1 Can you give us a brief description of your beef production system?

I run a 70 cow spring calving suckler herd in Newtown, Bannow, Co Wexford. We finish all the bulls under 16 months.

We were autumn and spring calving, but we are now just going spring calving.

All bulls are finished under 16 months, The early maturing heifers will be finished around 18 months and the rest will go into the shed and be gone before Christmas, under 22 months of age.

2 How do you find the task of weighing your cows and calves in BEEP?

Absolutely no problem. We have had our own scales here for the last four years, so we have been weighing cattle long before BEEP. It’s extremely useful data, in that you get to know what breed crosses work best for your system. It also tells you a lot about the genetics you are using in your herd, how the various AI sires perform and which cow families work the best.

When you have put an investment into setting up a paddock grazing system, you need to make sure you are getting a good return. If there is a big drop in daily gain, it makes you check if they need minerals for example, if there is a drop. Weight recording basically checks your system and ensures that you are doing your job right.

3 You record birthweights on all of your calves, how useful do you find this?

I find it very useful. It's important to be dealing with accurate data all the way along.

If you only have an average birthweight of, say 40kg on a very good weanling, you could be working off an inaccurate daily gain for him, when he was actually 50kg when he was born.

We have had some bigger calves in recent times, so I would have a look at the sire of the calf and also see if I should be putting more straw into the cow’s diet.

So again, weight data is allowing me make important management decisions.

4 What traits are you particularly interested in improving in your herd now and in the future?

The herd is fairly maternal, so we want to keep that going. Maybe fertility could be looked at a little bit more, in terms of seeing can I get them to show a stronger heat.

I used to separate cows and calves to catch them more easily for bulling.

However, with numbers increasing, it was taking too much time, so from a labour efficiency point of view it wasn't on.

That said, when I stopped separating them, it still went okay and out of 70 cows, only six were not in calf and two of those were heifers.

I tried a vasectomised bull before but it didn’t work out with him, so that's an angle I’m looking at.

Also, in the future, I will be trying very hard to reduce the size and weight of the cows while maintaining and improving weanling performance, to try to create a much more efficient and functional cow.

5 Why do you participate in the Gene Ireland programme?

I got into the Gene Ireland programme to get the newest genetics into the herd.

I’ve never had any bother with the Gene Ireland bulls. I’ve never really had any calving problems with them.

They have produced top notch stock, whether they are kept for breeding or are finished.

6 What bulls are you using at the moment?

LM2116 (Tomschoice Ironstone), LM4058(Lodge Hamlet), LM4217(Moondharrig Knell), LM4872(Jym), SA4684(Knottown Randy), SI4250 (Lis na Ri Gucci) and SI4593 (Bearna Dhearg Hatchet).

In terms of Gene Ireland, Curaheen Vio was a standout bull. We got great daughters out of him and have got on well with his son Curaheen Earp as well. He is easy-calving and the calves get up and suck quickly. Even though he doesn''t look like a terminal bull, we have had excellent cattle for finishing off him as well.