There are times when I get jealous of my dairy farming friends. I called to one at the weekend who asked how calving was going. He had two artificial insemination (AI) catalogues from the same company which told a lot about the difference in their beef and dairy customers. The dairy catalogue had the same picture of a cow for each bull and detailed production data available.

More often than not, the beef brochure had four to five pictures of an animal’s backside and their show performances. One bull was described as stylish. Style might work in the show ring but not in the rough and tumble world of a bog, hill or mountainside where much of Ireland’s suckler herd is found or in the chill room at a beef processing plant?

For the last number of years, only four out of every five Irish suckler cows rear a calf. Dead calves don’t help attain this nor do they achieve a very high sale price. I’m questioning this because I’ve just come through my first significant batch of AI calves. I also think it will be my last significant batch use of AI.

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My average weights were 40kg and 41kg, with a weight range from 22kg to 55kg, in the previous two calving seasons. The cows bred to AI have averaged 48kg. I’ve had to intervene with three of these mature cows – that’s rare here in recent years.

Since my father began a suckler herd calving heifers in 1989, this is the first section in a mature cow. I can accept an odd one in a heifer but a cow needs to be able to calve on her own and preferably with a small get up-and-go calf. It was my call but the legs were huge and with limited space and time available, I wanted a live cow and calf. The sectioned calf turned out to be 60kg.

To his credit, he was able to get up and move around but 60kg is what I’d like a calf to weigh after a few weeks, not at birth. This is the third year of weighing calves at birth. The first calf this year, a bull, weighed 31kg. The two sets of twins born this spring weighed 55kg and 60kg as a pair.

It will be interesting to follow these calves progress to finishing. The AI-bred may make a higher price but will he leave more money? He’s already the bones of €300 in debt compared with his contemporaries and in a low margin enterprise such as beef that’s money you’d rather keep in the herd. Calving is the most important time on this farm. It’s the first step to selling one calf per cow per year. For me, cow functionality wins every time.

I’m not ruling out its use completely as I will use select bulls on a handful of the pedigree cows to ensure different bloodlines. But for farmers with limited time available, such as those calving larger numbers of cows or those working part-time, what use is it? If you enjoy hanging off the back of a calving jack and winning rosettes then stick with it, but I would question the direction that Irish beef breeding has gone and the influence commercial farmers have.