Ultimately, Nigel’s target is to have 30 cows calving in early spring. Nigel’s herd of cows is relatively young, comprising of mainly third- and fourth-calvers, with a handful of first-cross heifers from the dairy herd also calving down for the first time in 2018.

Breeding this year only lasted for eight weeks and anything not in calf will be culled with a strict emphasis on having a tight calving pattern.

Nigel has always bred for milk and is both open and eager to breed more milk into his fertile herd. He hopes to breed even more of his own replacements.

AI is used for the first six weeks of breeding and a Charolais bull mops up the remainder.

Breeding this year only lasted for eight weeks and anything not in calf will be culled, with a strict emphasis on having a tight calving pattern. AI gives Nigel greater flexibility when selecting specific bulls to match certain cows. The calibre of stock on the holding is top class.

Since joining the programme, Nigel has gradually increased numbers through buying in replacements and breeding heifers from within the herd. In future, Nigel wants to breed his own replacements, which should in turn reduce the bio-security risks of bringing disease into the herd. All bulls used on the farm must not only have a high replacement value on the €uro-Star index, but must also be positive for milk.

Nigel is beginning to cull the heavier unproductive cows in the herd. Nigel’s ideal cow would weigh around 630kg to 650kg and would wean a calf of greater than 300kg. To achieve such a feat, the dam must have milk. In terms of breed, Nigel has no preference, but his most efficient cows would be Limousin-cross-Simmental.

Table 1 shows the maternal AI sires used for breeding heifers on Nigel’s farm. All maternal sires are selected on calving difficulty, milk and gestation length.

Nigel also uses more terminal sires on mature cows. When looking for a terminal sire, Nigel likes to focus on carcase weight, calving difficulty and gestation length, as shown in Table 2.

“At the end of the day, the main thing is to get a live calf on the ground, so calving difficulty is something I always adhere to,” said Nigel. Heifers get nothing over difficulty 4.5% and second-calvers, depending on size, I like to give easy calving sires to also.”

Nigel also keeps a handful of pedigree Charolais cows and is eager to continue to do so. He admits you do need “a bit of luck” with the pedigrees, but, overall, he has no problem in selling the bulls, as he resides in a big suckler catchment.

Calving interval of 364 days

Every suckler cow should essentially have one calf per year. This sounds simple, but, nationally, the average calving interval is at 400 days.

Nigel’s calving report makes for very good reading. His calving interval is on the money at 364 days, with mortality at 0% for the second consecutive year.

The fact that Nigel works off-farm full-time, his calving spread needs to be short, as he cannot afford to be calving cows over a period of 12 weeks.

Operating AI while also working full-time off-farm is no mean feat and is something all suckler farmers should aspire to, given the quality of progeny that can be bred. Nigel admits the vasectomised bull takes the hard work out of it in terms of picking-up cows in heat.

This year, Nigel trialled the new Moo-call heat detection collar. The collar was put on the vasectomised bull and all cows were given an EID tag, which, when worked together, picked up activity.

If cows are indoors and ground is too wet to graze, Nigel uses his calving cameras in sheds to identify cows in standing heat. Prior to the breeding season commencing, Nigel also notes the dates when females are bulling and keeps a record for future references. Nigel’s six-week spring-calving rate was 73% for 2018.