Spring 2018 will be remembered for a long time on Tullamore Farm. Delayed turnout meant housing facilities came under extreme pressure over the past month. Thankfully, some normality returned last week with grass growth rates picking up and more cows and calves being turned out to grazing.

The herd calved down around condition score 2.5 and the plan on the farm is that cows and calves are turned out to grass shortly after calving. This means cows ideally would be gaining condition to a target body condition score of 3 at breeding.

Unfortunately, this spring the majority of cows and calves had to remain indoors with only 37 being turned out in March. This meant altering diets to make sure cows were getting sufficient energy to at least maintain condition while indoors.

The 2017 silage cut was poor for a variety of reasons (not grazed off properly, old swards and delayed cutting) so this meant meal had to be fed to calved cows to maintain condition. Cows indoors were offered ad-lib silage and 2.5kgs of ration.

Cows outdoors were also fed 2.5kg/day of meal to slow up the rotation and make sure the required energy was going in. Cows are just ok in condition with some cows still at a body condition score of 2.5. They need to increase condition in the next two to three weeks to hit breeding targets. Farm manager Shaun Diver started recording heats by applying scratch cards on Tuesday 10 April and, so far, 25 out of 37 cows outdoors have recorded a heat.

Meal feeding

Up to last week, cows were being fed 2.5kg/meal/head daily. This was pulled back to 1kg last week. For ease of management around AI, we have decided to continue feeding this 1kg/day for the next two months during breeding. This will cost €0.25/cow/day or €25/day but will make getting three groups of cows in for AI a lot easier. We will see if every second day will work after a week of feeding when AI starts.

All cows outdoors have received their BVD and Lepto booster shots and vasectomised bulls have also been vaccinated with two shots of each.

Heat detection

Scratch cards were applied to cows outdoors two weeks ago and, as cows are being turned out, scratch cards are being applied to all cows to record heats. Heats are written down so Shaun can keep an eye for cows he is expecting to come into heat when breeding starts.

Three Holstein Friesian vasectomised bulls have been purchased for €650 each and these will run with two groups of cows and one group of heifers.

New Moocall heat detection technology is going to be used on the farm this year with vasectomised bulls each wearing an electronic collar.

Each cows gets a tag in her ear and when the collar comes into close contact with the tag (ie when the bull mounts the cow) a text message is sent to the farm manager’s phone to say that that cow is in heat. It is hoped that this will cut down on the level of labour required around heat checking.

Scratch cards will continue to be used as a fail-safe measure and backup. Cows will be artificially inseminated by a technician at midday each day, so cows will only have to come in once each day. Two groups of 45 cows and calves and one group of 10 maiden heifers will be grazed with three vasectomised bulls. There are currently 100 cows on the farm and 10 to 12 cows will be selected this week for culling due to a range of issues, feet, broken down udders, feet problems, docility at calving, etc.

Breeding dates

There are some important dates for breeding over the next two months on Tullamore Farm.

Breeding started on Wednesday 25 April in maiden heifers. AI of cows starts on Tuesday 1 May.

If there are cows that haven’t shown heats two weeks into breeding, they will be examined to see if there are any issues with them.

The first scan will take place on Friday 29 June with the second scan taking place on Friday 24 August.

Stock bulls will be fertility-tested one month prior to turnout with cows/heifers. Breeding will last for 79 days or just two days over 11 weeks.

Bull selection

The farm plan is focused on producing maternal heifers suitable for replacements for the beef herd. With this in mind, AI bulls are chosen that have a high replacement index and are proven with good reliability.

Cow type is predominantly Limousin X Friesian, so the herd is generally very good for milk and fertility. Terminal traits are also paid attention to with above-average figures being sought for both carcase weight and carcase confirmation.

We have set a limit of €12/straw for AI bulls being used on the farm and selected the bulls using the ICBF active bull list on www.icbf.com. This allows certain criteria be selected and it then prints out the bulls that suit the farm’s criteria.

Many of the bulls this year are similar to last year’s selections with three new additions – Bivouac, an easy-calving Charolais bull with high-replacement and high-terminal figures; Curaheen Earp, a high-replacement Simmental bull; and Elderberry Galahead, an easy-calving Limousin bull that will be used on heifers.

The average figures of the team of bulls are detailed at the bottom of Table 1 and this is the key figure to focus on. Cows will be selected for each bull this week. There are currently two stock bulls on the farm, a Limousin bull and an Angus bull, which will run with cows for the last three weeks of the breeding season.