One of Ireland’s oldest Charolais herds set for dispersal

The Skidoo herd, established some 52 years ago, is based in the picturesque setting of Ballyboughal in north Co Dublin. Having originally been founded by Omer Van Landeghem, the farm and the herd was purchased by local businessman and farmer Pat McDonagh.

It now stands as one of the oldest herds in the country, along with one of the largest, with over 100 pedigree cows calving each year.

Original genetics for the herd were brought in from France, with good French bulls used to build up the herd from these original imports.

Farm manager Donal Callery said: “Sires like Shamrock Ambassador, Flambeau, Emperor, Uranus and Commander were many of the iconic genetic lines Skidoo introduced to Ireland.”

These bulls, crossed with the top cows the herd obtained, helped to breed many of the early Charolais prizewinners at the RDS, with winners such as Skidoo Champion and Skidoo Pacha still highly sought after in back pedigrees.

While the top animals bred in the herd would have been shown in the early days, for the past 15 years a closed herd has been operated.

This is the same for the 160-head strong commercial herd run alongside the pedigree and tillage operations.

Herd health

Herd health has always been paramount at Skidoo, due to the entire farm being surrounded by either tillage or roadways, ensuring minimal disease transfer between neighbouring herds.

This closed herd protocol is also matched with a strenuous vaccination programme for diseases including BVD, IBR and lepto.

Closed herd

To maintain the closed herd and reduce the need to purchase in any bulls, the herd operates a 100% AI system. This is split with 50% of cows calving in the autumn and 50% in the spring.

Donal said: “We’re breeding more for the maternal end over terminal and we have done that a good bit to try [to] build this elite functional cow.

“The breeding policy has always been to breed what the market requires; easy calving, good fertility, early maturing, good feet and legs, yet maintaining milk within our females. It’s always paramount that every cow is able to rear her own calf.”

If a cow fails to meet any of these requirements in the herd, then, due to the large size of the herd, she is easily replaced, Donal explains, particularly in the past “when you could be getting close to €4 a kilo; if she wasn’t doing her job, she was still coming into a lot of money”.

Looking through the catalogue, it’s easy to see that the herd, over the years, has used bulls to fit this criteria.

Maternal traits

Bulls such as the old favourite Doonally New (CF52) are rarely used, as these fail to meet the milk requirement the herd has.

Instead, bulls such as Tombapic, Dromiskin Viceroy, Nippur, Jumper, Nelson, Fenian and Bivouac are used.

These bulls all carry maternal traits in abundance and fill the needs of the market the Skidoo herd supplies.

Donal adds: “We run the farm very much commercially. We never focused on hard-calving bulls.

“We had nearly 300 cows calved down in 2018, so easy calving was the main thing. When people come into the yard to buy bulls, the first thing they look for is calving figure. So the bulls we’re using have to be easy-calving bulls.”

Breeding for this market means that the majority of bulls and heifers the herd sells on an annual basis are sold off-farm, with a large proportion going to the strong customer base built up through the years.

“We sell 45 bulls a year between autumn and spring.

“These would be very commercial-run and pushed more on grass than concentrates. That’s what keeps the commercial man coming back,” added Donal.

Ten-month grazing

Due to the incredible land type in the estate, cows are at grass for 10 months of the year.

To make the most out of this grazing season, the farm has a paddock grazing system in place where grass is grown in three weeks and grazed in three days.

Due to the tillage operation also, a portion of the land is reseeded each year and cattle are driven by lush grass, keeping costs low.

This grassland management plays a vital role at Skidoo and is one key area where other pedigree breeders can improve on.

Sale

The sale, which is on Saturday 14 September, takes place on the farm in Skidoo (Eircode A41 FW54) and has a catalogue of over 120 lots.

These lots include spring cows with calves at foot that are back in calf, autumn calvers on the point of calving, and also in calf, maiden and weanling heifers. The sale is offering the entire pedigree female herd, with the bulls to go at a later date this coming spring.

Donal explains that although there could’ve been another 50 odd cattle at the sale, that they “drew a line in the sand and any cows that have had feet problems, prolapsing problems, any kind of problems were all culled.”

This means that the majority of the cattle on offer are mostly younger cows or cows with longevity that are also suitable for flushing.