Polish farmer grows beef herd from 50 to 160 animals after switching to dry fattening

Jakub Mazur, a farmer in Poland's Greater Poland Voivodeship, has used so-called dry fattening for beef cattle since 2024, and about 160 animals now need roughly one hour of daily work. The case was reported by the Polish agricultural outlet topagrar.pl.

Why the feeding changed

From 2015 the farm fattened cattle in the traditional way, mainly on maize silage and haylage. The amount of bulky feed that could be grown on the available land limited the herd, and the system also demanded a lot of labour. The farm kept about 50 animals, which the farmer says was effectively the maximum allowed by its feed base and buildings.

Beef production began as the farm gradually scaled back pig farming. It covers about 32 hectares, mostly class IV and V soils, and grows rapeseed, maize, wheat, rye and triticale.

The new barn

After seeing the benefits of dry fattening, the farm began building a new barn in September 2024. Work took about a year and a half. The building was first planned at 16 metres but ended up 30 metres long. It has a central feeding table 4 metres wide, pens and 6.5-metre-wide exercise yards. The farmer made the structure and partitions himself, and the cost came to about 750,000 zlotys. About 100 bulls are housed there, while about 60 heifers are kept in a separate shelter. The target is 180–200 animals.

Animals and weight gain

The farm mainly buys weaned calves of 150–300 kg in batches of about 20. Simmentals cost about 5,900 zlotys each, while Limousin and Charolais cost about 8,000 zlotys. Simmentals gain 1.6–1.8 kg a day, Limousin and Charolais 1.8–2.5 kg. Bulls are sold at about 860 kg at 15–18 months. Heifers gain about 1.3 kg a day on average; after roughly 10 months they reached about 680 kg, and some were sold for export to Italy.