Lisgoole Abbey lies on the southern edge of Enniskillen and is home to a spring calving suckler herd of approximately 100 cows.
The farm extends to around 300 acres of grassland, most of which is mature parkland and over the last four years, the unit has been managed by Connor Donaldson.
On taking up the post in 2020, Connor began to implement changes to the herd and grazing system, building on the foundations already in place.
To date, the biggest change has been the move towards a more functional, maternally bred cow using Stabiliser genetics.
Cow numbers have also increased under Connor’s stewardship, while the calving pattern has been condensed into an 11 week window.
Progress made over the last four years is remarkable and was rightly recognised earlier this year, when Connor won the suckler herd competition organised by Fermanagh County Show.
Prior to Connor’s appointment as farm manager, the suckler herd at Lisgoole Abbey consisted of approximately 75 cows calving from autumn to late spring.
Cow type was primarily Limousin cross Belgian Blue breeding. Having grown up on a beef farm, Connor studied agriculture at Harper Adams before working on livestock farms in England and New Zealand.
On returning to his native Enniskillen, he took up the role of farm manager and set about putting his mark on the herd, to reflect the policy changes and move towards a more fertile, easy calving system.
Having seen Stabiliser cows on a friend''s suckler to beef finishing unit in Yorkshire, Connor felt the breed had a role at Lisgoole Abbey.
In autumn 2020, he purchased some in-calf Stabiliser cows privately from another farm, as well as a Stabiliser stock bull from Ballymena breeder, Billy O’Kane.
The next move was to condense the herd into a single spring calving block with cows calving down from March onwards.
Autumn calving was ruled out due to higher costs associated with meal feeding cows overwinter, plus bedding requirements.
Breeding
On 23 May 2021, stock bulls went out to cows and ran for a 13 week period. That gave most cows three to four opportunities to go back in-calf.
As changing cow type can be a slow transition, to speed up the rate of progress, an additional Stabiliser bull was purchased. Simmental bulls ran with cows deemed less suited to breeding replacements.
This breeding policy has continued through to 2024.
Fertility gains
Although the herd’s culling rate was high in that first year of condensed breeding, it wasn’t excessive.
A lot of the cows that fell out of the system were animals deemed less productive and marked for fattening that year.
This year, all cows and replacements were bred in an 11 week window to natural service with 96% scanned in-calf.
Average calving interval for the most recent year was 374 days.
Cow selection
When selecting cows for breeding, animals with good temperament, feet, consistently weaning a heavy calf and able to gain flesh at grass go to Stabiliser bulls.
Those cows which are more temperamental, lacking milk and calve towards the end of the calving period run with a terminally bred Simmental bull.
“I want a good functional cow that suits a grass based system, holds condition and rears a good calf.
"Mature cow weight is averaging 640kg.
Cows do not get meal at any point in the year. They have to be able to rear a calf from a grass only diet.
Calves get meal at weaning and that starts after housing” said Connor.
There are still some Limousin cross Blue cows in the herd, although they are less extreme in terms of mature liveweight and conformation compared to animals prior to 2020.
“As long as these animals continue to perform within the current selection policy, they will remain in the herd.”
Calving at 24 months
The added benefit of the defined breeding programme is that potential replacements are born to the most fertile and best milking cows in the herd.
That has allowed Connor to pull age of first calving forward to 24 months. Around 20 heifers calve down annually and the first group to calve at 24 months has just finished their third lactation.
Male calves are finished as young bulls with heifers not retained for breeding also taken through to slaughter, along with cull cows.
Meal is first introduced to young stock once housed to prepare for weaning.
This autumn, cattle were housed in stages up to 18 October.
Like many farmers, a lack of grass rather than poor ground conditions triggered housing this back end.
Calves were vaccinated against respiratory diseases prior to weaning, then locked off cows in creep pens to break the maternal bond.
They have also been drenched for fluke and worms.
All calves are normally weighed post-weaning, but due to the extremely mild conditions in early November, this task was delayed to avoid stressing animals.
Last year, weaning weights corrected to eight months of age averaged 365kg for bulls and 326kg for heifers.
Feeding
Bulls are currently eating 3kg/day of a 19% protein ration to compensate for a low protein content (10.5%) in first-cut silage.
Energy content of silage is good at 11.5% as is D-Value at 73%, but dry matter is lower than ideal at 24%.
Bulls will build up to 4.5kg/day of concentrate by Christmas, then step up to a maximum of 10kg/day in the final finishing phase. A high maize blend is fed in the final two months pre-slaughter.
“Meal is fed manually as I like to keep it fresh and see that bulls have eaten their full allocation before they get fed again.
The 2023-born bulls were slaughtered this year at 15 months of age and consumed around 1.5t of concentrate in their lifetime. Carcase weights averaged 410kg.
Heifer calves are currently on 1kg/day of concentrate and that will ease back to 0.5kg/day.
Heifers not suited to breeding will go back to grass in April.
They are grazed until autumn, then finished indoors around 20 months with last year’s crop averaging 326kg deadweight.”
Grazing
Grassland management is another area Connor has invested a lot of time. Electric fencing has improved grass utilisation with fields well drained in previous years.
Surplus grass is removed as baled silage.
This year, a multi-species sward was established and from July onwards, it was grazed five times without any fertiliser.
“I was delighted with this sward and think there is scope to increase the area under such swards, especially if it means reducing the amount of chemical fertiliser used on farm.”
Future plans
Over the next five years, the aim is to fine tune the current system now that the herd has settled at 100 cows.
“The farm is at its limit for cows. But there is still capacity to increase kilos of liveweight generated from the herd, which I hope to do.
"That may also open the door to a small dairy calf to beef enterprise to make greater use of the grass grown on farm.
"I bought 10 calves this year as a trial to see how they would fit in and perform.
"If it works out, I will look at growing these numbers in future.”
Farm facts