How technology fuels profitable feeding on finishing units

Agricultural technology (ag-tech) is becoming increasingly essential to adopt on-farm. Its benefits are multifaceted: It enables higher yields with fewer resources, enhances health and welfare standards, and provides greater transparency throughout the supply chain.

The reluctance to embrace agricultural technology, however, is still relatively strong across the farming sector, with fear, scepticism, and/or a preference for simplicity somewhat outdoing the appeal.

But with time and developments, confidence has grown, abilities have developed, incentives have enticed, and margins have forced the adoption of ag-tech.

According to the Future of Agri-Tech Report 2024, over half of businesses in the UK food industry say adopting new technologies is a key business priority in the next five years. And we should expect a ripple effect to farm level.

Beef production technology areas include:

• Feed production, such as GPS and alternative proteins 

• Feed management, such as consumption monitors and feed bin sensors

• Genetics and breeding, such as genomic analysis and selection 

• Handling and identification, such as herd management apps 

• Health, such as ear tag monitors and machine learning for lameness

Feed is frequently cited as accounting for over half of the total cost in beef production, with prices that can fluctuate rapidly and significantly. Given this, feeding technology stands out as one of the most critical areas of ag-tech to adopt.

For cattle raised on a forage-based diet or a total mixed ration (TMR), feeding technologies like Alltech InTouch offer valuable opportunities to enhance herd health, improve farm efficiency and boost profit margins.

Alltech InTouch is a pioneering digital feed management toolkit that keeps farmers in control of feed conversion efficiency, margin from feed, and all-round farm sustainability. The InTouch toolkit is made up of a control unit, a mobile app, and an online dashboard, all driven and supported by a specialist on-farm and remote team missioned to work with farm teams to improve feeding accuracy and optimise TMR performance.

Alltech InTouch equips farmers with these capabilities:

1. Managing income over feed cost (IOFC) through precision feeding, tracking of feed intakes, management of feed costs, and linking of feed inputs with yield outputs

2. Ensuring precision and consistency in cow feeding through clearly directing the precise loading and feed-out of each ration with correct loading amounts, loading orders and mixing times, no matter who the operator

3. Monitoring and planning feed inventory through monitoring quantities of feed consumed against feed stocks held on-farm; and, depending on the system, automatic alerts when stocks require replenishing

4. Reporting and collaboration through the real-time logging of feeding information and performance data that is remotely accessible to all stakeholders in the form of easy-to-digest graphs and tables

5. Reformulating diets from anywhere, by either the on-farm decision-makers or third-party nutritional advisors, to quickly and easily reflect any changes in intakes and changes in groups (e.g., if stock get pulled out for killing)

At the core of the system is a state-of-the-art control screen that can be hardwired into the weigh cells of any diet feeder. This practical and functional setup provides a clear, real-time display of feed weight as the feeder is being loaded, unlike more basic transmitters that only send data to a tablet in the cab.

Two progressive beef farmers in Lincolnshire who contract-finish for two leading beef suppliers offer an unvarnished review on the Alltech InTouch system after months of putting the technology to the test.

InTouch makes precision feeding achievable

Pictured: Matt Underwood, Farm Manager

Founded over four generations ago, Laughtons of Louth in Lincolnshire contract-finishes up to 3,000 animals annually as part of an integrated program.

The operation is managed daily by Andrew Laughton, National Beef Association board member and recipient of the 2018 Beef Farmer of the Year award, alongside herd manager Matt Underwood.

With five farmhands doing the feeding, the farm required a simple, flexible and infallible way of loading the diet feeder. Incentivised by integrated genetics and customer requirements, the management team decided to ditch their old weigh scales for the more technologically advanced Alltech InTouch system.

The first technical support visit confirmed its benefits but also revealed some technical challenges, which were worked through on the visit.

“InTouch has made precision feeding more achievable. We are now running at a DLWG of 1.2 kg from calf to finish. Before, we had to come into the office to do any diet changes. Now we can do it all in the yard,” Andrew said.

“I always look at the report for accuracy at the interface and feed usage over time,” Matt said. “I like it for how easy it is to set up. It does make feed management a lot quicker.”

“One of my irritations with feeding cattle is that it’s too fast-moving to have set groups,” Andrew said. “We’re always moving cattle — maybe putting new ones in, taking out fat cattle, or splitting out the steers. Feeding per head means that you got to know exactly how many cattle. 

“It sounds very easy, but in practice, it’s not. So, if you’re trying to address individual requirements and then numbers per group on top, accuracy in practice can drift.”

During the visit, the InTouch technical support team established an alternative way of managing ration changes, shifting from a per-head basis to a percentage basis. This means formulating a 1-tonne ration to a set specification, which is regarded as 100%. If a group changes in any way, you can then easily work out a percentage of that set ration to feed to a particular pen. Alltech InTouch was able to accommodate this within days through a flexible approach to how diets can be interpreted, working with on-farm support to tailor this to suit individual farm/cattle group size requirements.

Also on the visit, the controller count speed was modified to accommodate a quicker operator speed, ensuring the controller counter keeps up with the pace of loading.

InTouch enables feeding accuracy

Pictured: Gary Allis

The Allis family have been in the business of producing beef at Furze Farm for 25 years, finishing 4,000–5,000 cattle on a bed-and-breakfast arrangement with Buitelaar every year.

Gary and Charles, the father-and-son duo who run the farm, have accomplished a low-cost but well-balanced diet under the firm belief that profitability is totally dependent on the price of feed and achieving good feed conversion rates. As a testament to their skill and success, they were finalists for Beef Farmer of the Year in 2015.

“Keeping cattle is all about feeding,” Gary said. “Feed conversion is the be-all and end-all. We’re about buying feed right and getting the diet right. Feed can go wrong so fast, so we buy through and never leave ourselves in position where we have to buy feed.

“Carbon is going to be more and more important as we go forward, and it’s about having the right figures. To me, it’s quite simple: The less days something is on the farm, the less it’s polluting.

“We’ve had the KEENAN MechFiber400 diet feeder for four years, doing four mixes a day. It was actually by accident that we got a KEENAN. We have a very high dry matter mix and couldn’t get the straw to mix on our old Shelbourne Reynolds system. We broke down and borrowed an old KEENAN 140 Klassik and couldn’t believe how quick it was. We now feed in an hour, easily. The machine had PACE, which was good, but we put the fourth-generation InTouch controller on to make feeding more accurate. It’ll weigh immediately and stops us putting extra in of the expensive materials like distillers. 

“Diets have to be flexible, and InTouch makes it work. We use mainly by-products, including a moist blend, maize meal, biscuit meal, soya hull and barley. If anything is more expensive, we need to be able to quickly reformulate. Cattle need feed all the time, and the troughs need emptying twice a day – it’s a fine line. Anyone can get on it and follow the plan.

“Charles has a group of growing cattle that we have had from 12-week-old calves that are gaining 1.3 kg of liveweight gain every day on ad-lib feeding. From weaning to finish, we’re working on about 2.5 tonnes of dry matter, which is about 2.3% a day. We’re aiming for 280 deadweight on these. This is because we have ultimate control over their feed and management from a young age, meaning we have a greater influence on their overall performance. The stores in the integrated finishing system require much more feed and are getting around 1.6 kg daily liveweight gain, depending on what comes in and the level of compensatory growth.”

With help from the team and technology behind KEENAN and InTouch, farmers such as Andrew, Matt, Gary and Charles can continue to see exceptional efficiency and profitability moving forward.

Visit the Alltech InTouch page for more information, alternatively, contact your local InTouch specialist.