Is it better to be busy with one task so that you can get it out of the way and move on to something else? Time is precious in farming as there are endless tasks to be completed. Some are a priority and others will be postponed for a later date when there is more time available. In suckler farming, calving cows makes up a large percentage of the workload. This is fine provided there are no other tasks to be completed at the same time, eg silage, harvesting grain or working off farm, as you can devote your time and energy to getting as many live calves on the ground as possible.

Being able to focus on one task at a time, such as calving, will allow you to be on top of things. As a result, management and attention to detail is always better. Compact calving has been shown to be the most profitable way to run a suckler herd because it streamlines management.

Yes, herd owners are busy during this period but I have yet to meet a suckler herd owner who has a compact calving period wanting to move back to a five or six month spread. With compact calving, cows and calves can be easily grouped together for worming, weaning and feeding which cuts down the workload over the rest of the year.

Compact calving means that the breeding period needs to be as equally compact. How this is achieved will vary from farm to farm. Some farmers will set defined dates to start and finish breeding cows on.

Others will work with smaller groups of cows so that the stock bull can handle multiple cows coming into heat at the same time. Some farmers will put all cows to the bull and use the scanning results to cull out any late calving cows and sell them live either with a calf at foot or when dried off.

In Portaferry, Artie Birt has gone down the road of synchronising both cows and heifers with great results.

Cows are predominantly a three breed mix of Limousin, Charolais and Simmental.

Artie runs a herd of 170 suckler cows alongside his father, Arthur senior. Cows are predominantly a three breed mix of Limousin, Charolais and Simmental. Replacements have always been bred on farm. Surplus females and all males are taken through to beef.

Coming back to the opening question of whether it is better to busy with one task at a time, Artie is a firm believer that the answer is yes. “Calve the cows together and give them all the attention they need. Then move on to getting grazing management right, then breeding, then silage and so on and so on. We have found that synchronising the cows gives us much more control over the herd during the breeding season and using AI gives us a better choice of bulls to use on individual cows.”

Farm background

The farm is fragmented with five main land blocks. Being in the Ards Peninsula, land type is good with plenty of free draining soils allowing Artie to get cows out to grass from late February onwards as grass and weather permits.

Cows calve in one group from mid-February to mid-April. Artie is fortunate that he can get usually cows out to grass within a few days of calving which eases the requirement for housing management.

It is one of the reasons he has moved to one early spring group of cows. Another reason was the cost of keeping the autumn calving cow compared to the spring calving cow on his farm.

“We used to be spring and autumn calving with an equal split in numbers. It was good to have cattle being finished in autumn and spring for cash flow but it added a lot of extra work to the system as it meant more cattle groups at grass and at housing. We also grew spring barley in the past. Planting and harvesting clashed with both calving periods.

"I always found that the autumn calving cow was just too expensive to keep."

“But I always found that the autumn calving cow was just too expensive to keep. The spring cows were dried off before housing and put onto a maintenance diet, whereas the autumn cows were eating twice as much silage as the spring cows and getting meal. Their calves were getting meal and we were using a lot of straw for bedding. ”

Artie decided to move to one calving herd in 2012 and has not looked back since then. The herd was always bred through natural service and carried seven stock bulls which has now been reduced to two bulls which are mainly used as sweepers. Charolais, Limousin and Simmental bulls were always used and still are, only this time, Artie is making use of AI sires that suit the cows.

Back in 2011, Artie joined up with a research project being run by AFBI Hillsborough who were looking for commercial farms to become involved in calving heifers at 24 months of age. Artie has been successfully calving heifers at 24 months of age every year since 2000 so it was a logical step for him as it would not have a major change on his system.

"The use of AI on heifers meant we could keep one less stock bull as we were getting a choice of easy calving sires."

Out of this programme came the chance of synchronising heifers to trial fixed time AI and inseminating heifers as they came into heat naturally. Over three years, conception rates to fixed time AI were good at approximately 70% and the majority of repeats were holding to the second service.

“It was a good introduction to using AI as we were getting advice on heifer rearing and best practice for using a synchronisation programme. The use of AI on heifers meant we could keep one less stock bull as we were getting a choice of easy calving sires.

Calving at 24 months and keeping home bred replacements means you are turning over stock bulls more often compared with buying in replacements. This is why the AI works well as we can change sires much easier.”

Insemination programme

Never afraid to take a chance on something new, in 2015 Artie decided to extend the synchronisation programme to his main cow herd. The results were better than he had hope for. Out of 170 cows served, 70% of cows were in-calf after the first insemination. Three weeks later, repeats were given a second insemination. In total, 90% of the herd was in-calf after the second service.

“The cows were put into groups of 40 to suit the grazing blocks they were on for the summer. I used CIDRs which stayed in for nine days. On removal of the CIDRs, the cows were inseminated after 48 hours with a single straw.

“The good thing about the programme was that I knew that there would be cows repeating in three weeks which made it easier for heat detection. From day 17 to 22 after the first insemination, repeats were served again. The bull was used as a sweeper on repeat heifers instead of AI. It meant that after four weeks, there was 90% of the herd in-calf.”

The next question I asked Artie was anticipated and it is one that he has been asked before “How do you handle so many cows calving at the one time?”

But his answer is reassuring. “Everyone thinks that all the cows will calve on the one day with the fixed time AI. It does not work like that. We have cows of different breeds and are using a mix of bulls through AI. They all have different gestation periods.

“Some cows will calve in 280 days from insemination. We also have cows carrying 300 days. One night I had two heifers that calved. The first heifer held to the second service while the other heifer had held to the first service. Yet they both calved within an hour of each other.

“At the minute, we would typically have around five or six cows calving on a busy day. But it has been working well as our sole focus is on calving cows at the minute. I would rather have three or four cows calve in a day now because I’m always in the yard rather than a cow calving every other day because that’s when it’s easy to lose focus.”

This is the first spring that Artie is calving all of the cows to synchronisation and AI. Cows started calving on 20 February and finished 10 weeks later on 4 May which is an average of three cows per day.

While his land is dry in nature, his system was still well and truly tested this spring given the heavy rainfall in late February and early March.

“When we were autumn and spring calving, we would not have been able to do it because we would not have the housing. But now we can.”

“Because we calve early in spring, the heifers are finished in early autumn at 20 to 22 months. The steers are all finished before Christmas at 22 to 23 months. This frees up considerable housing space that was previously used to house and finish these cattle. It also frees up time from having less cattle to feed.

“We now use these sheds as loose housing as they have bedded flooring. Once calved, cows and calves can move into these areas. They can then be slipped out to grass once weather permits. Also, we have five extra calving boxes because we have sold five stock bulls. They come in very handy now for cows and calves.”

Breeding costs amount to £25/cow (€32) which consists of £10 (€12) for AI and the remainder for the CIDRs and drugs.

Breeding costs amount to £25/cow (€32) which consists of £10 (€12) for AI and the remainder for the CIDRs and drugs. Cows were given a second AI straw (approximately 40 straws used) whereas any heifers that repeated went to the bull.

Total breeding costs for the herd were approximately £4,290 (€5,500) which is a significant cost. But in Artie’s opinion is money well spent as he would spend more money each year buying two new stock bulls with top genetics, plus grazing and wintering costs of £2/day (€2.40/day).

Heifer rearing

Artie has been calving heifers at 24 months for over 15 years. In his opinion, it does not make sense to carry heifers to 36 months of age before they calve. “It’s just too costly and it’s another group of stock to have to graze which just adds extra work to the system.”

“I think the thing to remember is that when you are selecting heifers to go to the bull, you should not necessarily pick animals based on their size at that point. Remember that if an animal is on the small side at 15 months, it still has at least nine months to grow out which it will do if you have good genetics and grazing management. The animal still has time on her side and it’s amazing what growth they can do in their second year at grass.

We weigh all cattle regularly and keep an eye on weight gain. Heifers need to be at least 380kg liveweight at 15 months of age before we will put them to the bull. Getting heifers heavy enough for breeding has never been a problem for us. A 400kg heifer at 15 months has a daily liveweight gain of 0.8kg/day from birth which is achievable in beef cattle.”

Calves are weaned from September and housed in late October to early November. They go onto a diet of ad-lib silage and 2kg/day of concentrates. Spring turnout is as soon as possible, usually around 1 March with the 17 March being considered late.

From farm records, heifers will weigh from 390kg to 440kg by 15 months of age. Breeding starts in May. Heifers continue to grow at grass with typical housing weight around 540kg for the 20 month old in-calf heifer. Liveweight at calving is around 550kg to 590kg. Mature cow weight on farm is 620kg which is surprising given the Charolais and Simmental influence.

“We don’t want big cows. They need too much ground to meet grazing demand. I would rather have a moderate 650kg cow and have more of them. We are stocked at 3.2LU/ha which is high. With bigger cows, I would have to cut stocking rate which means having fewer cattle to sell each year.”

Heifers are usually selected from the early calving cows but with such a tight calving pattern on the farm, it has bred highly fertile cows so a later calving cow can produce a heifer calf that will still fit into the breeding programme if the animal can still make breeding weight at 15 months.

This comes back to Artie’s point on selection of heifers that he does not go on size they for a group of heifers at breeding time as some later born animals still have the genetics to grow quickly and meet the weight targets by their second housing period.

Future plans

Artie has never been afraid to change his system if he thinks it will benefit him financially. He is acutely aware of operating costs on his farm which come to the fore in conversation, whether this is the different feed costs for finishing cattle, store cattle or dry cows to the cost and benefit of first and second cut silage and reseeding.

Last autumn, Artie took the decision not to castrate his bull calves. The reason being he was quick to pick up on the increase in calf birth registrations in spring 2015 and especially the increase in dairy bred beef animals. “There will be a lot of these animals coming out for slaughter this autumn which is when I would have been killing steers and heifers.

A glut of dairy bred cattle this autumn would bring beef prices down when I planned to sell. So I decided that with meal prices back on other years, I would be better off to finish the males as bulls under 16 months. If it works out, I will consider it in future years depending on market outlook, carcase weight limits and meal prices”.

Regardless of his finishing system, one thing that is certain going forward is that he will continue with his synchronisation programme for the foreseeable future.