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Michael McDonald is Kilkenny’s new BETTER beef farmer. The 25-year-old farms a herd of 70 suckler cows in conjunction with his father. He also does some milking in a neighbouring dairy herd and has a small scanning business.
In the coming years, Michael will assume complete control of the farm and is planning to grow the herd to 100 cows.
Up until this year, the calving pattern was split, with 40 autumn- and 30 spring-calvers. Michael plans to move to a 100% autumn-calving herd and has completely replaced the spring herd as of this year.
There will be 100 animals to breed this back-end, including 35 heifers. Micheal currently sells weanlings and wants to continue with this system.
Problems
“If I want weight on spring-born weanlings at sale time in the back-end, I have to calve early and this presents problems from accommodation, soil type and animal health points of view.
"I want to move toward autumn-calving to make things easier at calving time and target a 400kg to 450kg animal selling at €1,000 to €1,100 in mid to late summer.
“I’ll probably squeeze the 10 worst calves and run them as bullocks – finishing them at grass late in the year to help cashflow."
Michael has been using top AI sires for a number of years and has built an exceptional cow herd, with an average replacement index of €84.
Once he reaches his target of 100 cows, he plans to bull almost all of his heifer progeny, choose his desired replacements and sell on the rest in-calf. Given the quality of his herd, there is sure to be big a demand for these females.
Reseed experiment
Michael currently farms 60ha and while is stocking rate is low this year, he has taken the opportunity to carry out some reseeding.
Interestingly, two differing methods have been used on the same block of land.
Listen to Michael and his BETTER farm adviser Tommy Cox discuss the reseeding strategy below.
As well as the mandatory farm finance, grass and farm safety challenges, Michael is partaking in:
The breeding challenge: increase average replacement index by €20 and to have 75% of herd indexed four- or five-star by the end of the BDGP programme.
The soil health challenge: 70% of soils index 3 or greater for P and K by the end of the programme and a soil pH average of 6.3 across the whole farm.
Farm structures and labour challenge: to show that successful family and non-family partnerships can become established businesses which, with planning and structure, can provide a viable future for young farmers.
This will also attempt to quantify labour requirements on participant farms and demonstrate how a productive, streamlined suckler/beef enterprise can provide a worthwhile return on time invested.
Michael McDonald is Kilkenny’s new BETTER beef farmer. The 25-year-old farms a herd of 70 suckler cows in conjunction with his father. He also does some milking in a neighbouring dairy herd and has a small scanning business.
In the coming years, Michael will assume complete control of the farm and is planning to grow the herd to 100 cows.
Up until this year, the calving pattern was split, with 40 autumn- and 30 spring-calvers. Michael plans to move to a 100% autumn-calving herd and has completely replaced the spring herd as of this year.
There will be 100 animals to breed this back-end, including 35 heifers. Micheal currently sells weanlings and wants to continue with this system.
Problems
“If I want weight on spring-born weanlings at sale time in the back-end, I have to calve early and this presents problems from accommodation, soil type and animal health points of view.
"I want to move toward autumn-calving to make things easier at calving time and target a 400kg to 450kg animal selling at €1,000 to €1,100 in mid to late summer.
“I’ll probably squeeze the 10 worst calves and run them as bullocks – finishing them at grass late in the year to help cashflow."
Michael has been using top AI sires for a number of years and has built an exceptional cow herd, with an average replacement index of €84.
Once he reaches his target of 100 cows, he plans to bull almost all of his heifer progeny, choose his desired replacements and sell on the rest in-calf. Given the quality of his herd, there is sure to be big a demand for these females.
Reseed experiment
Michael currently farms 60ha and while is stocking rate is low this year, he has taken the opportunity to carry out some reseeding.
Interestingly, two differing methods have been used on the same block of land.
Listen to Michael and his BETTER farm adviser Tommy Cox discuss the reseeding strategy below.
As well as the mandatory farm finance, grass and farm safety challenges, Michael is partaking in:
The breeding challenge: increase average replacement index by €20 and to have 75% of herd indexed four- or five-star by the end of the BDGP programme.
The soil health challenge: 70% of soils index 3 or greater for P and K by the end of the programme and a soil pH average of 6.3 across the whole farm.
Farm structures and labour challenge: to show that successful family and non-family partnerships can become established businesses which, with planning and structure, can provide a viable future for young farmers.
This will also attempt to quantify labour requirements on participant farms and demonstrate how a productive, streamlined suckler/beef enterprise can provide a worthwhile return on time invested.
Trevor Boland is running a tight ship with his 50-cow part time suckler herd, with cow fertility, milk and high DMD silage the major building blocks in this success.
The Teagasc director Frank O’Mara says the advisory body is progressing a more coordinated research approach for uplands areas along with including the topic in its education programme.
Methane economic breeding values were launched in 2023 and star ratings for methane will be introduced to the sheep breeding programme in 2024.
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