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Last week, the programme farmers visited several farms in the Republic of Ireland. The trip was an opportunity to get a different view on beef production from farmers south of the border, the challenges facing Irish farmers and the steps being taken to make farms both profitable and more sustainable.
Brian Doran farms close to Carnew, Co Wicklow. He joined the BETTER Farm programme in 2016. He farms 50 spring-calving suckler cows on a 46.5ha (115 acres) of grassland, which traditionally operated as an all-in, all-out system.
Listen to "BETTER Farm NI visit to Brian Doran's farm" on Spreaker.
Cows are bred to a Limousin bull, with steers killed from 20 to 24 months of age. Heifers are killed by 20 months of age and finished off grass.
Alongside the suckler herd, Brian rears 20 dairy-bred cattle each year, which are slaughtered as steers around 24 months old.
Brian works full-time off farm and also grows 100 acres of cereals annually. Efforts have been made to tighten the calving spread from November to April to January to March.
Calving in early spring suits both Brian and the land, which is extremely dry. Calving in April clashes with spring cereal planting, while autumn calving clashes with harvesting.
Cows calving in January normally return to grass from early February, giving a natural advantage in terms of getting high levels of cheap weight gain from grass.
Investment in grassland
Since joining the programme, Brian has made a huge investment in grassland management in terms of time and money spent.
The farm has one main grazing block of approximately 72 acres surrounding the farmyard. Prior to joining the programme, the grazing block was old pasture and laid out in six fields relatively even in size.
In the past two years, the grazing block has been reseeded and split up into 24 smaller grazing paddocks, each measuring around three acres in size.
Fields have been divided using high tensile wire and connected to mains electric. Water troughs have been installed to strategically serve four paddocks.
Additional troughs have been placed to allow for further sub-dividing of paddocks when grass growth is high.
“Cattle are grazed in two-day paddocks now. Putting in the paddocks has been an overwhelming success. Last year, I made 320 bales of silage from surplus grass on paddocks, even though I had increased the cattle numbers by 20 head.
“Cattle are much quieter now as they are used to being handled and moved. This is a big advantage, as I am the only labour unit and I also work off-farm.
“I am still using the same amount of fertiliser. But instead of going with bigger allocations, I spread a bag of 18:6:12, instead of CAN, after every second rotation and get far better growth response throughout the year.”
Breeding
Replacements have been purchased annually as a mix of in-calf animals or as cows with calves at foot.
Replacements were only purchased at herd reduction sales, rather than buying in single lots through the mart.
To date, it has worked reasonably well for Brian and allowed him to extend the lifetime of stock bulls.
However, from 2019 onwards, he is planning to start keeping homebred heifers as herd replacements.
Two homebred heifers are due to calve down in spring, with the aim to have around 10 to 12 calving the following year.
Rather than purchasing a separate stock bull for such a small number of heifers, Brian is planning to use AI to serve replacements and a selection of mature cows.
This will allow him to retain one stock bull in a 50-cow herd with a compact calving pattern. AI sires will most likely be Limousin, with proven maternal genetics, but still possessing good terminal traits.
Maternal
The current herd is predominantly a first- or second-cross from the dairy herd, with some continental breeds also present.
Calving interval is 372 days, which is reflective of good management on farm. Cows have an average maternal index of €93, making the herd a mix of four- and five-star animals on maternal genetics.
With cows having strong maternal traits, the stock bull is a five-star Limousin animal for carcase traits to produce fast-growing calves and animals suited for slaughter.
Cattle performance
In 2017, male calves averaged 1.3kg/day from birth to weaning in October on a grass-only diet.
Heifers averaged 1.21kg/day. In 2018, male calves have gained 1.26kg/day, with heifers gaining 1.23kg/day.
Male cattle are castrated in June. Concentrates are introduced to calves at grass around two weeks prior to weaning and fed along the electric wire.
As Brian’s farm is a birth-to-beef system, he prefers to limit meal feeding until weaning and housing, compared with herds where calves are sold as weanlings in autumn.
Stores go back to grass for their second season from early February. Weight gains averaged 1.01kg/day for steers in 2017. Heifers averaged 0.93kg/day from grass.
Carcase weights
Carcase weights for steers for cattle killed in 2017 averaged 379kg for 19 homebred animals. There were eight steers purchased as cow-and-calf outfits for replacements. They averaged 368kg and were one month older.
Homebred heifers averaged 312kg for 19 animals at 19 months old. Bought-in heifers averaged 297kg at 21 months of age.
The higher performance of the homebred animals is another reason for moving away from buying in replacements and having more control over cattle genetics to produce more efficient animals.
Future plans
With a condensed calving pattern from 10 January to 31 March, bull beef is a possible change for the farm.
Bulls would be housed close to 400kg, which would mean a finishing period of 165 days to have cattle killing at 650kg liveweight and approximately 390kg to 400kg carcase weight. The move to bulls would provide cashflow for the farm in spring, as well as autumn, from the sale of heifers and cull cows.
With bull beef, there is the opportunity to increase breeding numbers to around 80 cows. However, Brian is reluctant to increase the breeding herd above 50 cows.
Therefore, if he goes down the bull route, he is looking at buying in additional store cattle in spring to kill off grass in autumn.
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