Shane Keaveney March April 2025
Breeding
Calving is progressing very well on Shane’s farm and he is over half way there. He thought it was slower to start this year than expected but was very busy when the calves started arriving. Seven heifers have been born to sexed semen from Leeherd Lynx 364 (SI7491) which will be future replacements in Shane’s herd.
Picture 1: One of the heifers born from sexed semen from SI7491
The pre-calving minerals worked very well this year and Shane has found that calves are up and suckling within an hour of birth which is saving him a lot of work.
He has been looking at bull choices for 2025 and wants to keep hybrid vigour in the herd by aiming for a Saler x Simmental x Limousin cross cow. There are 10 cows that he plans to AI this year as they will be over 35 days calved at the time of synchronising, along with a potential 8 heifers. Shane is planning to breed them back to a maternal Saler bull this year. Knottown Roy (SA4604) was selected as he has the following traits that Shane wants from the November 2024 evaluation:
- €188 on the replacement index
- 3% calving difficulty on heifers at 99% reliability
- 1% calving difficulty on cows at 99% reliability
- +8.4kg on daughter milk
- -2.4 days on daughter calving interval
- +19.8kg on carcass weight
He is a little low on carcass conformation at 1.04 and age at finish is poor at +3.78 days but Shane is happy to compromise on these traits. He wants to improve daughter milk and carcass weight in his own cows so SA4604 will help with this. Shane is considering using sexed semen on the cows and conventional semen on the heifers.
Figure 1: Eurostar details of Shane's herd
The remaining cows will be bred back to the Charolais stock bull who is €104 on the terminal index. He is 6.4% calving difficulty for cows at 88% reliability, is 34kg for carcass weight and 1.85 on carcass conformation, with -5.55 days on age at finish.
Figure 2: Eurostar traits of Charolais stock bull
Grassland
The calved cows have been turned out to grass with their calves in small groups. The dairy beef and suckler heifers have started grazing the newly rented land which Shane has since divided into paddocks. They are achieving good graze outs which he is very happy with.
Photo 2: Grazing is going well on the leased land
Photo 3: Yearling heifers at grass
Shane is delighted that small bags of 38% + S protected urea are now available to buy locally at €520-530/t. He prefers to spread fertiliser after the cows finish grazing a paddock and was unable to do this with the 375kg bags. He finds that he gets a better response to phosphorus and potassium in April so he will spread protected urea in his March round and follow up with 1500-2000 gallons/slurry per acre, or farmyard manure.
Performance
Five Charolais cross heifers were sold through the mart on 13th February. They averaged 331kg live weight and made €4.23/kg.
The bulls are being fed 8kg ration with silage and straw through the diet feeder. Shane plans to move them from the straw bedded shed to the slatted shed when the cows are all turned out as it will be less work and cost or him to bed them down with straw.
Photo 4: Finishing bulls in straw bedded shed