Growing up on the farm, helping his father as a young lad, Donegal farmer Andrew Palmer was fortunate to be farming alongside one of the top-performing suckler farmers in the country, Raymond Palmer.
While he may not have known it at the time, it provided him with a great depth of knowledge about suckler farming.
Andrew checking heifers on the Palmer home farm.
In 2013, Andrew began farming in his own right when he bought a batch of Limousin heifer calves off British Friesian cows as the beginnings of his suckler herd.
“They were off real good British Friesian cows – I don’t know if they are out there anymore.”
Some of Andrew's bull weanlings.
Andrew continues to farm alongside his father on the home farm, as well as running his own herd.
On the overall system he is trying to achieve, Andrew said: “I like to run a simple system and do it very well. I would be hard on selecting the animals that are in the herd. If a cow slips too late for calving or is not producing the goods in terms of a quality calf, she will be down the road.
“It’s hard to see past the Charolais for weight gain. When the calves get to grass in spring, they will be doing close to 2kg/day from grass only.”
A batch of heifers on the home farm.
A creep gate that Andrew made for letting calves graze ahead of cows during the grazing season and allows calves access to grass beside the yard in early spring.
“That’s why I like the autumn calving also, it leaves you with a calf that is well able to eat grass when it goes out in spring.”
“I will have bulls over 500kg at 10 months old and heifers won’t be too far behind them. I sell all the bull calves to a local finisher and the heifers will go to the mart at just over a year old.”
Read the full story on how Andrew operates his system in this week’s Irish Farmers Journal.
These bulls are weaned with three weeks and remain getting 1kg/head concentrate.
Growing up on the farm, helping his father as a young lad, Donegal farmer Andrew Palmer was fortunate to be farming alongside one of the top-performing suckler farmers in the country, Raymond Palmer.
While he may not have known it at the time, it provided him with a great depth of knowledge about suckler farming.
Andrew checking heifers on the Palmer home farm.
In 2013, Andrew began farming in his own right when he bought a batch of Limousin heifer calves off British Friesian cows as the beginnings of his suckler herd.
“They were off real good British Friesian cows – I don’t know if they are out there anymore.”
Some of Andrew's bull weanlings.
Andrew continues to farm alongside his father on the home farm, as well as running his own herd.
On the overall system he is trying to achieve, Andrew said: “I like to run a simple system and do it very well. I would be hard on selecting the animals that are in the herd. If a cow slips too late for calving or is not producing the goods in terms of a quality calf, she will be down the road.
“It’s hard to see past the Charolais for weight gain. When the calves get to grass in spring, they will be doing close to 2kg/day from grass only.”
A batch of heifers on the home farm.
A creep gate that Andrew made for letting calves graze ahead of cows during the grazing season and allows calves access to grass beside the yard in early spring.
“That’s why I like the autumn calving also, it leaves you with a calf that is well able to eat grass when it goes out in spring.”
“I will have bulls over 500kg at 10 months old and heifers won’t be too far behind them. I sell all the bull calves to a local finisher and the heifers will go to the mart at just over a year old.”
Read the full story on how Andrew operates his system in this week’s Irish Farmers Journal.
These bulls are weaned with three weeks and remain getting 1kg/head concentrate.
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