Monaghan farmers were always known as enterprising individuals and as I drove through the county last Friday morning, on my way to Castleblayney, I passed chicken houses, mushroom houses, free-range hens and piggeries – evidence that these people aren’t sitting around waiting for others to make things better.

Six years ago, Teagasc adviser Mairead Kirke decided to try out something new for her discussion groups in Monaghan and pitched the idea of having a special suckler replacement sale on an annual basis.

The Monaghan farmers embraced the challenge and they held their first sale in May 2013. They have been going from strength to strength since, holding a sale of high replacement index heifers every year.

The heifers are all genotyped four- or five-star, have to meet minimum weights, are all scanned not in-calf and suitable for breeding.

The sale has been a huge success and in 2016 heifers weighed 445kg and made €1,370 each. In 2017, they weighed 398kg and made €1,080, with a lot of repeat purchasers coming back each year.

It took a while for the farmers to get into the zone of breeding maternally, but they soon got the hang of the importance of the maternal index.

They try to keep track of heifers once weaning is completed, at around eight to 10 months. It’s a critical time from 10 months through to the 12-month point and this coincides with the winter period.

On many farms, this can be an area where weight gain potential is lost due to a variety of reasons – poor-quality silage, not feeding enough ration, inadequate lying space, no dosing or health plan for weanlings.

Losing this potential weight gain can mean missing target breeding weights in spring.

Some ground can be made up if heifers are turned out early and Mairead has seen in the past where group members did manage to get stock out early, up to 70kg of liveweight gain was achieved between February and April.

Monaghan' finest

Fred McKeever farms just outside Castleblayney in Co Monaghan, quite close to the border.

The land is typical of Monaghan farms – mixed in soil type from heavy/poor-draining soils to good/free-draining soils capable of taking stock early in spring.

Turnout is behind target this year due to very high rainfall in January/February, but he hopes to get out next week, weather permitting. He is typical of many Monaghan beef farmers, farming 120ac across a number of outfarms and calving 35 cows in spring and 14 cows in autumn.

“We have always kept Simmental and Charolais bulls. We find it’s a good mix of maternal traits from the Simmental and then the terminal traits coming from the Charolais.

“We breed our best cows, the ones we want to keep replacements from, to a Simmental bull in the hope of getting heifer calves. Lesser-type cows go to the Charolais and weanlings are sold in autumn time. The Simmental bull is by the famous Bawny T Rex and has a replacement index of €131, while the Charolais bull is by Pirate, with a terminal index of €150.

Fred McKeever keeps 50 sucklers and farms just outside Castleblayney, Co Monaghan.

The weight gains of Fred’s 2017-born weanlings point to something going right on the McKeever farm. Twelve spring 2017-born heifers weighed 364kg on 21 December 2017, an average daily gain of 1.1kg/day since birth. The bull calves were equally impressive, with an average weight of 381kg on 27 October 2017, an average daily gain of 1.42kg/day since birth.”

So what’s Fred secret?

It’s nothing special really. He is focusing on a maternal-type cow with plenty of milk and not forgetting about conformation. The Simmental/Charolais X seems to be clicking very well. Calving in early spring, he is maximising weaning weight in autumn time by having a weanling at nine to 10 months at weaning.

This, alongside calving heifers at two years of age and a general focus on maximising weight gain at grass, means Fred’s system is working for him. Keeping things simple is key and focusing on stock performance means everything works.

A selection of Fred's Simmental X heifers, which weighed 364kg on 21st December 2017.

Fred McKeever has followed the maternal star ratings index from ICBF over the last number of years and is now starting to reap the rewards. High maternal index heifers were bought in and have proved their worth in terms of improving herd breeding efficiency.

These heifers have become the foundation cows of a herd that has a 372-day calving interval, raised 0.9 calves per cow in 2017, calves 66% of heifers at two years old and calves 77% of cows within a six-week period in spring.

In addition, cows are matched with the maternal Simmental stock bull or the terminal Charolais stock bull, based on their maternal star ratings plus an analysis of the performance of their progeny to date.

As he prepares his heifers for the sixth annual maiden suckler heifer sale in Ballybay Mart on 28 April, Fred will treat these yearling heifers as a priority group for early spring grass.

In previous years, sellers have achieved weight gains of up to 70kg by getting their heifers to grass on 1 March and keeping good grass ahead of them until sale date. By having heifers at 400kg and above at time of breeding, the chances of lasting in the herd greatly improves for heifers calving down at 24 months.