chain McDonald’s.
Scotbeef managing director Robbie Galloway said: “It gives us additional throughput for our abattoir at Bridge of Allan at a time when cattle are in short supply and the beef is lean and ideal for the burger market.”
Duncan Farms chief executive Dave Green said the scheme made use of the farm buildings it used to rear pigs in for the Vion Food Group before it exited the north-east.
The straw-bedded bulls, which are kept in batches, are fed on the barley it grows in its extensive arable operation. The farming operation benefits from getting the muck and straw from the cattle to put back on the land to improve soil condition and fertilise it.
“Its cost effective and a contract rearing job. It’s utilising our facilities and hopefully leaving a few pounds at the end of the day,” Mr Green added.
A protocol for rearing the calves from birth to slaughter has been produced by Harbro technical director Willie Thomson, focusing on high health and welfare as well as good performance. There is a special rearing diet, while the finishing feed regime involves mostly home-grown barley with a mineralised protein concentrate. The finishing diet is very similar to the original barley beef formulation developed by the Rowett Research Institute’s Reg Preston decades ago.
The calves are all vaccinated against bovine viral diarrhoea, leptospirosis, infectious bovine rhinotracheitis (IBR) pneumonia and bluetongue. Growth rates are monitored to benchmark performance.
Each of the 800 bulls will eat its way through 2-2.2 tonnes of barley.
Mr Green said: “The system doesn’t require a lot of labour as we top up the feed hoppers three or four times a week with a telescopic loader and bed with a telescopic spread-a-bale system which means no one is required to go into the pens.”
Daily liveweight gain is about 1.25kg over the 260 day finishing period. The bulls are sent for slaughter as soon as they are ready as feed conversion efficiency drops dramatically after they start laying down fat.
Mr Green added: “You don’t expect Holsteins to hit the top grades but we are really pleased with their performance and the economics should be even better now with the fall in the price of barley.”
First Milk farm services manager Stuart Neish said its supermarket customers were pleased that the scheme meant that the practice of culling bull calves at birth was being phased out.