Stay up to date with BovINE
sign up to the e-newsletter
BovINEBeef Innovation Network Europe
BovINEDuring the summer of 2021, we have visited several beef farms to make a film about good practices that were chosen in the BovINE network last year. The complete films will be on the Bovine website in autumn 2021.
In June we had a meeting with a group of 12 farmers to discuss the profitability of the year 2020. The farmers are working with Belgian Bleu cows and are finishing the bulls and the cows on the farm. We discussed the gain of weight per day of the bulls and of the cows. The prices of the Belgian Bleu has increased by about 10%, starting from the month of June 2020. The pandemic (local consumption) and the decreased amount of beef cattle are responsible for better prices.
But the higher prices in 2020 were necessary as a reaction to the higher costs of feeding and higher prices of straw. Most of the beef farmers know the selling prices very well but have less sight of the cost of the beef production.
Benchmarking figures with your colleagues give you a lot of information about the possibilities of your own farm.
More information : Boerenbond : Magazine Boer en Tuinder n° 17 -29 april 2021 -pg. 25+26. www.boerenbond.be
In July of 2021, we made a film about the importance of claw care on beef farms. A lot of information can be found about dairy farms, but a lot of complications are the same on dairy farms and beef farms. We filmed a demonstration with a heat camera to detect problems in an early stadium. Lameness with bulls, heifers and cows have a great influence on the gain of weight per day and on the profitability of the farm.
A vet demonstrated how to solve the most common problems. The scoring of the mobility of the individual animal gives you a good idea about the health of the animal. On the farm, every animal that was treated could be fixed very efficiently in a box. The box was constructed with a weighting system, so the weight of every animal in the box could be registered.
More information can be found on the website: http://www.koesensor.be/op-weg-naar-een-efficientere-klauwverzorging-op-melkveebedrijven-via-het-project-clawcare/
In Belgium, nearly no one can measure the weight of the animals automatically. In the experimental farm of Dumoulin (Arvesta) in Ath, the older bulls are indeed weighted daily with an automatic system. On the farm, 250 bulls are fattened from 250 to 650 kg. There is a collaboration with AWE, a centre that follows the offspring of the different Belgian Blue bulls.
We made a film of the working progress on the farm. The weighting system allows that also the heavy bulls in the finishing period can be weighted carefully and easily. The feed consumption becomes higher when the weight of the bull is higher and the daily growth becomes lower. So it is important to know the optimal weight is of the bull for slaughter.
sign up to the e-newsletter
© BovINE, all rights reserved unless stated otherwise.
Please address all mail to:
FAO: Maeve Henchion
The BovINE Project
Teagasc Ashtown Food Research Centre
Dublin 15
D15 KN3K
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 rural
renaissance programme | Project No: 862590 under call H2020-RUR-2019-15