Breeding season underway on NISBP farms

The breeding season for spring calving herds is now under way on the majority of the programme farms. Cow fertility is reportedly excellent as a direct result of the good grazing conditions this spring.

While wet weather in the past week has made ground conditions challenging, grass quality remains relatively high.

Some of the farmers have said that there are cows coming back into heat from 25 to 30 days after calving.

If grass quality can be maintained over the next month, it will have a positive effect in bringing later-calving cows forward in terms of breeding date and calving date.

While grass quality will help to bring later cows forward, there will still be a few cows with poor fertility that will slip backward in the herd.

However, removing the stock bull after a set period of 10 to 12 weeks will quickly identify these cows and they can be culled.

Tightening the calving period eases herd management. All cows can be fed the same diet over the winter, calves can be wormed, de-horned and weaned at the same time and cattle will have more uniform weights when sold live or finished.

While it increases the workload during the calving period and can place pressure on housing facilities, it is a short concentrated period that can be planned for.

The farmers in the programme who have moved to compact calving have said that the benefits far outweigh any negatives and they would not revert back to a prolonged calving spread.

On the programme farms, stock bulls will run with cows until early to mid-August. Cows will then be scanned at housing to determine the numbers in-calf.

Empty cows will be weaned, fattened and sold. Over the past four years, typical barren rates in cows were around 5% to 8% for the herds operating compact calving patterns, which is no more than four animals in a 50-cow herd.