Tullamore Farm breeding – what's the plan?

Choosing a breeding plan for any farm can be a difficult task and Tullamore farm was no different. Cow and sire type are two of the most important decisions to be made on any beef farm and if the wrong decisions are made on the breeding and genetics side, it could make or break a system. The breeding policy of any farm will depend on whether replacements are being bred on the farm, the production system followed and the market requirements. The chosen system in Tullamore is to produce under-16-month bull beef and high-genetic-merit replacement heifers for sale at 15 months. Replacement heifers for Tullamore farm will be sourced from the dairy herd (Limousin X Holstein Friesian) during the initial phase of the project.

Autumn or spring calving

Starting with a blank canvas meant we could decide what time of year we wanted the herd to calve. While autumn calving has advantages like spreading out workload and heavier weanlings at end of first grazing season, it comes at a cost, with extra meal going into the cow and calf during the winter period. Autumn calving also brings a higher requirement for creep areas during winter months. There are currently no creep areas in the sheds on Tullamore Farm. Spring calving was chosen, calving as early as possible without incurring a long period with cows and calves inside. This will enable high grass utilisation during the grazing season and also enable high weaning weights in autumn each year. A 10-week calving season was chosen starting on 5 February and ending on 20 April. This meant that breeding this year started on 23 April with heifers and 1 May in cows and will finish on 6 July.

Where to source animals?

When it was decided that the demonstration farm was going to be set up, there were a number of options available to source breeding animals.

Options

1. Young beef X dairy heifer calves from the dairy herd.

2. Maiden heifers from the beef herd or dairy herd.

3. Purchase in-calf heifers/cows.

Each has its advantages and disadvantages. However, in order to get up to full production quickly, it was decided to go down the route of purchasing in-calf cows and in-calf heifers. This meant that the farm could generate sales inside 16 months as opposed to 28 months with the maiden heifer option and 40 months with the heifer calf option.

As land rental costs and infrastructure costs were being incurred from the beginning, it made sense to get production going as quickly as possible. There was a conscious decision made to purchase from as few herds as possible to cut down on possible disease complications. In the end stock were purchased from seven different herds with the largest purchase being 61 in-calf cows from a herd dispersal in Co Limerick.

Why purchase from the dairy herd?

About 80% of the animals which we have purchased are Limousin X Friesian cows/heifers from the dairy herd. Recent research from Teagasc Grange has demonstrated that progeny from Limousin X Friesian cows performed best in terms of lifetime growth and killout rates. Studies have also shown that cows with very good milk traits produced calves with higher immunity due to higher colostrum intake, higher weaning weight due to higher milk production of the dam, higher carcase weight due to higher pre-weaning growth and good carcase conformation and fat scores.

Stock bull v AI?

When deciding whether to use stock bulls or AI a number of issues need to be taken into account, including handling facilities, roadway infrastructure and labour availability. As we had purchased three young stock bulls in spring 2017, it was decided to carry out AI for three weeks to take the pressure of the stock bulls in their first season. This added to workload for the first three weeks of May with heat checking and getting cows in for AI. However, submission rates have been good and the management team feel this was the right decision.

Submission rates

During AI, the herd was grazed in four groups. Group three was not for AI, with a stock bull turned out straight away with this group. This meant there were 87 cows and 15 heifers available for AI for three weeks. Cows were heat-checked three to four times daily – 8am, 12pm, 5pm and 10pm. AI was carried out once each day between 1pm-2pm which meant cows only had to be brought in once per day. This reduced the workload a little. Farm manager Ger O’Dwyer also fed some meal in the yard over the first few days of AI which helped get cows in during the three weeks. Submission rate was 70/87 (80% submission in 21 days in group one and group two). 15/15 heifers were bred in group four (100% submission) and 11/23 cows bred to the stock bull in group three. Overall submission rate in the first 21 days was 96/125 (77%) animals available for breeding, which means at a conception rate of 60% there should be 57 cows calving in the first 21 days of the calving season in 2018.

Group one: February-calving cows.

Group two: March-calving cows.

Group three: April-calving cows.

Group four: Group of maiden heifers.

Herd indices

Animals were sourced with a high replacement index and the average index of the cow herd in April 2017 was €115, which puts Tullamore Farm in the top 10% of herds in the country when ranked on replacement index. The national average is €76.

Twenty-three of the cows in the herd have an index of €143 or greater which puts them in the top 1% of cows in the country. The herd has a daughter milk figure of 10.2kg, which puts the herd in the top 5% in the country.

While the carcase weight figure of 9kg is below average, the sires used will compensate this.

Sire choice and stock bull purchase

One of the first decisions to be made was what type of a bull do we buy, a terminal or a maternal bull. The difficult answer was, we needed both. The farm aims to produce high-index replacement heifers and also under-16-month bull beef. We decided to focus on the replacement index, purchasing bulls with a minimum of five stars on the replacement index with as high an index as possible. Some people will argue that we will take a big hit on our carcase traits by focusing on the replacement index but we believe that the sires used will deliver on both replacement traits and carcase traits. All bulls were purchased from farmers participating in the ICBF gene Ireland programme, which means as much data as possible has been included in the make-up of the bulls’ indices. Maximum calving difficulty for sires was 8% for cows and 3% for maiden heifers.

Calving 2017

Calving 2017 started on 4 February and finished on 30 April. Some 112 cows calved during this period, with one calf lost at calving. The calf was 67kg and possibly should have been a caesarean section. A calf was found dead in the field at six weeks of age also.

A post-mortem was carried out at Athlone regional vet lab and this was diagnosed as a liver abscess.

Eighty-two cows calved unassisted, with 20 needing some assistance such as a jack or slight pull with ropes. Seven cows needed veterinary assistance due to malpresentation and three cows needed a C-section, all three in first-calving heifers.

A calving camera was purchased at the cost of €750 which can be accessed via a mobile phone and this greatly aided supervision at calving.

Cows were fed 0.5kg soya bean meal/day six weeks prior to calving along with 100g/day of a pre-calving mineral. Cows were also body condition scored prior to calving and fed straw on every third day prior to calving to avoid cows becoming too well conditioned at calving.

All cows received a scour vaccine prior to calving.

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