Wesley Browne is Co Monaghan’s representative in the Teagasc/Irish Farmers Journal BETTER farm beef challenge. With the support of his partner Lorna and daughter Elsa, he is farming on 58ha of heavy, drumlin-type land on the outskirts of Monaghan town. The land is heavily fragmented, broken up into a total of four separate blocks.

The primary system on this farm is suckler-to-beef but some progeny are sold live.

The suckler herd is made up of 92 spring-calving continental cows. All male progeny are slaughtered as under-16-month bulls. Female progeny have three routes: they are either retained within the herd as replacements, sold live either in-calf or as potential breeders, or finished on the farm for beef.

On Thursday 4 July, Wesley will host a BETTER farm national open day. Farm walks will take place at 2pm and 5pm on the farm located in Leagh, Co Monaghan, Eircode H18 R921. It is a DAFM Knowledge Transfer-approved beef event. Figure 1 shows the agenda for the day.

Five-star lineup

Without doubt, the most attractive feature of this open day is the five-star suckler herd that will be on show. When you visit the farm and get chatting to Wesley, his enormous passion for suckler breeding shines through. This passion has driven him to assemble one of the country’s best suckler cow herds. Wesley’s suckler herd is in the top 4% in the country on the ICBF replacement index. Figure 2 gives a full breakdown of the development of the herd over the last five years and its ranking compared to the national average.

Continental genetics, primarily Simmental, are the firm foundations of the herd. A mix of Limousin, Angus and more recently Salers genetics are then incorporated to breed replacements that Wesley believes can deliver high performance. Currently, the bulk of the breeding is carried out with three stock bulls but a small amount of AI is being trialled. The current bull team is shown in Table 1.

And in recent years the suckler herd has been living up to its expectations on paper. Looking first to calving performance, last year’s results were very strong. The average calving interval was at 362 days, the calves/cow/year figure was 0.93 and calf mortality before 28 days was very low at 1.2%. Getting live calves on the ground is one thing; getting them to perform is the next step. Looking at the performance of last year’s crop of calves, males had an average daily gain (ADG) of 1.2kg from birth to weaning, while female progeny had an ADG of 1.1kg. In terms of the much talked about ‘cow weaning efficiency’ figure, the average for the herd was 41%.

Bonus

With calf performance on the farm good, the last piece of the puzzle is to look at the farm’s slaughter performance. As mentioned, under-16-month bull beef is the main show in town here. For 2018, 37 bulls averaged 392kg carcase weight between the ages of 13 and 16 months. The group also graded U=3= on average, which means the average price bonus, above base price, was 30c/kg. A smaller number of heifers averaged 323kg carcase and R=3- grading at 24 months.

The suckler genetics on the farm act as an ideal starting point. It is how Wesley manages that will determine their potential. Since joining the BETTER farm beef challenge, grassland management has been hugely important, with a particular focus being placed on three key areas: grazing infrastructure, soil fertility and grass measuring.