Description
Suckler beef faces growing pressure to cut its carbon footprint, and the herd’s performance is one of the biggest levers available
The talk focuses on the areas where vets can make the biggest difference: fertility, heifer rearing, disease control, genetics and nutrition. It covers how getting more calves reared per cow, calving heifers at 2 years old and finishing cattle sooner all reduce emissions while improving herd efficiency. It also looks at the role of herd health planning in cutting losses from diseases such as BVD, Johne’s, pneumonia and parasites. Genetics and breeding decisions are discussed, along with the potential and limits of feed additives such as methane inhibitors.
The key message is that a more productive, healthier herd is also a lower carbon herd. Attendees will come away with practical ideas they can apply on farm or discuss with their clients.
Learning Objectives
- Explain how improving herd fertility, including calving percentage, compact calving and the number of calves reared per cow, lowers the carbon footprint per kg of beef produced.
- Describe the nutrition and growth targets heifers need to calve at 2 years old instead of 3, and how this reduces the emissions from carrying unproductive replacement stock.
- Identify the main diseases that cause calf losses, poor fertility and slow growth, such as BVD, Johne’s, scours, pneumonia and parasites. Explain how herd health planning and disease control lower emissions by reducing wasted animals and days to slaughter.
- Assess how genetics and breeding decisions, including cow size, maternal traits and terminal sire selection, affect feed conversion, growth rate and the overall carbon footprint of the herd.
- Outline how finishing nutrition can bring down age at slaughter to 18 months or less, and understand the possible role and limitations of feed additives such as methane inhibitors (3-NOP).
