Bridging the gap: strategies to increase live weight gain and profitability in beef cattle in Indonesia

Indonesia can increase carcase output by increasing individual animal live weight gain, improving feed conversion efficiency and hence offspring output/breeding cow. This needs to use least cost ration formulations and be more profitable than current systems. Bulls growing at higher growth rates will better meet emerging requirements for weight for age, be younger at slaughter with better meat eating quality and will have less methane production/kg meat produced. Current systems have low growth rates under village based systems and even medium scale feedlots use a high proportion of low quality ingredients which compromise live weight gain and feed conversion efficiency. Both systems have difficulty reaching target weights and farmers often feed for least cost (Rp/d) rather than least cost for a target live weight gain or feed conversion efficiency. There are many options to choose from when designing a fattening system for an individual farmer or a region. Maximum live weight gain may not always be the most profitable. A minimum live weight gain for a particular market needs to be identified and the least cost ration for that target live weight gain designed. Simple least cost ration formulators for metabolisable energy (ME) and metabolisable protein (MP) (or at least crude protein (CP) need to be used. Previous ACIAR work has identified ME and MP requirements for Bali and Ongole cattle. Many strategies exist. Tree legume systems, especially those based on leucaena or sesbania, achieve target live weight gains and are often, but not always the cheapest or simplest system to use. On the same principle, grasses and legume forages provide another strategy but the live weight gains may be too low if not cut and fed at a younger stage of plant maturity. By-products such as rice bran, copra meal, palm kernel cake etc, offer other ways to increase growth rates but the quality of these by-products can vary enormously. Cassava and its various by-products have the highest ME value of Indonesian by-products but have low CP. To be able to use these various feed resources effectively farmers need to target higher live weight gains and feed conversion efficiencies than are currently achieved but they must be done under a least cost ration formulation system for required ME and CP. Some examples show these systems can markedly increase profit for smallholders over current systems.