The last cow calved on Tullamore Farm on Friday 24 April and this brings an end to a pretty successful 2020 calving season. There were 96 cows calved and 94 calves gone out to grass with the herd. Three calves were lost and a set of twins brought up the final figure. There are currently three groups of cows grazing on the farm.

The only negative was the loss of two cows in the last two months. One was a heifer that put out her calf bed after calving and didn’t recover, while the other was a cow that punctured her calf bed during the calving process. It’s never good to lose a cow and to lose two in the one season is a big blow.

Two groups of breeding cows with 40 cows each, along with a bunch of cull cows, are being grazed. Heats have been recorded for the last two weeks and cows were tailpainted prior to breeding commencing on 25 April. This means cows will start calving around 4 February 2021.

Once tailpaint has been removed a heifer is brought in for AI. The important time for heat detection is 6am-9am in the morning and 6pm-9pm in the evening.

Vasectomised bulls have been turned out with cows and bulls have been fitted with a chinball harness and a Mooheat collar to pick up heats. Cows will be tailpainted a different colour as they are bred. Insemination is being carried out by a local technician and cows are being bred once daily in the morning. If a cow is still in heat in the evening, she will get another straw the following morning.

Heifer group

There are 51 heifers selected for breeding in 2020. This includes 43 homebred heifers and eight Limousin-Friesian-cross bought-in heifers. Heifers were turned out at the beginning of April and breeding commenced on Wednesday 15 April. A vasectomised bull is being used, fitted with a Mooheat collar to aid in heat detection. Tail paint has also been used to help pick up heats.

This 2013-born LM/FR has a replacement index of €134 and she weighed 645kg in July 2019. This year's heifer calf is by SI4383 and will be kept as a replacement heifer.

Progress has been good, with 18 cows and 31 heifers inseminated to-date. It is difficult to pick up heats in such a large group and there have been a few false heats, so the weekend heifers that were bred have been moved to a separate group to make heat detection easier in the main group.

Bull choices

The farm is firmly focused on the replacement index as a route to drive efficiency, and in turn profitability, on the farm. The herd has an overall replacement index of €128 for the cows, putting it in the top 2% of suckler herds in the country. The target is to be in the top 1%. It’s always been about controlling as much as we can on Tullamore Farm and genetics is one area where huge influence can be applied.

This 2017-born LM x Dairy cross was purchased as a calf in 2017 and kept as a replacement. She has a replacement index of €116. She was 560kg in July 2019, calved at 24 months and has a calving interval of 360 days.

The plan for the farm is to sell high-replacement index in-calf heifers at 20 months. The male progeny will be finished as under-16-month bulls. We sat down last week and picked this year’s bull team.

With a focus on replacement genetics, Limousin and Simmental have come up tops and for the first six weeks of AI, high-replacement index AI sires will be used to generate replacements.

Heifers born early in the calving season have a better chance of hitting target weights and calving at 24 months. Stronger heifers have also sold better at our sale in previous years.

For the latter half of the breeding season, we will use Charolais semen. The most likely route to market for these later-born heifers is to be finished as beef, so Charolais should inject some more weight to some of the cows lacking in carcase traits.

Bulls have been picked for individual cows based on the strengths and weaknesses of those cows. Easy calving is still the focus, with 7.4% calving difficulty the hardest-calving bull chosen.

Farm manager Shaun Diver said: “I have a good idea of what way the cows are breeding at this stage and I know if one bull suits over another. That’s the beauty of AI. I can mix and match different bulls to different cows. It’s hard to get a one-size-fits-all bull across 100 cows.”

Table 1 outlines the AI sires being used on Tullamore Farm for 2020.

Breeding targets

In terms of breeding targets, the farm is operating at a very high level of efficiency.

The calving interval for the herd is 356 days, compared with the 401-day national average. Calves per cow per year is at 1, compared with the national figure of 0.85.

This spring 2016-born LMx cow with her third calf at foot, a bull calf by LM2116. The cow's replacement index is €108 (5 stars) and she weighed 670kg in July 2019.

That means the farm is weaning 15 more calves in a 100-cow suckler herd. Around 97% of heifers calve at 24 months, compared with the national figure of 22% calving at two years old.

Of the calves born on Tullamore Farm in 2020, 78% were by AI sires, compared with the 16% AI sired national figure.

Areas that need improvement include tightening the calving spread a little more for 2021. Calving started on 23 January 2020 and finished on 24 April. The majority of cows were calved by 15 April, with one hanging on until 24 April, but the target is to have calving complete in 11 weeks in 2021.

The six-week calving rate is running at 77%, so there should be no issue with pulling back the calving spread to 11 weeks.

Average farm cover went up last week to 882kg DM/ha from the previous week’s figure of 774kg DM/ha. The farm recorded a growth of 48kg DM/day over the last seven days. Growth is now ahead of the demand figure of 41kg DM/ha/day.

There are now 20 days ahead of stock on the farm, with 94 cows, 220 ewes and 61 yearling heifers grazing. It’s probably a little too many days for this time of year, but it’s a balancing act.

“We have two paddocks heading for 1,900kg DM/ha on them, but I’m a little afraid to take too much out with the moisture situation,” said Shaun.

“We haven’t had any rain here for four weeks and could do with some to keep growth going. If we get rain, we’ll take out a few paddocks next week and if not, we will graze them. Utilisation is excellent in the current good weather conditions”.

Bulls

Five bulls were killed last week and averaged 382kg carcase weight. Performance was very good, with an average lifetime daily liveweight gain of 1.42kg/day and a final kill-out percentage of 59%.

The price was very disappointing, at a base of €3.40/kg, and really calls into question the merits of the bull finishing system.

The bulls averaged €1,399/head, back €275/head on 2018 prices. The bulls are currently on 11kg of meal/day at €271/t, so meal costs are coming in at €3.00/day.

Add in other costs, such as €0.20/day for straw, etc, and total daily costs come to €3.20/day. At a daily gain of 1.7kg/day and a 58% kill-out, that’s 1kg carcase/day.

At €3.64/kg, that’s a gross of €3.64/day they are leaving at the moment. Therefore, the bulls are currently clearing €0.36/head/day.

It’s nowhere near where we need it to be to make money, but we have to continue to be as efficient as possible to reduce the losses that this will incur for 2020. There are a further seven bulls to be drafted for slaughter this week.