Can you give us a brief description of your beef production system?

I run a 100-cow spring- and autumn-calving suckler herd in Castletown, Tara, Co Meath. Bulls are brought to 12 months and sold to a finisher. For the heifers – anything not being kept for breeding is finished at 22 months.

How do you find the task of weighing your cows and calves in BEEP?

Absolutely fine. I have my own weighing scales. I am also a weight recorder with ICBF. The ease or hardship with which weighing is done depends a lot on facilities. I weighed my 60 spring-calving cows and their 60 calves on 12 September in under two hours. My facilities are good and that makes the difference. I could weigh 75 calves in a dairy herd in an hour on my own, again due to good cattle handling facilities.

What use do you make of the weight data that you record?

The big thing with weight recording is that you see a problem before it becomes a major problem. For example, after you have weighed a batch of weanlings, the HerdPlus weighing report will show you that the average daily gain for the group was, say, 1.3kg/day. Then you will spot three calves whose daily gain is down around 0.8kg/day. When you examine the calf and its dam you could find that the cow has a start in a quarter. So you can get in early and treat her before the problem gets any worse.

It is, of course, also beneficial when repeated to see what kind of thrive a batch of cattle are doing which will again give you information to help you make management decisions.

What traits are you particularly interested in improving in your herd now and in the future?

Milk and fertility are the biggest ones for me. There is no point in having a great cow that won’t go back in calf. At the start, when I had around 60 cows these traits might not have been great but since I started increasing cow numbers and getting on top of the breeding and culling side of things, I have really seen these traits improve.

What are your thoughts on the BDGP scheme?

You need to have the right information in order to make good decisions. It is ammo in the gun. If you don’t measure it you can’t quantify it and if you can’t quantify it you can’t plan where you are going. I am using a lot of maternal bulls at the moment but this will change in a few years to using more terminal bulls.

Why do you participate in the Gene Ireland programme?

It gives me access to excellent young maternally strong beef AI bulls. I can see a big improvement in the herd in terms of cow type – cow size has reduced and weanling weight ratio to cow weight has improved. Costs on cow inputs have reduced. I’m making more use of grass and only using meal to push the autumn ones.

Five-star cow 410 weighs 752kg.

What bulls are you using at the moment?

I’m very fond of Gucci – his calving difficulty is very good. I’d rather go down in the morning and count them than pull them. The stockbull is a Mas du Clo son. He is now nearly 1,150kg – it is probably getting near the end of the road for him. He is fine on his feet for the 25% of the herd that he gets. He doesn’t work on some cows but he has done well. I get him fertility tested annually also.

What is your ideal suckler cow?

Cow number 410. She is a very functional little cow. One shot of AI is all she needs. I have some cows that are a lot heavier than her but they are not doing what she is doing. When we weighed her on 12 September she was 752kg.

Justin’s HerdPlus suckler cow report (shown below) combines all available useful data on the cow to help Justin make breeding and culling decisions. HerdPlus is the ICBF breeding information service. It collates all known on-farm and industry-recorded data together into easy-to-interpret reports and profiles.