Our Compass Farm Journey – Gary Allis, Furzehill Farm
In 2009 I had a 650 acre arable farm with 300 head of cattle; wheat was cheap and I was
looking for a means to generate more profit but needed more cattle to justify developing
and investing in a beef business. To have a beef enterprise appeared logical, I had plenty of
straw, manure to put back on the land and labour that, outside the frenetic harvesting,
baling and drilling season, was being underutilised. I decided to expand and by early 2009
reached 500 head of cattle but I was still an arable farmer with a beef enterprise. This was
after promising my wife that she would not notice the 25 cattle I bought initially and housed
at the top of the yard and this would be the limit! I must recognise the contribution my wife
has made to this business not least recording methodically to an Excel spreadsheet of all
cattle we have ever bought that has proved invaluable – but also agreeing to more than 25!
I acknowledged the value of moist feeds and was attracted to what was the new wheat
based CTraffordgold introduced by Stuart Duff, our local KW Sales Specialist. It appeared
nonsensical to grow maize silage as I have such good wheat growing land. Clearly the beef
needed more dedicated time and focus.
In April 2009, interestingly April fool’s day, Michael Marsden accompanied by Stuart, asked
me if I wished to be one of their Compass Farms. They went through the programme in great
deal and like all farmers I was looking for the catch! But there wasn’t any – I could see that
the KW objective was the same as mine – to improve the profitability of our beef enterprise.
We became one the 5 Compass Farms that are designed to demonstrate that working with
KW and their feed products we could improve our profitability. As you go around my farm
today you will see how this has been achieved.
It is fair to say that I was a professional arable farmer, understanding in detail about; seed
bed preparation, pesticide and herbicide spray application, rates, conditions, health and
safety, etc, but as for an understanding of beef feeding well….
The Compass journey has taught me a lot about beef cattle feeding and number one is that
price is not everything – feed them cheaply and they will not realise their potential! Just in
case you are suspecting KW sell me the feeds cheaper – they don’t so perhaps there was a
catch!
I have never understood if one has good strong land why grow maize silage when you can
grow a good crop of wheat – it is the opportunity cost that matters. Plus there is more to beef
feeds than just their energy and starch content. For example, when we use maize meal here,
we notice when we switch to Sweet Starch, a confectionery co-product of similar energy,
the intake goes up presumably because it is sweeter. It is now very clear that we have to
maximise dry matter intake especially at an early age when FCR is so much better.
KW also encouraged me to feed a high protein quality grower ration to 5 to 6 months – it
seemed logical that as we are producing primarily bulls that have the potential to lay down
protein and grow rapidly we need to feed this protein. This has been proven time and again
and I believe central to the improvements we have seen. However, this is not the
conventional understanding – perhaps this is why the KW approach is different?
After this improvement we started to appreciate the benefits of a rigorous vaccination
program. Michael Marsden focussed my mind by asking if we vaccinated our children to
give them a good start in life by increasing the likelihood that they would grow to be healthy
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and strong adults. Clearly I said yes, to which he replied, “so why not your cattle!” Lianne
Young will talk more scientifically about this during the farm walk.
Things started to improve and I appreciated quickly that if I was to expand and make this
unit into a serious contributor to the bottom line I needed a dedicated beef unit manager. In
November 2009 Andrew joined from LKL and we integrated our labour resource with the
arable business with Andrew being full time on the beef unit. I now worry when Andrew goes
on holiday!
During this period we became uncomfortable about the balance of price for the finished
animal and the number of grade queries with our buyer. Coincidently, Adam Buitelaar
approached us, after we were recommended as a black and white bull beef producer he
should talk to. His offer appeared agreeable so cautiously we sent a batch of 5, then
another, and now, as the relationship progressed positively, we send 15 to 20 per week.
Adam will talk more about his market during the farm walk.
To continue the expansion and increase the cattle per man ratio I appreciate the need to
invest in cattle handling and monitoring facilities and during today you will see the latest
development in this area. We believe we can weigh 100 cattle per hour safely with 2 men.
This will provide us the opportunity to: 
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monitor growth rates at all stages
assess the impact of any changes we make
know the actual liveweight when they reach the target slaughter age of 11 to
12 months
the actual killing out percentage
know when to move those cattle on that have slowed down and are
beginning to burn a hole in our pockets.
The data that you will see today shows that we have reduced the days to slaughter by ~ 180
days while only losing 50kg of carcase weight and to us that is a big improvement to our
bottom line.
In the future we intend to continue to; focus on what drives cost effective performance, not
accept that cheapest is best, produce what our customer needs and exploit the new feed
opportunities that are compatible with our system - the 70 tonne liquid container in the yard
is the start of such an opportunity using liquids from the bio-fuel industries.
Today we have 800 head of cattle and feel like beef producers with a comparable arable
enterprise – how things change!
We hope you enjoy your day.
0845 355 9935
www.kwalternativefeeds.co.uk