At 81 years of age, David Acheson has more experience of rearing cattle than most. After milking cows his entire life, the decision was taken back in 2022 to cease milk production, and David now focuses his attention on finishing around 250 cattle each year on his farm outside Markethill, in the heart of County Armagh. But his attention to detail, that saw him run a successful dairy business for many years, has continued with the move into beef, where David says that optimizing animal health and nutrition are the keys to driving performance and profit. David sources steers and heifers, of all breeds, through the local livestock market at around 400kg live weight. The cattle are treated for worms and fluke and prior to housing they will receive a pneumonia vaccine. During the summer months, cattle will graze for a period of time before being housed for finishing, where high quality grass silage is fed along with up to 8kg/day of a tailored beef finishing blend from Thompsons. David’s current blend is a 12% protein, maize and barley-based ration, designed to balance his grass silage, ensuring cattle reach their performance potential while achieving optimum finish at a 360-380kg carcass weight. The blend also includes Thompsons Beef Performance Pak, which is proven to help support rumen function and drive performance on high cereal rations.
“Over the years I have tried different blends, but Thompsons are hard to beat,“says David, who is a lifelong Thompson customer. And with support from son Craig, alongside his own business, and with valuable help from 12-year-old grandson Archie, making three generations of the Acheson family working together on the farm. David is keen to ensure that performance and efficient feed conversion remain at the heart of the family business.
Beef Results that Pak a Punch
Over the past 18 months, there has been a welcome and significant increase in the prices paid for quality finished cattle, across Northern Ireland. In spite of this, increasing costs, and in particular, the increased costs of purchasing replacement younger cattle, continues to determine that the highest levels of animal performance are still crucial to ensuring animals leave a margin after the finishing period. Thompsons range of beef finisher diets are formulated to maximise DLWG efficiently. Manufactured using quality raw materials, these balanced rations provide high energy, high cereal inclusions ensuring that cattle meet their potential and maximise LWG over the course of the final finishing period. Feeding energy dense, high cereal rations promote higher intakes, improve daily live weight gain and feed conversion efficiency, and help achieve the correct level of fat cover in beef cattle. However, at higher feed rates, these energy dense, higher starch rations can also lead to problems with rumen acidosis, resulting in significant performance losses if not managed correctly. To help ensure rumen function is maintained at these high feed rates, Thompsons’ Beef Performance Pak, incorporating Lallemand’s Levucell SC10ME live yeast, is included both in selected Thompsons’ beef finisher compounds and across the range of Thompsons’ beef blends.
Developed by the Thompsons’ Technical Team, this Beef Pak is proven to deliver just that – extra performance. Utilizing various technologies, including Levucell SC live yeast, it is designed to support rumen function and the rumen environment when challenged with highly fermentable diets. By helping to stabilize rumen pH and maintain an optimal environment for rumen microbes to work efficiently, the Beef Performance Pak increases digestibility and improves energy utilization from the ration, resulting in superior performance and greater feed efficiency.
On-farm trials carried out by Thompsons comparing their Beef Performance Pak against the industry standard rumen buffer Sodium Bi-Carbonate, have shown that, over a 93-day finishing period where both groups were fed the same basal diet, Thompsons’ Beef Pak delivered an extra 0.21 kg/day of daily live weight gain compared to the sodium bi-carbonate fed cattle and 10.7kg additional carcass weight. At current beef prices, this represents a very significant 15:1 return on investment.
High energy, high cereal diets are an integral component of high-performance beef finishing rations however being ruminants means maintaining a healthy rumen environment is essential in ensuring the animal can capture the maximum nutrients from the diet; driving the extra performance and live weight gain. Thompsons’ Beef Performance Pak is a well proven and integral component of the Thompsons’ beef ranges in achieving just this.
For further information on Thompsons’ range of beef diets please contact Thompsons on 028 9035 1321.
Posted 26,03,26 by allison.
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