Historically the Harper Adams University beef unit has been stocked with cattle that have been purchased for trial studies and then finished on the unit to produce beef for the Harper Adams University kitchens. As of July 2022, under the formation of Future Farm, the beef unit has been fully stocked with cattle bred from the dairy unit.
The unit is an intensive finishing system with the capacity to house up to 70 cattle at one time, the cattle supplied to the beef unit are all home-produced from our dairy unit as the cattle are a dairy x beef breed (predominantly a British Blue sire), this reduces the risk of buying in diseases into our beef unit and adheres to the farm biosecurity policy. The beef calves join the unit once they have been weaned from the youngstock unit, usually in batches of five. They go on a transition diet of grass, maize, straw and a protein blend alongside weaner pellets until they have fully transitioned onto the beef Total Mixed Ration (TMR) diet.
Each pen within the beef unit can comfortably accommodate up to 5-7 animals per pen (depending on calf size) through to finishing weights. The same animals will remain in a group as we avoid mixing them to reduce the incidence of stress and possible fighting, also to avoid problems when heifers come in oestrus. We do not keep entire male cattle on site due to the implications of health and safety and the risk they may pose to staff and students, as well as avoiding any unwanted breeding mishaps!
The practice of stocking the beef unit with home-produced beef calves, helps with our mission to reach net zero by 2030 as it allows the farm to produce beef with a low carbon footprint. The unit works closely with the environmental sustainability (ES) Farm Productivity group, the focus has been on improving the production efficiency of the unit by assessing the replacement of concentrates with silages in the diet and the effects of nutrition on the frame growth of cattle. The ES Farm Productivity group are also working on introducing Aberdeen Angus cross cattle into the unit to establish an outdoor finishing system, with the goal of evaluating the carbon footprint of both systems to determine which system has the lowest greenhouse gas emission output. More information on the work of the ES Farm Productivity group can be found on their page.
All our cattle are bred using Artificial Insemination (AI), we can use this practice as several members of staff on the farm are fully trained in AI and the dairy herd fertility figures are very successful. This gives us the flexibility to use specific bulls for commercial and trial work as requested by commercial partners or the academic team. With careful planning we can breed cattle to suit a study, such as Angus x calves for a grazing trial or British Blue x calves for a high protein finishing diet trial.
Some of the building in the beef unit are part of the Home Office licence facilities and as such we can carry out Home Office procedures under ASPA for beef research studies. We also carry out many commercial studies which do not require work to be done under Home Office conditions. There is a cattle handling unit next to the beef unit which can be used to safely weigh and treat cattle when required. Most cattle are weighed on a weekly basis and the data is available for students to view and be used as a farm management tool, as the weights can be easily compared to the animal as all beef cattle have EID tags which is linked to a reader and wand to record data automatically.
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