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"Most of the calves we’ve had this past year have come from Carmarthenshire. We like to source as many as possible from a single farm to reduce the risk of disease. We prefer to visit the dairy farm to pick up and transport the calves ourselves, allowing us to control what comes onto our farm. We’ve found the quality of stock to be excellent, and the travel distance is manageable.

Last year, we raised just shy of 200 calves, buying them in at approximately two weeks old and selling them at around four months, aiming for a weight of 160kg.

We really enjoy working with the Wagyu breed—they’re very docile cattle and easy to handle. When the calves arrive, they are on 5–6 litres of milk a day with ad-lib straw and pellets. They are reduced to once-a-day feeding after about eight weeks and weaned at around ten weeks, depending on weight and hard feed consumption. We weigh them about four times while they’re with us to monitor weight gain and adjust their groups accordingly. After weaning, we cap their feed at 4kg per day and gradually introduce silage alongside straw.

We appreciate the challenges of running this type of beef system—there are many moving parts and people involved in getting the cattle to the finished product, so communication is vital. Our relationship with our reps, Claire and Dafydd, has been brilliant. We’ve always been able to get calves when we need them and move cattle off the farm when required.

We like the calf-rearing system—it requires about an hour at each end of the day, leaving us time for other tasks. With a four-month turnaround per batch, it provides a regular cash flow for the business and makes it easy to calculate profit margins. We also like the price grid, which gives us clarity on what we’ll receive for each weight.

We got on well with Warrendale last year, so this year we’ve made changes to the sheds to increase the number of calves we can handle. We’re also planning to graze some onto strong stores and see how well they perform on our farm."