Our Organisation Search
Quick Links
Toggle: Topics

Ger McSweeney November/December 2024

Breeding

Breeding

  • Spring calving herd
  • Selecting bulls with high replacement index for breeding replacements
  • Selecting suitable replacement heifers from within the herd
View
Performance

Performance

  • Under 16month bull finishing and heifer finishing system
  • Achieving higher pre weaning weights
  • Feeding regime for finishing animals
View
Animal Health

Animal Health

  • Faecal egg testing
  • Vaccination programme for spring calving herd
  • Pre calving mineral supplementation
View

Breeding


A compact calving system is operated with 100% of the herd served to AI.  The herd has a very  compact calving season. The bull team used includes SI2152, LM9655, LM8259, AA4089, CH4321 and CH4159. The Angus is used on heifers for ease of calving with the Charolais bulls being used as a terminal sire for their carcass traits. The herd currently has a high level of milk of 9.9kg and maybe in the future in order to maintain and improve on the milk traits within the herd a larger emphasis should be placed on daughter milk. No bull on the team has a higher milk figure than the herd average. This figure is important when trying to drive pre weaning weights. A Large emphasis is also placed on improving carcass weights and this can be seen from the terminal sires used. Another area for focussing on selecting bulls for 2025 would be Age of Finish. The key here is to find a team of bulls which will reduce the age of finish without negatively affecting carcass traits.  Currently the cows are receiving ad lib silage and are grouped according to body condition score.

Figure 1: High replacement AI Bulls used on the herd to breed replacements

Figure 2- 2024 calving KPI's for the herd

Figure 3: In-calf heifers and suckler cows grouped according to body condition

Performance

Weanlings are housed and split into heifers and bulls. The heifers are split into 2 groups and are receiving 70 DMD silage ad lib. The heavier heifers are getting 2kg up to the end of December. The lighter heifers will receive 2 kg until near turnout. Heifers are turned out in January and finished under 24 months of age. The young bulls are currently on 4kg of ration split in 2 feeds. The cattle's dungs were a little looser than normal so ad lib straw will be offered to them in order to maintain good rumen function. The average daily gain from birth to weaning for the bulls is behind 2023. The weanlings were weighed on the 20th September and the average gain from birth to this date was 1.21kg per day versus 1.36kg per day for 2024. However the heifers are ahead of 2023 with gain of 1.16kg for the same period for 2024. The weanlings were affected by an an outbreak of coccidiosis and this could partly have affected their performance. Also the average age of the herd is 3.1 calvings per cow which could have played a part also.   It is also important to focus on daughter milk kg in sires used for breeding replacements in order to drive target gains of 1.3 to 1.4kg pre weaning.

Figure 4 2024 born weanlings bulls and heifers

Health


Currently all cattle are housed on the farm.  This year the calves and incalf heifers suffered an outbreak of cocciodiosis, Ger feels that this affected the performance of these animals. The cattle were treated with Vecoxan under veterinary advice. The weanlings were treated before housing for viral pneumonia with Bovipast RSP. Calves were treated with a clostridial vaccine also. Following faecal analysis all weanlings were treated with an ivermectin based pour on. The cattles backs were clipped in order to improve the efficacy of the pour on beforehand.

Cows receive a high spec pre calver mineral for a minimum of 6 weeks pre calving. Ger places a huge emphasis on improving calf health and getting large volumes of high quality colostrum into calves immediately after birth is key to this. All cows are milked and the colostrum quality is checked/ analysed  using a brix refractometer. If the colostrum is good quality over 22%, this colostrum is stored in order to feed a calf whose mother has either poorer quality colostrum or insufficient colostrum. A record of cows colostrum is checked. Last year the poorest reading was 16%. In general colostrum quality is very good on the farm with most cows achieving over 22%.