Watch: Royal County cows in top spot

In recent weeks, the Irish Farmers Journal has been monitoring developments in the Irish and international dairy breeding scene. The series started with an article based on work by Andrew Cromie of ICBF showing no difference in performance or profit between breeds when herd EBI is the same. Follow-on articles looked at breeding programmes in different countries and Irish and international research on crossbreeding and the economic performance of different breeds including some criticism of the ICBF comparison.

One of the farmers whose herd was included in the ICBF Mythbusters analysis is Brendan Meade. His herd of black-and-white cows has the highest EBI in the country at €211.

Brendan has been farming at Whiteleas Farm just outside Stamullen in Co Meath since the Meade family purchased it in 1975. Starting out with 46 cows, Brendan and his two long-time employees, brothers Paul and Declan Brannigan, milk 166 cows today. Breeding cows is one of Brendan’s many passions and the herd he has today is the fruit of 45 years’ labour.

“The original herd came from our home farm along with 18 heifer calves purchased from my stepmother. Since then, we have never purchased an animal so the herd we have today is all descended from the original herd and the cow families can be traced back generations,” Brendan says.

I pick a panel of bulls that I am happy with

Milk performance is impressive. Last year the herd sold 550kgMS/cow to Lakeland Dairies plus a further 10kgMS/cow was fed to calves. The six-week calving rate is 76% and empty rate after 13 weeks of breeding is consistently 8% to 9%.

The herd was pedigree registered in 1981 but Brendan isn’t hung up on pedigree status. Breeding decisions are based on science and are made while sitting at the computer.

“I pick a panel of bulls that I am happy with. Twelve bulls were used this year. These are picked based on their overall EBI and their milk and fertility sub-index along with type traits for overall mammary and overall feet and legs. What I do is start at the top of the of the March evaluation list of all bulls and work my way down until I have the panel I need.”

This year’s bull team averaged 35kg solids and had an EBI of €310

Brendan says that with an EBI for fertility of €95, improving fertility sub-index is not a big priority as the fertility sub-index is high, fertility is good and there is no benefit of breeding for a calving interval of less than 365 days. The herd has a PTA for milk solids of 21.3kg so he needs to pick bulls with a PTA for solids higher than this in order to make progress in production traits. This year’s bull team averaged 35kg solids and had an EBI of €310.

Brendan isn’t into type, but he tries to avoid picking bulls that are more than -1.5 linear score for overall mammary and overall feet and legs. This is to avoid bulls that could be breeding cows with poor udders or that are more prone to lameness. Bulls are randomly assigned to cows on the day of AI, but are checked for inbreeding. If a cow repeats, a different bull is assigned. Cows are tail-painted every few days using vinyl matt emulsion paint, with Brendan checking cows for signs of heat and drafting for AI just once a day.

The stocking rate at Whiteleas is 2.93 cows/ha but with more land rented away from the farm for silage and heifer rearing the overall stocking rate is around 2.5 livestock units per hectare.

The Irish Grassland Associated held a farm walk on the farm in 1990. At that time, Brendan was operating an ultra-low cost system only feeding around 40kg to 50kg of meal per cow per year. Back then, the herd was producing around 290kgMS/cow/year. Now the herd is producing 560kgMS/cow but the level of meal feeding is also a lot greater at over 2t of meal per cow per year.

When I visited Brendan last week, the farm was just coming out of a severe drought. The 30-year average for rainfall on the farm is 760mm but, so far this year, only 288mm has fallen and 70mm of that has come in the last fortnight. The herd were on 7kg of meal and two round bales of haylage per day along with whatever grass was in the field up to one week ago. Now, they are back to 4kg of meal.

Interestingly, most of the paddocks on the farm haven’t been reseeded since the 1970s and the percentage of perennial ryegrass in the swards is still very good. Cows are allocated grass in 12-hour breaks all year round and cows aren’t let into the next break until all cows are milked. Post-grazing residuals are excellent.

All animals including heifer calves are genotyped. A 25% replacement rate is maintained, meaning 40 heifer calves are retained with the rest sold. There is a waiting list to buy surplus heifer calves. Bull calves are sold locally at two weeks of age. Brendan isn’t concerned about age or size when it comes to choosing heifers to keep as his own replacements.

“Again, that decision is made by looking at the computer. I sort heifer calves based on their sire and I will pick the highest-EBI calves from each sire in equal numbers. So if I have 10 sires and I need to keep 40 calves I’ll pick the four highest-EBI heifers from each sire even if this means selling some higher-EBI heifers than ones I’m keeping but it’s all about spreading the risk with genomics,” Brendan says.

Our fertility was declining throughout the 1980s and 1990s

I asked him what he thought of the EBI system.

“We’ve been following RBI and then EBI since the start. Our fertility was declining throughout the 1980s and 1990s. I remember listening to Brian Wickham speak at a meeting promoting EBI and he was talking a lot about science and I felt that up to then, science was lacking in breeding. The fact that bulls [EBI] can jump up and down a lot, plus the fact that EBI itself changes a bit too much does annoy me, but overall the ICBF has done tremendous work.”

I asked Brendan would he cross the cows with Jersey?

“Why would I use Jersey? What have they got to offer me? The Mythbusters article was proof of the pudding – those with a high EBI don’t need to crossbreed,” he replied.

A good few male calves have been sold into AI over the years but none have been megastars. He retains a number of high-EBI bulls for his own usage, mopping up the cows for the final few weeks of breeding and for use on heifers. Only bulls are used on heifers as Brendan says it’s enough work to be focusing on one group of animals during breeding. The EBI of some of his own bulls is higher than most AI bulls, but their reliability is lower.

Cows are milked all year round, with all animals getting a 60-day dry period. The planned start of calving is 7 February but cows usually start calving by the end of January. Heifers are bred a week later than the cows. The calving interval for the herd is 375 days, slightly longer than target, but Brendan explains that a small number of empty cows are carried over from one year to the next.

“If an exceptional cow slips a calf, we will at times run her over to the following season. But she’ll only get one chance to go in calf the following year and if she doesn’t, then she’s gone. There are four carryover cows in the herd at present. It’s not a routine practice but we do it on occasion.”

The cows are medium-sized, neither big nor small, but some cows are bigger than others. Brendan says that he think the size difference between certain cows is more down to the cow families.

At this stage, 60% of the herd can be traced back to two cow families. He doesn’t weigh the cows, saying he’d prefer to go off fishing or go to an athletics event, two of his main pastimes outside of farming and family, than spend too long at something of dubious benefit.

The herd has a maintenance sub-index of €10, which would correspond to a predicted mature liveweight of 590kg. Interestingly, Brendan reckons the cows have got bigger over the last number of years and this is reflected in cull cow carcase weights.

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