It’s been a difficult spring for Brian Doran. “It’s all been weather related,” the suckler farmer told me, “I’ve had calves born dead, crypto scour, pneumonia, a calf that got a puck from another cow and have lameness creeping into the cows.”

Brian runs 50 suckler cows on two blocks separated by a quiet road.

“I have four left to calve at this moment in time and we got cryptosporidium with 10 cows left. I had it last year and we completely cleaned out and power-washed the shed and used the recommended disinfectant to try and keep it at bay. I am going with Halocur daily as a preventative to any new calves. We have managed to avoid any losses from the crypto, but it adds a huge amount of labour,” Brian said.

“I will admit this spring has tested me, as I’m sure it has tested many farmers. There were times that I was almost dreading seeing a waterbag coming when we were in the middle of our bad calving run – ‘what was going to happen this time?’, but we kept going, you have to. Thankfully things look to be drying up now and I should be able to turn stock out. Everything is in at the moment and the calves are down in themselves,” he added.

Targets

The initial plan for Brian was to build cow numbers, though now he is contemplating capping sucklers at slightly below initial targets and going with a store to beef enterprise as well.

“Bought-in cattle have done well for me in the past. There’s a pen of dairy bullocks I bought for under €500 last summer and they should come into over €1,100 later this year. I’ve a similar pen of heifers that I had planned to turn out early this year but that never happened with the rain. They’ve fleshed up exceptionally well on a silage-only diet, so I am now going to fatten them in the shed for slaughter,” Brian told me.

Brian squeezes all males and slaughters as bullocks, while his female progeny are brought to beef also. His 2017 carcase weights were 345kg for bullocks and 397kg for heifers. Within these figures, his own bullocks (19) achieved carcase weights of 339kg, grading R-, 4-, while heifers died 324kg, grading R=, 3+.

This winter, Brian fed bales made from surplus paddock silage to his growing and finishing stock.

“I made 330 extra bales from my grazing ground and by god was I glad of them this spring. The quality was probably better than my main cuts, which came in at 69% DMD. All you need to do is look at the stores and see how well they’ve done on silage alone. We’re out of those bales now and I have about three weeks of feeding left in the pit,” he said.

“The paddocks have been huge here and I put more effort in this spring. The reels and plastic posts drive you mad sometimes; you can’t beat the permanent fence. It’s very frustrating though, I worked really hard getting the paddocks installed earlier in the year but I can’t get out to them now. I suppose along with the extra bales we made the paddocks have been a silver lining this spring. I’m mad to get using them, hopefully this week will see it. We’re gone from having 6 fields to 24 permanent paddocks that we can split again,” Brian added.

Replacements

As well as picking up store cattle in the mart, Brian chooses to source most of his replacements there.

“I buy my replacements at the mart too. I know the proper way of doing things is to breed your own heifers but breeding isn’t my thing. I prefer going in and buying a cow with a calf at foot – you know exactly what you’re getting that way. You’re generally giving €1,600 to €1,800. I’ve largely been lucky in terms of calf quality, although obviously there’s a chance that the troubles I’ve had this spring may have come to the farm with the bought-in stock.

There was one heifer bulling last week out of the bull ZAG (Castleview Gazelle, Limousin) that Tommy (Cox, BETTER adviser) urged me to bull (serve to AI). She was bought in along with her mother last year and came into heat last week. The AI man put an easy-calving Angus in her, we’ll see if she holds. I texted Tommy straightaway to tell him the good news when she was served,” Brian joked.

He is considering doing more AI in the coming weeks. His plan is to achieve a tight spring-calving spread. There is one bull on the farm, a mature Limousin by Haltcliffe Dancer. He will have over 50 cows to serve and Brian feels that if he can get 10-15 in-calf to AI before cattle go out, the bull will have a better chance of keeping things tight.