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My farm
We farm 34ha just outside Kilmoganny in Co Kilkenny. Land type would be good. I work part-time and my wife works full-time so we have a busy house juggling everything but I really enjoy it.
Animals
We keep 44 suckler cows. I’m not tied to a specific breed and if the cow does a job for me she will stay irrespective of breed. We generally use Limousin on heifers. We sell the progeny as stores in April and July and find this works well for our system. We use Simmental, Limousin and Shorthorn AI and we run a Charolais bull to mop up at the end of the breeding season.
BDGP
We joined BDGP in 2015 and find that it has focused us on breeding more functional cattle on our farm. I get great pride in breeding good stock and it’s great to add some science to that and see yourself making progress.
Future plans
I’d like to go up to 50 cows. I need to be conscious of my job and family life so everything is a balance. I am confident that if I can do a good job I can make money from my farm while constantly improving things for the next generation.
Quotable quote:
“I’m sick of people comparing beef farming to dairy farming in terms of income potential. There is no comparison and I’m happy to be the best I can at suckling. Beef farming fits in well with our family and allows me work part-time off the farm.”
Breeding key performance indicators
Herd replacement index: €99.
Heifer replacement index: €113.
Calves per cow per year: 0.97.
Calving interval: 367 days.
BDGP: Yes.
Regular weighing: Yes.
KT group: Yes.
My farm
I farm part-time in partnership with my father Noel. I work full-time as a technical support adviser with Gain animal nutrition so the simpler I keep our farming system the better. We farm 97 acres split across two blocks. The land is fairly typical of Offaly land with some esker-type hills running into more peaty land.
Animals
We keep 50 suckler cows and operate a spring-calving suckler herd calving in February and March. We have quite a young herd, with mostly second and third calvers. We started out with a first-cross Limousin and Simmental and we are moving now to second- and third-cross replacements. We finish the bulls at under 16 months and sell our excess heifers as breeding heifers. We also rear 40 dairy x calves annually.
Sires
We have moved to 100% AI this year and we are using OKH,ZAG,FSZ,GWO, Cavelands Jolly and Highfield Odhran. With working away from the farm, ease of calving is very important to me. We are generally using high replacement index sires to breed as many replacements as we can.
BDGP
We are in BDGP and find it’s an easy scheme to comply with in our system. I am finding that our best cows are coming up with the highest indexes. I am going to use some traditional early maturing bulls on some of the continental cows this year to focus a little on eating quality. I think this could be a trait that may become important in the future.
Quotable quote
“The vasectomised bulls are the secret to successful AI. We wouldn’t be able to AI if we didn’t have them. There’s only so much checking a lad on two legs can do, the lad on four legs can check a lot more.”
Breeding Key Performance Indicators
Herd replacement index: €110.
Heifer replacement index: €118.
Calves per cow per year: 1.03.
Calving interval: 355 days.
BDGP: Yes.
Regular weighing: Yes.
KT group: Yes.
My farm
I am farming 55 suckler cows with 50 sheep along the coast in south Wexford. I also buy in around 30 Angus-cross dairy calves to rear. I’m full-time farming, while my parents run a menswear shop in Wexford town. There are very few, if any, full-time farmers in the parish under 30 apart from myself.
System
Traditionally, the system involved finishing steers at around 30 months of age off grass. Since then, the slaughter age of the steers has gone down gradually to 22 to 24 months and these are being slaughtered out of the shed to allow for suckler cow numbers to increase. More recently, I have started finishing bulls and this year I didn’t castrate the weanlings. I had already been buying in bulls and finishing them, which has worked very well.
AI
I’m 100% AI and I do it all myself. To get cows cycling, I like to break the maternal bond between the cow and the calf as quickly as possible. This involves grazing cows and calves in separate fields during the spring. Calves will usually lie in a field near the yard while their mothers will be turned further down the roadway to graze. It also means it’s quite easy to get cows back up to the yard for AI when I need to. Regular monitoring is key to picking up cows in heat.
Cow type
There would have been a lot of dairy-cross cows originally, which means there is lots of milking ability in the herd. I’m not bringing in as much dairy genetics now though. I’m very fond of a Simmental-cross cow and I’d also breed some Limousin heifers too.
Quotable quote
Breeding up a herd of cows is a lifetime’s work. There are so many different cow types and traits to consider. I suppose, every farmer looks at the best cow in the herd and the goal is to breed an entire herd as good as her.
Breeding Key Performance Indicators
Herd replacement index: €110.
Heifer replacement index: €114.
Calves per cow per year: 0.95.
Calving interval: 375.
BDGP: Yes.
Regular Weighing: Yes.
KT Group: Yes.
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