Richard Fortune from Knottown, Castlebridge, Co. Wexford has a story to tell when it comes to his Saler cattle herd. Established 19 years ago with the help of his father Joe and mother Stacia, Richard now runs a herd of 120 pedigree registered Salers cattle overlooking the quays of Wexford looking out upon the river Slaney.

In the Autumn of 1998, the Fortune family bought their first Saler cow and heifer from Ballyhaunis in Mayo. With the first pedigree Salers born under the Knottown prefix in 1999 the family expanded and flourished with the breed from there on.

In 2003, Richard attended his first society trip to France. This trip had a serious part to play in the make up of the herd from there on, as this was the first time Richard imported stock from France. Thereafter, the farm imported some stock every year, with a total of 12 Salers cows now in the herd being of French origin.

Richard, went to the French bull test station sale in 2007 where they bought their first stock bull named Buron.

Buron made a big influence on the herd and to this day, he still has his genes in over thirty Saler cows on the farm. They decided to purchase another bull in 2013, this bull is still walking through the fields of Knottown farm today as one of the herds main stock bulls.

It was too good of an opportunity to miss

After a trip to France with Irish breeders in spring 2015, one bull’s presence, pedigree and exceptional French performance were too good for Richard to leave pass. ‘It was too good of an opportunity to miss,’ Richard said.

This bull was named Brisant and was purchased for €3,000. Although using the bull for AI purposes wasn’t the initial plan for the bull, after it dislocated its shoulder on the farm, the best needed to be made out of an unfortunate situation.

After serving just one cow naturally on the farm, the bull was left incapable of continuing its service to the Fortunes.

As Joe Fortune senior had great experience with AI work, the dynamic farming duo called in Brendan Regan from Roscommon’s Coney Island genetics to analyse their AI possibilities.

Brendan Regan took semen off the injured bull and froze it, however this proved unsuccessful so they decided to synchronise a herd of cows and heifers in September of 2016 and use fresh semen. ‘Back to the way semen was originally dealt with,’ Richard commented.

46 cows and heifers were freshly served with two straws used on cows and one on heifers. As well as this 400 frozen straws were taken and these are in the possession of the Fortunes for future use. The cows and heifers had a 70% conception rate. ‘

This is a very good conception rate of any round of serving and with AI in particular, mentioned Richard. The Fortunes ended up with 19 bull calves and 12 heifers, including two sets of twins. “They were born first on the sixth of June and had a good spread even though they were all served in the one day,” Richard added.

Highlights

Richard comments that one of the family’s biggest highlights was getting a bull into the gene Ireland bull breeder programe, a bull by the name Knottown Michael, KTM. ‘This was one of the highlights of our herd history’.

In 2013, the family won the Maternal Index Award at the RDS Champion of Champions award series. ‘Being nominated for this by ICBF also gave us a great feeling of recognition’ added Richard.

The farm’s ICBF herd average for the replacement index is €185 for the cow herd.

In February last year, the top 20 cows of each pedigree Saler herd for the replacement index at that time was announced and the Fortune family were placed first, second and ninth on the list.

At the moment, the best replacement index on the farm is a massive €268.

Since the replacement index was initiated, the family have had the best index each year for each evaluation bar one occasion. ‘A lot of work is put into recording cattle information and weighing animals at birth, it’s paying off in the indexes.’

Champion

Last year the Fortunes took the overall champion female at the society spring sale, it was sold to Northern Ireland after claiming a price tag of €3,900. Since the family don’t show at summer shows, this was an important title to assure the herd name remains prominent in the Salers scene

People often comment about Salers cattle being temperamental but Richard doesn’t find this at all. Each year Richard puts the farm’s heifers in the headlock barriers for a few times each winter to comb their hair and quieten them down. This technique has led to quieter cattle and quieter calves on the farm.

‘If you’ve quiet mothers, they’ll train the calves to be quiet. The calves learn behaviour from their mothers.’

Society roles

Joe and Richard were members of the society when it was set up in 2002. Joe was a council member for a number of years, while Richard became a member soon after. Joe was chairman of the society for three years in total and this year saw Richard become vice-chairman as Joe stepped down after serving his time.

The society has grown in registration numbers every year, taking a jump in 2017.

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