Michael McGuigan March/April Update 2025
Calving update & breeding season started
- Calving update
- Bull choices 2025
- Breeding season started on 11th April
Profit monitor completed for 2024
- Profit monitor results for 2024
- Change in system will unsettle the figures for a few years
- Financial budget for 2025 completed
Soil sample results are back
- Latest soil sample results
- Huge improvement in soil fertility
- Targeting lime, slurry & compounds to lower index fields has paid off
Breeding
Michael has 23 live calves since calving started on 25th January this year. Three cows are left to calve and are due by mid-May.
Breeding started on 11th April and from then until 21st April, Michael has bred 6 heifers and 4 cows. He had noticed that the cows were slow to come back in heat up until the beginning of April, so he started restrict suckling them. He did this by locking the calves out of the paddocks using his creep gates and letting them in twice daily to get fed from the cows. While the cows could still see the calves, the aim was to help break the cow/calf bond and encourage them to come cycling quicker after calving.
Figure 1: Cows with calves at foot
Michael has the Sensehub heat detection and health monitoring system installed on the farm and is now into his second year using it. The cows and breeding heifers are fitted with collars which monitors their activity and eating habits. When the activity increases in an animal, it triggers an alert which is sent directly to Michael’s phone to notify him that one is in heat. It also provides a timeline for insemination to achieve the best conception rates for both conventional and sexed semen.
The following bulls are being used this year on the herd:
- Maternal bulls: Tulla Harry Potter (SI4336), Coose Jericho P (SI4657), Grenache (LM4351), Erebos (LM6172)
- Terminal bulls: Messmer (CH8112), Omega (CH6493)
- Heifers: Tulla Harry Potter (SI4336), Intelagri Matteo E.T. (AA4089)
After a disappointing breeding season in 2024, Michael is keen to achieve a successful breeding season this year. The cows have been vaccinated against leptospirosis since December and have been given 2 coseicure boluses to help supply copper and iodine pre-breeding as low levels of these were detected in the herd in a blood test. He also drenched iodine on their backs to help supplement the herd further. The cows have been at grass since calving, and are on target for body condition score pre-breeding.
Twelve cows have been selected to breed to maternal bulls, 11 heifers will also be bred to maternal bulls and 9 cows will be bred to terminal bulls. Michael bought in an extra 4 maiden heifers for breeding this spring to have his breeding numbers at 32 for this year, with the aim of calving down over 30 females in 2026.
He is aiming for a 9 week breeding season which would bring him to 13th June but he will assess the numbers bred at that stage and extend it to 12 weeks if necessary.
One of the maternal bulls that Michael is using this year is Tulla Harry Potter (SI4336). He has the following traits:
- €138 on the replacement index (5 stars across breeds)
- €40 on the terminal index (1 star across breeds)
- Heifer calving difficulty of 6.2% at 86% reliability
- Cow calving difficulty of 2.4% at 94% reliability
- Daughter milk +7.5kg
- Carcass weight +9.5kg
- Age at finish -8.7 days
- Daughter calving interval -1.85 days
The milk figure of 7.5kg is higher than the average heifers’ figure of 4.8kg (range 1.4 to 7.7kg) and the herd average figure of 2.9kg which will help to improve the future replacements in the herd. While the carcass weight is low at 9.5kg, the average carcass weight of the heifers is 18.5kg (range 15.2 to 27.9 kg) and Michael is not aiming to breed a heavy cow so is trying to maintain the herd average which is 21kg currently.
Figure 2: Eurostar traits for Tulla Harry Potter (SI4336) (Source: ICBF)
Financial
The 2024 profit monitor has been completed for the farm. Michael used the cost control planner in 2024 to monitor the farm expenses and income on a monthly basis which he found very useful.
The first figure on the ‘cattle detailed report’ examined was the output per livestock unit which was 297 kg/LU. This was a decrease since 2023 where the figure was 343 kg/LU, and is behind the target >350 kg/LU for a suckler system. 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. As most of these areas are within a farmer’s control, it is also an indication of stock management on the farm and is irrespective of beef price. However this was completely expected on Michael’s farm. He is changing from an autumn to spring calving system this year which would have affected the output figure, and also more cows were culled than usual last year due to infertility which also dropped the output/LU. It will take one or two years for this figure to settle for Michael while the farm system is changing.
The stocking rate on the farm is 1.88 LU/ha or 144 kg organic N/ha which means that Michael is not in derogation. 14 acres may be coming available for Michael to rent this year which will change the land area available going forward.
The gross output figure is calculated from cattle sales minus cattle purchases and add/subtract any changes to the inventory. Michael had a gross output figure of €1889/ha which is the main ‘money in the pot’ to cover variable and fixed costs. This increased by 35% from €1324/ha in 2023, despite a change of inventory of -€679/ha due to the change in timing of calf births.
The 3 biggest expenses on drystock farms are purchased concentrate, fertiliser and contractor costs. Similarly, Michael’s biggest costs for the year were:
- Ration: €230/ha (increase of €48/ha since 2023)
- Contractor: €181/ha (decrease of €78/ha since 2023)
- Fertiliser: €170/ha (decrease of €103/ha since 2022)
In total, the total variable costs (€1227/ha) were 65% of the gross output figure, which is higher than the target of <50%. Extra cattle were finished in 2024 which contributed to the higher meal bill. Breeding costs were also higher than usual in 2024 due to 2 sets of blood tests carried out while investigating the fertility issue in the herd. Sexed semen straws were also purchased which are double the price of conventional straws.
The fixed costs increased slightly in 2024 to €744/ha from €619/ha in 2023 due to slight increases in machinery running, and farm car running costs. Despite this, the cattle enterprise made -€82/ha net margin which does not include any direct payments or subsidies and is a significant improvement on the 2023 figure of -€585/ha.
Michael has completed a financial budget for 2025 and expects his profit to be up in 2025 due to lower variable costs, similar fixed costs, higher beef price and improved output/LU. When comparing his 2024 budget to the actual expenditure, he only went over budget by €5000 and achieved an extra €2000 in sales. Michael finds that having a budget in place helps him to control costs, monitor spending and really helps him to stay focused on the farm financials throughout the year.
Figure 3: Some of the stock that will be for sale later this year
Soil Fertility
Michael took soil samples for his farm in February this year so that he would have up to date information on the soil fertility status of his farm. He was absolutely delighted with the results which have improved significantly since the farm was last soil sampled in 2024.
The overall soil fertility status (pH over 6.2, P&K index 3 or 4) has increased from 37% to 86% - mainly due to the lime that has been spread continuously over the last few years to build the soil pH.
The percentage of soil with a pH of over 6.2 is now 100%, which was also the case last year. Most notably the phosphorus index has risen dramatically, from 61% in index 3 or 4 to 93% in the same category. This is as a result of targeting slurry and phosphorus compounds to lower index fields. And a result of the lime that released background Phosphorus that was locked up in the soil.
93% of the farm is now in index 3 or higher for phosphorus, up from 51% in the last soil samples. Again, this is from Michael’s focus with spreading slurry and compounds on silage fields which have higher nutrient offtakes than grazing fields.
This year his Phosphorus allowance will be restricted due to the excellent sample results, but this will save him both time and money on spreading compounds. He will continue to spread straight nitrogen in the form of protected urea as it is needed on the grazing block. Fortunately he has a lot of white clover and plans to oversow more, which will help to further reduce his fertiliser bill this year as it fixes atmospheric nitrogen and converts it into a form that is usable by the grass plant.
Figure 4: Soil fertility results 2025