Autumn means weighing time on Tullamore Farm and two weeks ago all cows and calves were weighed. We’ve been weighing cows and calves since the start of the project as a management tool. It’s a great measuring stick to see how cows are performing and also what bulls are clicking with different cows in terms of quality and liveweight gain. The autumn weighing also doubles up for a BEEP-S weighing.
BEEP-S will bring in €7,180 to Tullamore Farm in 2020 and is a much needed support to suckler herds all over the country. Ninety-one cows and calves were weighed on the farm on 25 August 2020. The farm system is currently under-16-month bull beef production and selling heifers as in-calf replacement heifers at 18 to 20 months. This system is currently being looked at.
We are happy with the heifer performance but the bulls have been leaving less money every year since the project started and we are looking at options for the next stage in the life-cycle of the project. Switching to steers or selling as weanlings are options, with the latter needing a shift in the breeding programme to more terminal sires.
This year’s bull calves gained 1.32kg/day since birth, while the heifer calves gained 1.19kg/day since birth
The 2020 200-day weight performance is on target and similar to the 2019 weighing performance. The target is to grow bull calves at 1.3kg/day up to weaning and grow heifer calves at 1.15kg/day up to weaning. This year’s bull calves gained 1.32kg/day since birth, while the heifer calves gained 1.19kg/day since birth.
The target is to have bull calves at 305kg at 200 days and heifer calves at 270kg so both bull and heifer calves are on target.
More heifers were brought into the herd in 2020 and, historically, they have always weaned lighter calves so this could have reduced performance in 2020. Weanlings will be weighed again at housing in November 2020 to determine growth rates.
Tables 1 and 2 outline the performance of the 2020 batch of weanlings compared to the 2019 performance.
Table 3 outlines the different sire performance in 2020. The Dovea Genetics Simmental sire Cloondron Calling (QCD) and the NCBC sire Fiston were the top performers in 2020. The four bulls at the bottom of the list are a little disadvantaged as they were all progeny out of first-calved heifers. SA352 is the Salers stock bull on the farm.
This FSZ (Fiston) sired bull calf weighed 330kg at 180 days old gaining 1.57kg day since birth. He is out of a Limousin cross cow with a replacement index of €181, one of the highest index cows in the herd
Tables 4 and 5 takes a look at the top-performing male and female calves in the herd.
Average replacement index
Eight of the top 10 performing calves in the herd are out of genotyped five-star cows with the average replacement index for the top 10 calves on 200-day weight performance in the herd being €130, while the average replacement index for the bottom 10 performing calves in the herd was €108.
If you express the 200-day calf weight (299kg) as a percentage of cow liveweight (652kg), it’s 47% – about 2% ahead of target.
Autumn means weighing time on Tullamore Farm and two weeks ago all cows and calves were weighed. We’ve been weighing cows and calves since the start of the project as a management tool. It’s a great measuring stick to see how cows are performing and also what bulls are clicking with different cows in terms of quality and liveweight gain. The autumn weighing also doubles up for a BEEP-S weighing.
BEEP-S will bring in €7,180 to Tullamore Farm in 2020 and is a much needed support to suckler herds all over the country. Ninety-one cows and calves were weighed on the farm on 25 August 2020. The farm system is currently under-16-month bull beef production and selling heifers as in-calf replacement heifers at 18 to 20 months. This system is currently being looked at.
We are happy with the heifer performance but the bulls have been leaving less money every year since the project started and we are looking at options for the next stage in the life-cycle of the project. Switching to steers or selling as weanlings are options, with the latter needing a shift in the breeding programme to more terminal sires.
This year’s bull calves gained 1.32kg/day since birth, while the heifer calves gained 1.19kg/day since birth
The 2020 200-day weight performance is on target and similar to the 2019 weighing performance. The target is to grow bull calves at 1.3kg/day up to weaning and grow heifer calves at 1.15kg/day up to weaning. This year’s bull calves gained 1.32kg/day since birth, while the heifer calves gained 1.19kg/day since birth.
The target is to have bull calves at 305kg at 200 days and heifer calves at 270kg so both bull and heifer calves are on target.
More heifers were brought into the herd in 2020 and, historically, they have always weaned lighter calves so this could have reduced performance in 2020. Weanlings will be weighed again at housing in November 2020 to determine growth rates.
Tables 1 and 2 outline the performance of the 2020 batch of weanlings compared to the 2019 performance.
Table 3 outlines the different sire performance in 2020. The Dovea Genetics Simmental sire Cloondron Calling (QCD) and the NCBC sire Fiston were the top performers in 2020. The four bulls at the bottom of the list are a little disadvantaged as they were all progeny out of first-calved heifers. SA352 is the Salers stock bull on the farm.
This FSZ (Fiston) sired bull calf weighed 330kg at 180 days old gaining 1.57kg day since birth. He is out of a Limousin cross cow with a replacement index of €181, one of the highest index cows in the herd
Tables 4 and 5 takes a look at the top-performing male and female calves in the herd.
Average replacement index
Eight of the top 10 performing calves in the herd are out of genotyped five-star cows with the average replacement index for the top 10 calves on 200-day weight performance in the herd being €130, while the average replacement index for the bottom 10 performing calves in the herd was €108.
If you express the 200-day calf weight (299kg) as a percentage of cow liveweight (652kg), it’s 47% – about 2% ahead of target.
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