John Dunne January/February Update 2025
Calving update and AI selection 2025
- Calving update
- Focus on breeding milk into the herd for 2025
- Bull choices 2025
Finishing performance
- First batch of dairy beef heifers finished
- First batch of suckler heifers finished
- Factory performance
Profit monitor 2024
- 2024 profit monitor complete
- Good control of variable costs
- Fixed costs are high on the farm
Breeding
32 calves have been born on John’s farm so far this year, and approximately 50 remain to calve. 3 calves were lost due to cows calving early. He hasn’t had to assist any at birth yet and has only had one difficult calving so far.
Figure 1: Some of the cows that have calved to AI bulls this year
John’s attention is already turning towards planning his breeding season for 2025. He was disappointed with AI conception rates last year as the weather meant that he had to hold up cows in a paddock with silage and he believes this affected their fertility.
However it is not stopping him from using AI again this year, and striving to improve on the conception rates. John’s first priority for breeding replacements this year is a strong focus on the daughter milk figure. His herd is at 5.4kg but he wants to increase this.
Figure 2: Eurostar index for the herd
He will use a synchronisation programme again this year to AI the cows to maternal bulls. The cow selection criteria is as follows;
- Calved by 8th March 2025 so that she is over 35 days calved on 12th April for the synchronisation programme
- Minimum of 4kg for daughter milk
- Minimum of 3 stars on the replacement index
He then searched the active bull list on ICBF in search of a bull with the following criteria:
- Proven bull (i.e. has calves on the ground)
- Simmental breed as John’s breed preference
- Minimum of 9kg for daughter milk
- cow calving difficulty of 8% at >85% reliability
- carcass weight of 14kg
- Eurostar value of €150
This returned 3 bulls for John that met his criteria:
- Lisnacrann Fifty Cent (SI2469) - for cows with a carcass weight over 20kg
- Rubyjen Here’s Johnny (SI4350) – on lower carcass cows <20kg
- Coose Kingston PP (SI6226)
John also considered using AI on his heifers and planned to use an Angus bull. However after looking at his own Angus stock bull and searching for his traits on the ICBF active bull list, no proven AI bulls were available that match him. He is €143 on the replacement index with +7.7kg for daughter milk and -2.84 days for daughter calving interval. He is €96 on the terminal index with +13.3kg for carcass weight, 0.84 carcass conformation and -14.73 days on age at finish. Most importantly he is only 5% calving difficulty for heifers at 75% reliability.
Figure 3: Angus bulls Eurostar traits (Source: ICBF)
The Charolais bull will then be used to mop up the remaining cows and any repeats from AI. John has had issues with subfertile and infertile bulls in the past so he will fertility the bulls before the breeding season and will monitor them closely to make sure repeat numbers are not too high.
His breeding season will start on 22nd April and he plans to limit it to 10 weeks which means it will end on 1st July.
Performance
John sold 17 dairy beef heifers to the factory on 5th February. They were 23.6 months of age and were 232kg carcass weight on average. They graded O=3= and averaged €1448/head.
On 6th February 3 suckler heifers went to the factory at an average of 33.5 months of age. They averaged 296kg carcass weight and graded R-+, averaging €1793/head.
The remaining cattle will be drafted as they come fit with another bunch due for sale in the next fortnight.
Figure 4: Dairy beef finishing cattle are eating 5.3kg of ration/head/day
The cattle will be weighed in the next month before going to the out farm in Rathfeston.
Financial
John completed his profit monitor for 2024 and has been analysing the cattle detailed report.
His output per livestock unit was 318 kg/LU which is behind the target of 350 kg/LU. This figure is affected by everything that affects weight gain in the herd - the cow fertility, bull fertility, mortality, genetics, nutrition at grass, winter performance, ration fed, animal health and calving spread. John is working on improving this by focusing on improving the milk and carcass weight in the herd through the use of AI and by selecting better quality replacements to breed from. His grassland stocking rate was 2.3 LU/ha, or 176 kg organic N/ha, but as he has tillage on the farm he is not in derogation.
John’s sales pattern changed slightly in 2024 as he kept heifers for breeding that he normally would have sold, and while he bought in less cattle as a result, his sales were back by 22 cattle. However his inventory is up by 25 cattle which will translate into cattle sales for the coming year. He had an overall gross output of €1793/ha for 2024.
The highest variable costs for 2024 were:
- Purchased ration (€358/ha)
- Fertiliser (€153/ha)
Typically the contracting costs are one of the highest variable costs for the year on a drystock farm, but as John carries out most of the contracting with his son James it is low. However his machinery running costs are €168 which appears in the fixed costs category.
In total, John’s variable costs were €920/ha which made up 51% of his gross output. That left him with a gross margin of €873/ha.
Fixed costs are high on the farm due to machinery running costs and a high land lease charge which result in €862/ha. John expects that this will rise over the coming years due to planned investments into a new handling unit and grain shed on the farm.