Twenty-six-year-old Harry Lalor obtained his degree in agricultural science from UCD in 2013 and now farms full-time along with his father Joe in Ballacolla, Co Laois. They run 141ha in total, though this includes cereal ground, paddocks dedicated to the pair’s 300-ewe mid-season lambing flock, land used for growing fodder beet and paddocks for horses. In terms of the beef enterprise, just under 80ha is solely dedicated to the substantial beef enterprise.

The Lalors keep 115 spring-calving cows and run a dairy calf-to-beef system. There is a substantial cocktail of breeds in the cow herd, with everything from a 480kg first-cross Limousin to an 880kg Charolais-Simmental cross.

“Going forward I want a Saler-based cow that I can cross with a terminal Charolais bull. We have a Saler bull at the moment and some purebred Saler cows – I’m trying to take as many daughters from these as I can,” Harry told me.

The current breeding herd has an average replacement index of €98 (five stars), milk index figure of +5.9kg (five-stars) and calving interval (fertility) index figure of -1.38 days (four stars). Six of Harry’s cows are in the top 1% nationally for replacement index value. Average carcase weight index value (weight for age) is quite low at 11kg (two stars) but as Harry stated he can compensate for this with terminal sires, like his Charolais stock bull.

Carcase weight

He is by Major and has five stars for carcase weight (38kg) and conformation. His Saler bull is by Vanlooy, has a massive replacement index value of €154 and is strong for milk and fertility. There is one other bull on the farm, a four-star Limousin with decent milk and strong terminal traits.

This year’s calf crop are doing well, with heifers gaining 1.06kg daily since birth and bulls 1.10kg daily.

Despite market signals, Harry goes against the grain and finishes his male progeny as bulls off the grid (over 16 months of age).

They go to grass as yearlings until early August, when they come indoors for finishing before slaughter at 18-20 months of age.

“They have their own section of the farm, away from other stock. While it mightn’t seem the norm to graze bulls, you get lots of cheap weight gain. Since 3 May, the bulls have achieved 1.3kg of daily weight gain at grass. From a management point of view you just have to keep the grass under them – don’t push them right down to 4cm, particularly when the weather’s unsettled. If it gets really wet I have a couple of areas where they can stand off to save the ground. There’s no point in denying it – if there’s a wet field and they get unsettled it’s not long before they do damage,” Harry said.

Cheap weight gain

Though Harry’s bulls will be sold on a flat price and not command any conformation or quality assurance bonuses, the cheap weight gain he achieves at grass makes this system work. He also communicates with his processors annually. Demand for carcases like these is limited and very specific – processors have less options when selling than with prime beef. Typically, a larger proportion of these carcases will be sold for manufacturing beef.

His bulls weighed 502kg at the end of July and will come in for finishing in the coming days. Harry has recently installed rubber slat mats in his finishing shed. These came in at a cost of €1,633 (ex-VAT) per pen (21x15ft), though just two-thirds of the pens were covered – the idea being that the animals will eat on the concrete and lie back on the mats.

Harry and Joe have a diet feeder on the farm and will feed a TMR based on 10kg of concentrates, 1kg of rape straw, all the grass silage they can eat (adjusted based on bale dry matter) and 14kg of home-grown fodder beet, which will be introduced towards the end of finishing.

Ideally, these animals would be closer to 525kg at housing, but a post-weaning pneumonia outbreak last winter led to a temporary stall in thrive. While no animals were lost, there is no doubt that the reduction in thrive and required medicines were a big, unnecessary drain on farm finances.

This year, Harry and Joe will place a bigger emphasis on gradual, stress-free weaning and have installed stock board in the weanling’s shed to eliminate any draughts.