Just north of Slane in Co Meath, father and son combination Gerard and Robert McGuinness are achieving big things with a curve-bending 130-cow suckler herd.
“We started calving on the 7 February, and as of today [Tuesday 27 March] there are five left,” Robert tells me as we inspect his young calves. A participant in the Dawn Meats YBFSP, 28-year-old Robert is a walking encyclopaedia of suckling. In 124 calvings he has had a single case of mortality – a big Angus calf from a heifer.
“He was alive when she started calving but things got difficult and we lost him,” Robert tells me.
There is no bull on the farm – breeding is 100% AI and much of the conversation on the day is around bulls and 2018’s sires. John McDaniel from Progressive Genetics is present too. He works closely with the McGuinnesses on bull selection.
SI2469 daughter born 9 March 2018.SI2469 daughter born 9 March 2018.
Robert’s single calf loss was from the sire RGZ, a proven Angus with 2.5% calving and 99% reliability. However, ever the perfectionist, he questions John about going even easier to avoid repeats. Easy calving is the number one mantra here – “I want the easy life!”
John advises Robert to stay with this sire.
“One in 125 is phenomenal performance Robert. Going lower than RGZ will hit you on the terminal end. You will always have the odd freak. There may have been problems on the dam end too,” John says.
We talk about the 2017 breeding season and Gerard tells me that there hasn’t been a bull on the farm for four years.
“We were keeping a bull and he would only end up serving about 10 cows and their calves hadn’t a patch on the AI calves. We started doing AI on one group and gradually did more and more as we grew in confidence,” he says.
Robert does all of his own AI and used nine sires last year.
“I pay no attention to stars when I’m selecting my bulls. If I’m serving a cow that I’d like a replacement from, I look at calving ease and milk. That’s were Fifty Cent (SI2469) and Suir Con (SCO) come in. I was actually thinking of going down the British Frieisan route but John advised to go for those. Cows that I don’t want to keep heifers from get easy calving, terminal straws. We finish males as bulls under 16 months so good beef traits are important. That’s where bulls like Fiston (FSZ) and Fenian (LZF) do a job,” he says. Indeed, a FSZ son produced a 418kg carcase grading E-, 3- at 16 months of age in 2018.
FSZ bull calf born 8 March 2018.FSZ bull calf born 8 March 2018.
He tells me that he has had some frustration getting heifers to persist in the herd in recent years and has looked outside to bring some in.
“We have been pulling the calving season forward and forward in recent years and have had a bit of a problem holding on to heifers – a good few had to be culled after one lactation. I think it’s because I was having to calve them very young as we brought forward the season. That should settle out now but in the meantime I decided to take in nine Angus heifers out of the dairy herd. It’s our first year of it and while I would hope to be keeping my own Simmental- and Angus-types going forward, I wouldn’t rule out doing it again. I think heifers from these Friesian-Angus crosses will make great cows. There are a good few reliable sources around me, they’re exceptionally quiet animals and the nine of them took 10 straws to go in calf.”
In terms of overall conception, there was a 12.5% empty rate after 7.5 weeks of breeding 147 animals. The 130ha farm is laid out in four blocks and a breeding group ran on each of these. To reduce labour, the McGuinnesses used vasectomised bulls and two of the groups were synchronised using CIDRs.
“We vasectomised five of our own bulls and it worked well. There were two of them that got a bit lazy and a vet gave me a tip for this season to give them a shot of Receptal before they go to work. I synchronised 55 cows in two groups – 35 and 20 a week later. We used a 10-day protocol – CIDR in day 0, estrumate and CIDR out day seven, Receptal day nine and AI day 10. I would serve them again if they were bulling the day after. Out of the first group of 35, 28 held (80%). It was panic stations that we would have a big burst of calving but the most we got in one day was seven calves,” Robert says.
Gerard comments that they had 12 calves in one day the year before with no synchronisation and John McDaniel adds that in his experience, synchronised animals can calve in a spread of up to three weeks.
The protocol cost the pair €22 per cow (not including the AI straw) and both agreed that they would do it again. Robert comments, looking at his meticulously kept records, that a good number of animals showed no signs of heat at all and still held to fixed-time AI.
“It was very good for shortening the season. You have to be ruthless with stragglers. When you have a few cows at the end of the season and you’re focused elsewhere, that’s when you’ll have losses. Those late calves are always going to be your lightest animals too. I think you’re better off not having them around. Do your short sharp calving and move on,” Robert states.
Cows calve in long, straw sheds with open-sided, but sheltered feed faces. There are pop-up creep areas for young calves throughout. Four fixed calving cameras are monitored via an internet connection.
Cows are fed on a diet of straw and silage, with 120g of pre-calver mineral for two months pre-calving. Soya bean meal is offered at a rate of 1kg per head from mid-January to boost colostrum potency.
Yearling bulls photographed last week. They are earmarked for slaughter under 16 months of age this summer.Yearling bulls photographed last week. They are earmarked for slaughter under 16 months of age this summer.
“I would like to get calving in January – we have the facilities to do so – but I’m conscious of scour. Along with feeding the soya bean meal, we have a protocol in place for minimising scour that involves vaccinating cows with Rotovec Corona, giving young calves Cryptocap capsules and dosing them against coccidiosis.”
There are few farms in the country who can lace the McGuinness’s boots from a reproductive performance point of view. Not touched on here are the pair’s skills as grassland managers. As infrastructure and swards improve on the outer grazing blocks, the whole system will only go from strength to strength. Roberts’s passion is infectious and complements his father’s invaluable experience extremely well. His mother Imelda plays an active role in the running of the farm too as well as being chief bookkeeper. She rounds off an exceptional example of family farming done right.
Just north of Slane in Co Meath, father and son combination Gerard and Robert McGuinness are achieving big things with a curve-bending 130-cow suckler herd.
“We started calving on the 7 February, and as of today [Tuesday 27 March] there are five left,” Robert tells me as we inspect his young calves. A participant in the Dawn Meats YBFSP, 28-year-old Robert is a walking encyclopaedia of suckling. In 124 calvings he has had a single case of mortality – a big Angus calf from a heifer.
“He was alive when she started calving but things got difficult and we lost him,” Robert tells me.
There is no bull on the farm – breeding is 100% AI and much of the conversation on the day is around bulls and 2018’s sires. John McDaniel from Progressive Genetics is present too. He works closely with the McGuinnesses on bull selection.
SI2469 daughter born 9 March 2018.SI2469 daughter born 9 March 2018.
Robert’s single calf loss was from the sire RGZ, a proven Angus with 2.5% calving and 99% reliability. However, ever the perfectionist, he questions John about going even easier to avoid repeats. Easy calving is the number one mantra here – “I want the easy life!”
John advises Robert to stay with this sire.
“One in 125 is phenomenal performance Robert. Going lower than RGZ will hit you on the terminal end. You will always have the odd freak. There may have been problems on the dam end too,” John says.
We talk about the 2017 breeding season and Gerard tells me that there hasn’t been a bull on the farm for four years.
“We were keeping a bull and he would only end up serving about 10 cows and their calves hadn’t a patch on the AI calves. We started doing AI on one group and gradually did more and more as we grew in confidence,” he says.
Robert does all of his own AI and used nine sires last year.
“I pay no attention to stars when I’m selecting my bulls. If I’m serving a cow that I’d like a replacement from, I look at calving ease and milk. That’s were Fifty Cent (SI2469) and Suir Con (SCO) come in. I was actually thinking of going down the British Frieisan route but John advised to go for those. Cows that I don’t want to keep heifers from get easy calving, terminal straws. We finish males as bulls under 16 months so good beef traits are important. That’s where bulls like Fiston (FSZ) and Fenian (LZF) do a job,” he says. Indeed, a FSZ son produced a 418kg carcase grading E-, 3- at 16 months of age in 2018.
FSZ bull calf born 8 March 2018.FSZ bull calf born 8 March 2018.
He tells me that he has had some frustration getting heifers to persist in the herd in recent years and has looked outside to bring some in.
“We have been pulling the calving season forward and forward in recent years and have had a bit of a problem holding on to heifers – a good few had to be culled after one lactation. I think it’s because I was having to calve them very young as we brought forward the season. That should settle out now but in the meantime I decided to take in nine Angus heifers out of the dairy herd. It’s our first year of it and while I would hope to be keeping my own Simmental- and Angus-types going forward, I wouldn’t rule out doing it again. I think heifers from these Friesian-Angus crosses will make great cows. There are a good few reliable sources around me, they’re exceptionally quiet animals and the nine of them took 10 straws to go in calf.”
In terms of overall conception, there was a 12.5% empty rate after 7.5 weeks of breeding 147 animals. The 130ha farm is laid out in four blocks and a breeding group ran on each of these. To reduce labour, the McGuinnesses used vasectomised bulls and two of the groups were synchronised using CIDRs.
“We vasectomised five of our own bulls and it worked well. There were two of them that got a bit lazy and a vet gave me a tip for this season to give them a shot of Receptal before they go to work. I synchronised 55 cows in two groups – 35 and 20 a week later. We used a 10-day protocol – CIDR in day 0, estrumate and CIDR out day seven, Receptal day nine and AI day 10. I would serve them again if they were bulling the day after. Out of the first group of 35, 28 held (80%). It was panic stations that we would have a big burst of calving but the most we got in one day was seven calves,” Robert says.
Gerard comments that they had 12 calves in one day the year before with no synchronisation and John McDaniel adds that in his experience, synchronised animals can calve in a spread of up to three weeks.
The protocol cost the pair €22 per cow (not including the AI straw) and both agreed that they would do it again. Robert comments, looking at his meticulously kept records, that a good number of animals showed no signs of heat at all and still held to fixed-time AI.
“It was very good for shortening the season. You have to be ruthless with stragglers. When you have a few cows at the end of the season and you’re focused elsewhere, that’s when you’ll have losses. Those late calves are always going to be your lightest animals too. I think you’re better off not having them around. Do your short sharp calving and move on,” Robert states.
Cows calve in long, straw sheds with open-sided, but sheltered feed faces. There are pop-up creep areas for young calves throughout. Four fixed calving cameras are monitored via an internet connection.
Cows are fed on a diet of straw and silage, with 120g of pre-calver mineral for two months pre-calving. Soya bean meal is offered at a rate of 1kg per head from mid-January to boost colostrum potency.
Yearling bulls photographed last week. They are earmarked for slaughter under 16 months of age this summer.Yearling bulls photographed last week. They are earmarked for slaughter under 16 months of age this summer.
“I would like to get calving in January – we have the facilities to do so – but I’m conscious of scour. Along with feeding the soya bean meal, we have a protocol in place for minimising scour that involves vaccinating cows with Rotovec Corona, giving young calves Cryptocap capsules and dosing them against coccidiosis.”
There are few farms in the country who can lace the McGuinness’s boots from a reproductive performance point of view. Not touched on here are the pair’s skills as grassland managers. As infrastructure and swards improve on the outer grazing blocks, the whole system will only go from strength to strength. Roberts’s passion is infectious and complements his father’s invaluable experience extremely well. His mother Imelda plays an active role in the running of the farm too as well as being chief bookkeeper. She rounds off an exceptional example of family farming done right.
This is a subscriber-only article
SHARING OPTIONS: