John Pringle’s mixed suckler-to-beef and sheep farm in Aughrim, Co Wicklow, was the venue for the final Beef Health Check event organised jointly by Teagasc, Animal Health Ireland and the meat industry (Slaney Foods supporting the Wicklow event). While the events focused primarily on beef, the fact that John runs a 250-ewe flock alongside the 48-cow suckler-to-beef enterprise facilitated discussions to be held across both systems.

John’s farming system is focused on a closed herd/flock policy with occasional purchases of rams and stock bulls the only animals moving onto the farm. Where animals are imported on to the farm, they are purchased well in advance of the breeding season so that a quarantine period can be implemented. This, according to John’s vet Mark Drought, is a critical component of preventing disease entering the herd and one that is unfortunately not always followed.

“A quarantine period is the only way of protecting your animals from disease entering. Quarantine needs to last four weeks so that you can be sure that all risks have been overcome. Failing to do so puts the whole herd or flock at risk and problems can quickly run into big costs. It is also well worth doing a few blood samples – it is a low cost in the overall investment and is another safety measure,” he said.

Biosecurity

The farm is laid out different to most typical farms in that it is well set up in terms of guarding against breaches in biosecurity. The boundary on two sides is a public road, another side is tillage land, while on the remaining boundary there is a double-fenced hedge a few feet in width that prevents animals coming in contact with the neighbouring farm.

Despite these measures, there are risks facing every farm and the Pringle farm is no different. An outbreak of cryptosporidium in spring 2016 caused a few cases of calf mortality and significantly increased costs, while also leading to high levels of labour required to treat calves at a time of the year when labour was already in high demand.

John explained: “We were having a few cases of scour in recent years but nothing major and we thought it would blow over. Then, in 2016, we were hit hard with calves scouring and got a test carried out which identified an outbreak of crypto. The cost and a few losses was hard to bear but the labour required in treating sick calves and the negative influence sick animals can have at a busy timeframe was equally hard. Giving Halocur to calves for six to seven days helped and we let the last cows out to calve which eased the problem. We then turned to putting a plan in place to reduce the risk of it occurring again.”

Failing to identify the route of the problem is often the reason for health problems lingering on and repeat cases year after year. Mark’s advice when dealing with scour, for example, is to bring a sample to your vet or get your vet out to the farm to collect a sample. “Many common scours are straightforward to treat but you could be spending a lot of time and money treating animals for the wrong disease. Identifying the pathogen causing the disease allows targeted treatment immediately and allows practices to be put in place that will limit its spread.”

Cleaning and disinfecting

Repeat occurrence of disease was also attributed to bacteria or pathogens surviving in the environment and being a source of reinfection. For a disease such as cryptosporidium, Mark advises “it’s vital that sheds are washed and disinfected with an appropriate product. It’s not just a case of giving a quick power wash to dirty areas – all areas of the shed must be thoroughly cleaned with the ideal being power washing followed by steam cleaning where there have been serious problems followed by disinfecting. The earlier you get this completed and the longer a rest period you can give it, the better it will be for preventing a reoccurrence of the any disease”.

This is the approach John took last summer, along with vaccinating his cows with Rotavec Corona, with tests also showing up a level of coronavirus. Cows were fed soya in late pregnancy and John feels this was a good insurance policy to safeguard colostrum quality. Veterinary advice was to continue with Halocur for this year’s calving with all of the above measures contributing to no cases this spring.

Faecal egg counts

All other normal health treatments are carried out as part of a health programme, which has been drawn up for the farm. Lambs received a white drench in spring and a Levamisole-based product at weaning, which took place two weeks ago. The normal first worm treatment of calves was delayed on the results of a faecal egg count returning a negative reading. This outcome has encouraged John to make better use of faecal egg counts in the future for both calves and sheep in determining the need to treat animals for worms.

Alternative forages

John has experimented with alternative forages in the last two years. The perennial ryegrass mix used for reseeding in 2016 was combined with 0.75kg chicory, 1kg plantain and 1.5kg clover. The move stemmed from positive results achieved in the alternative forages trial carried out in UCD Lyons Research Farm. It is early days to assess but John is hoping that it aids performance and better satisfies mineral requirements of growing lambs. One aspect he has noticed to date is that there may be issues in persistency but a better judgement of this will be achieved over time. Lambs also seemed to have a preference for grazing plantain over chicory when first given access to the sward.

A field has also been sprayed off and will be sown in the coming week with Redstart. This can be used to finish tail-end lambs but is primarily aimed at grazing replacement ewe lambs and retaining outdoors later into the year.

The farm was tight on grass in recent weeks due to the farm missing out on rainfall that fell in other areas and growth slowing, particularly on the hill area of the farm that is situated at a higher elevation and prone to burning up. Growth has improved in the last few days and with silage ground coming back into the rotation, the farm is getting back on track.

Weaned lambs and cows and calves are being offered access to the best-quality grass with weaned ewes at present grazing out a field that went ahead of stock.

Preferential treatment

Once this has been grazed, ewes will be assessed, and cull ewes and those requiring preferential treatment can be removed from the main ewe group. John started a flock recording programme this year, whereby all lambs were tagged at birth and correlated to their dams. He is hoping to use lamb performance records in aiding to cull the poorest-performing ewes in the flock and select the most suitable replacement ewe lambs.

Drafting will also start to take place in greater frequency and with low numbers moving pre-weaning John is predicting that there should be a good draft of lambs fit for slaughter in the coming week.

Meal feeding has been introduced to boost performance with the aim of getting lambs moved off the farm quicker, which will help to build autumn grass supplies when demand is generally increasing from weanlings and ewes ahead of breeding.

The final bulls finished in an under-16-month system will also be slaughtered over the next couple of weeks. Performance of these Simmental and Limousin cross bulls has been positive with carcase weights to date averaging 400kg. Heifers are grazing with yearling hoggets and their lambs and are on target for introducing meal in late August/September and finishing at 18 to 20 months of age.