Eamon & Donnchadh McCarthy July/August Update 2024
Grass growth has slowed
- Silage re-growths have slowed
- Actions to reduce demand at grass
- Some autumn cows brought home from SAC land
Breeding finished for spring herd
- Breeding for spring herd finished
- Cows and heifers will be scanned in July
- Autumn calving due to start 26th July
Event
Friday, 26 July at 3pm
Eamon & Donnchadh McCarthy’s farm, Carrigeen, Glendine, Youghal, Co. Waterford. Eircode: P36 DT18.
Profitable suckler beef farming
Topics to be covered on the day include:
- Financials
- Breeding strategy & Sensehub technology
- Development of a paddock system
- Actions to safeguard water quality
- Bull beef system
Plus stands on biodiversity, forestry, breeding & more!
Grassland
While Eamon and Donnchadh were delighted to get their first cut silage of 183 bales made on 21st May, re-growths for second cut silage have slowed on the farm. Slurry has been spread at a rate of 2500 gallons/acre and it was topped up with 2 bags of 29% N + 14% K + S protected urea/acre on 31 acres. Eamon has noticed that the fields cut earliest have the best covers on them but other silage and grazing fields have lower growth rates. They will need 610 bales of silage for this winter and are already making plans to ensure they have enough fodder.
They are reducing demand at grass by;
- Feeding 1 bale of silage/day to cows and calves to avoid grazing silage ground
- Finishing heifers and cull cows are housed; they’re being drafted for finish as they come fit
- Autumn calving cows are being restricted at grass
- Spring herd will be scanned and culls will be drafted for feeding in August
- If there are more than 35 spring cows in calf, there is an option to sell them live
35 units of protected urea/acre was spread to help build grass covers in early June. Eamon’s opinion is that the land needs heat more than rain at present and is happy to see growth rates improve over the last 2 weeks to 45 kg DM/ha/day.
However demand is exceeding this at 49 kg DM/ha and with pre-grazing covers just over 1000 kg DM/ha, he will continue feeding silage until these pre-grazing covers rise further. As he took action early, he still has 15 days of grass ahead and hopes that the recent rain will help drive on growth rates.
Figure 1: Grass wedge 22nd June 2024
Five of the earliest calving autumn cows were brought home from the SAC land in Youghal due to a shortage of grass there. Water was lying on the land for most of the spring and growth has been poorer than usual. Twelve autumn cows are still there.
Figure 2: Eamon & Donnchadh are trying to reduce demand at grass by feeding silage
Breeding
Eamon and Donnchadh started breeding their spring herd on 1st May and finished on 12th June, amounting to a 6 week breeding season. Six females repeated out of 41 bred (13 heifers and 28 cows). While the 6 week breeding season is relatively short, it suits Eamon and Donnchadh to calve all the cows compactly, particularly when they have an autumn calving herd as well. The disadvantage is that the replacement rate is closer to 30% for the herd than the typical 20%.
Three heifers and 5 cows were synchronised using PRIDs as they had not been cycling prior to this. Eamon noticed that the later calved cows that were 4-5 weeks later at turnout than the rest of the herd were slower to cycle. This year has emphasised to him the importance of minding first calvers and making sure they are on a good plane of nutrition after calving, i.e. grass if possible but ration and good quality silage if they are housed.
The AI bulls used included AU4683, CH4321, CH7503, CH8535, HE9610, LM2014, LM6172, LM9379, SA4604, SI2152, SI4147 and SI4250.
Figure 3: Cow #341 was bred to AU4683. Pictured with a CH8535 bull calf at foot
This was Eamon and Donnchadh’s first year using the Sensehub heat and health monitoring system. The system monitors 10 animal behaviours including side lying, low activity, medium activity, high activity, eating (different when inside), rumination, walking, grazing, heavy breathing/panting and abnormal behaviour. This information can then be used to interpret the following;
- Heat data – when in heat, ideal time for insemination including sexed semen window, anoestrus cows, irregular heats
- Health alerts – abortions, internal sickness
- Transition information between phases e.g. pre and post calving
- Nutrition irregularities
- Heat stress
- Pregnancy probability
Alerts are then sent to the phone and app. Eamon and Donnchadh found that the system definitely saved time for them for heat detection but they did not receive notifications for 3 cows that had poorer heats, even though they could be seen on standing heat.
The herd will be scanned this month but only 2 cows have repeated so far.
7 of the autumn calvers have been moved home. Two of these were drafted for finishing but Eamon noticed that they were quite big and got them re-scanned and they turned out to be in calf. All cows get a mineral bolus before calving and will calve outside if the weather remains settled. Calving is due to start from 26th July and finish by the end of August.