A late spring and a dry summer has had very little effect on fertility performance at Teagasc dairy research and demonstration farms. Most of the farms have scanned at this stage and the results are good, with the average of the farms scanned at 9.6% of cows empty after a 12-week breeding season. These results are more or less on par with last year. See Table 1 for a breakdown of the results from each farm.

Curtins Farm

The breeding season didn’t go as well as last year on this farm. There was 11.3% empty last year but there is 16% empty this year, with 68% of the cows going in calf in the first six weeks.

According to research officer Brendan Horan, the breeding season was shortened by one week and there was no bulls used this year.

He says the fact that cows were housed at night for long periods wasn’t ideal. There were higher levels of embryo losses also.

Next Generation Herd

Breeding went well at the Next Generation Herd on the Kilworth Farm near Moorepark. This herd has three groups of stock, high (Elite) and average EBI Holstein Friesians as well as purebred Jersey cows. The Elite herd of 72 Friesians had a good year with 8.3% empty and 80% going in calf in the first six weeks. The National Average herd of 36 Friesians with an EBI of €101 had a slightly higher empty rate at 13.8% and 55% went in calf in the first six weeks. This year, purebred Jersey cows are part of the mix. These have an EBI of €137 and had an empty rate of just 2.7% but a six-week in-calf rate of 66%. While the empty rate is very good, the six week in-calf rate is a good bit lower than the 75% target.

Johnstown Castle

This herd is split, with spring and autumn calving. The spring-calving cows had a good year, with 11% empty after 12 weeks and an 81% six-week in-calf rate. This is a significant improvement on last year’s performance, where 21% of the herd were not in calf. Farm manager Aidan Lawless is very happy with the results. Like a lot of farms in Wexford, Johnstown Castle was badly affected by snow in March and the drought in summer, so all things considered the results are good.

Shinagh

Once again the demonstration farm near Bandon has had good results.

Of the 242 cows on the farm, 20 were scanned not in calf after an 11.5-week breeding season giving an empty rate of 8.3%.

This is more or less on par with previous years and farm manager Kevin Ahern is happy with the results.

Of the 55 heifers, 53 are in calf, giving an empty rate of 3.6%.

Greenfield

The Greenfield farm had a good breeding season. After 13 weeks, 9.5% of the cows were empty and 73% went in-calf in the first six weeks of the breeding season. Farm manager David Fogarty is happy with the results considering the challenging spring and summer drought. The herd is still being fed a mostly supplement diet as grass growth is still behind normal. The empty rate last year was 12.7%, so progress has been made despite the weather. AI was used for 13 weeks but bulls were let out for the last three or four weeks to help pick up cows. David drafted cows for AI in the morning only and relied heavily on tail paint. The plan now is to shorten the breeding season to 11 or 12 weeks.

Solohead

The Teagasc research farm near Tipperary town has an empty rate of just 7% after a 13-week breeding season. Farm manager Daniel Barrett bred the herd for 13 weeks, which is a little bit longer than most of the farms. The six-week in-calf rate is excellent at 79%. A high proportion of the cows are Jersey crossbred with an average EBI of €156.

Ballyhaise

The breeding season went well in Ballyhaise with 10% of the herd empty after 11 weeks of breeding. Farm manager Barry Reilly is happy with the results. He got 74% of the cows in calf after the first six weeks of breeding. The herd is a mix of Jersey crossbred and high-EBI Holstein Friesian. All of the heifers are in calf after 10.5 weeks of breeding with 94% going in-calf in the first six weeks.

Clonakilty

The empty rate in the Clonakilty herd this year is 8% after 11 weeks of breeding.

Farm manager Fergal Coughlan says 76.5% of the cows are due to calve in the first six weeks of breeding.

The empty rate is up a bit on the 4% achieved last year but is still well under the target of 10%.

The cows in Clonakilty are a mixture of Holstein Friesian, Jersey crossbred and three-way crosses of Holstein Friesian, Jersey and Norwegian Red.

Comment

Breeding performance for 2018 in the Teagasc herds is good. If doing the same exercise eight or 10 years ago, there’s no doubt but the range in empty rates would be from 15% to 25%, with lots of excuses given as to why performance wasn’t better.

The fact is, the genetic potential of the Teagasc herds for fertility has never been as good. The average EBI of the various herds is €163, which is way above the national average EBI at €100.

The majority of the Teagasc research and demonstration herds are also crossbred, with only the Next Generation Herd and Johnstown Castle remaining purebred. It is these two things – chasing EBI and crossbreeding – that have been the catalyst for improvement in breeding performance. Farmers who are not meeting fertility targets should take note – use high-EBI sires and crossbreeding to improve performance.

Of course, management has a big bearing on results also. But when looking at the Teagasc herds, they have been using best-practice breeding management for decades. It is only in the last number of years that fertility performance has actually improved.

Many of the research herds do have automated heat detection aids. According to the farm managers, these are used mostly for research purposes but they do use them during the breeding season for heat detection to varying degrees. The demonstration herds at Greenfield and Shinagh use tail paint and observations.

The other big change this year has been feed. Like in most farms, way more concentrates than normal have been fed on the Teagasc farms as a result of poor grass growth in spring and summer.

It’s interesting to note that this had no effect on fertility performance, with average figures across farms similar to previous years.