FBD €uro-Star €200 competition winner goes to Galway

Niall O’Meara farms full-time on his 70 acre farm just outside the village of Killimor in east Galway. The farm has 50 sucklers and weanlings are sold at 12 months. It a relatively simple no-fuss and no-frills system. That’s one thing I’ve learned down through the years of visiting farms simple is always best. And this farm was simplicity personified.

Niall concentrates on breeding, health and grass, three of the cornerstones of a profitable beef production system. He’s not chasing the red rosettes at the local weanling sales but is focused on selling heavy weanlings for as much as he can in September each year. He has a target of 500kg at 12 months; some might say this is a target that is not easy to hit but Niall has been consistently achieving this for the last few years. He has now built up a relationship with a local finisher and calves are purchased off the farm on an annual basis. As the herd have been growing, heifer calves have been kept, with some surplus heifers sold for breeding. The farm has some impressive performance figures, including a gross margin of €875 in 2017. For the past five years, the farm has been consistently achieving a calving interval of under 370 days and over one calf per cow per year.

AI

The farm has been using 100% AI up until last year when there was an issue with some cows holding to AI. A Simmental bull was purchased this year that was high on both the replacement and terminal indices. “I’m still committed to using AI and we have all our heifers artificially inseminated this year. We never really got to the bottom of our problem last year but cows held first time to the stock bull when he was turned out. Niall concentrates on the replacement index when selecting sires and has used OCD, ISL, Biouvac and SI2469 with good success. He is now going beyond the replacement index and trying to hone in on traits he wants to select, for example milk or carcase weight, and he mixes and matches bulls to certain cows based on what the cow’s traits are. The vasectomised bull is one of the most important cogs in the wheel when it comes to AI on the O’Meara farm.

Niall puts a huge emphasis on calf health and, with calving taking place outdoors, scour and pneumonia incidences are kept to a minimum on the farm. Calves then creep graze in adjacent paddocks to the sheds during the winter months.

Grassland management Niall has made huge progress in recent years in grazing management and has recently made new roadways and increased the number of paddocks on the farm. He also uses pigtails and reels to further subdivide paddocks during peak grazing periods of the year. A leader-follower system is operated, with the weanling bulls grazing ahead of one group of cows and the weanling heifers grazing ahead of the in-calf heifers. The farm is soil-sampled on a regular basis, with much of the farm index 3 for P and K. Lime is spread on a regular basis to maintain soil pH.

Discussion groups and Beef Data and Genomics programme (BDGP)

Niall has been a participant in BDGP from the start and he is also a participant in the Knowledge Transfer Discussion Group Programme. “I think BDGP has got a lot of bad press and I don’t think it deserves it. I can see myself making progress on this farm and what other country would pay you for making progress,” he said. I owe a lot to my discussion group and Teagasc advisers down through the years. I have never gone on a farm visit yet that I haven’t taken something home from. Niall sees milk and fertility as key profit drivers for his herd and will stick with them to make sure he continues to breed functional cows in the future.

Niall O’Meara quotes

“I’m farming because I want to make money but that doesn’t mean I’m a slave to it. I want a certain quality of life as well.”

“I use maternal AI bulls and it gives me options. There is only one route for terminal-sired animals.

I admit I may be taking 10-20cent/kg less for them but our sale weights make up for this.”

“A vasectomised bull is a must for AI, I wouldn’t be able to AI cows without a vasectomised bull.”

“Dairy farmers see the milk in the jar every day, if I don’t weigh my stock, I’m farming blind.

“It’s labour-intensive but it’s worth it.”

“While autumn calving may be a higher-cost system, making high-quality silage can reduce some of these costs.”

Aidan Murray, Teagasc, Chris Daly ICBF and Adam Woods, Irish Farmers Journal

We were especially impressed with Niall’s focus and vision for his farming business. He has a stated goal of getting to 55 cows in the next few years and is committed to suckling and making it profitable on his farm. Niall is using breeding indices as a tool to breed more profitable cows on his farm. He has taken the next step in drilling down into the indices and matching certain cows that are weak on some traits with bulls that are strong on the same traits. All this is completed while keeping a eye on stock to make sure they are functionally correct while maintaining quality. Niall has an excellent handle on growing grass and managing his farm to achieve maximum utilisation from grass. We were also impressed with Niall’s weighing of stock, with calves weighed a number of times during the grazing season and cows weighed once at weaning. Overall, the farm was an excellent example of a typical medium-sized west of Ireland family farm operating at high efficiency and managed at a very high level.