Beef Expo 2011 Farm Tours To Be Truly Inspirational

UK - The farm tours for Beef Expo 2011, organised by the National Beef Association and with Lloyds TSB as major sponsors, will be a chance for beef farmers, students, young farmers and everyone connected with the industry to be truly inspired about the positive future the UK beef industry has ahead of it.

23 March 2011

2 minute read

Europe

Taking place on Wednesday 25 May, ahead of this year’s Beef Expo at Newark Showground, Nottinghamshire, on Thursday 26 May, the tours will visit two leading beef units each with their own unique story to tell.

Lifting the lid on his large-scale commercial finishing enterprise will be North Muskham-based farmer James Burnett.

Mr Burnett, who farms in partnership with his brother John, finishes more than 5000 head of cattle a year in an intensive system with rations based on vegetable by-products sourced from a number of local manufacturers.

These by-products include raw and fat-coated chips, white cabbage and carrots, with home-grown maize silage added to the ration to add fibre. This feed, totalling 90t a day, is mixed on-farm using a loader bucket, with feed costs currently running at just £4/head a week.

Cattle for the unit are sourced by four buyers who operate at livestock markets throughout England and Wales, sourcing 500-600kg cattle which are then finished in an average of 100 days before being sold.

Most cattle from the farm are sold direct to Morrisons through their abattoir, Woodhead Bros, Spalding, with a small number also sold through Newark Livestock Market.

The second of the two farms to be visited by delegates is the pedigree Limousin operation of Roger, Susan, James and Duncan Hazard, at Grantham, Lincolnshire.

The Hazards’ 150-cow Mereside Limousin herd is one of the largest pedigree beef herds in the UK and was established in 1983.

Having gradually expanded since then, the Mereside herd has firmly cemented itself as one of the most successful in the Eastern region. In the regional club’s herd competition, the herd has won the overall herd area competition, six out of the last eight years entered.

Managed commercially, the herd sells mainly from home, with recent bull sales reaching £9000 and good numbers of pedigree females being sold every year as foundation stock for new herds across the UK.

The herd now uses a broad spectrum of Limousin sires by AI, alongside recent addition, French bull Bolide. With a firm commitment to the Limousin breed the family intends to expand cow numbers to 200 to cope with the growing demand for high quality Limousin sires being seen in the Eastern counties and beyond.