The new suckler scheme known as the '2025 Beef Welfare Scheme' opened for applications yesterday (Wednesday, August 13).

The scheme is much more straight-forward than schemes like the Suckler Carbon Efficiency Programme (SCEP).

In addition, the Beef Welfare Scheme is a one-year scheme as opposed to the SCEP, which is a five-year scheme.

To avail of the maximum payment of €75/calf up to a maximum of 45 eligible calves, farmers must complete three actions.

The actions and rates of payment are as follows:

Action 1: Meal Feeding (Mandatory Action) €35/eligible calf;
Action 2: Vaccination (Optional Action) €15/eligible calf;
Action 3: Faecal Testing or Forage Testing (Optional Action) €25/calf.

The maximum amount of money that can be drawn down from the scheme is €3,375.

For the meal-feeding action, participants must introduce meal feeding to calves for a period of four weeks pre-weaning and two weeks post-weaning to reduce the stress on calves at weaning time.

If action two (the vaccination option) is selected at application stage, participants must implement a vaccination programme against clostridial diseases and / or calf pneumonia in suckler calves and record details of the vaccination.

If action three, faecal testing or forage testing is selected at application stage, participants must either carry out two faecal tests with a minimum of four weeks between each test for specified parasites and submit for testing or take three forage samples and submit for testing.