Kildalton College’s route to suckler profitability

Consisting of 52 spring-calving cows, the suckler herd at Teagasc Kildalton College is one of the most profitable in the country. From a system based mainly on under 16 month bull and 20 month heifer beef, the unit generated a gross margin of €1812/ha and a resulting net margin of €1195/ha in 2022.

However as John O’Connor, Farm Manager of the Kildalton College suckler beef unit, explained at a recent open day, this was no overnight success and it has been achieved through excellent levels of animal performance from a breeding and grassland management centred focus.

“There are a number of important elements for generating a profit from a suckler to beef unit,” John told the large crowd in attendance, “with breeding, grassland management, stocking rate, bull beef and animal health all being important to the net margin achieved on our system.

“You need to have productive and fertile cows that can calve compactly and are capable of giving you a good calf every year – the calf/cow/year figure is critical. Once calved, you need to achieve excellent levels of animal performance from grass and these animals must remain healthy.”

Matching the bull to the cow

Breeding a functional cow – capable of delivering the above - has been a key focus on the Kildalton College suckler unit over recent years. The progress in this regard can be tracked through the improvement in the herd’s average Replacement Index value. Back in 2013, the herd had an average Replacement Index value of €71, this has increased to €130 this year on the back of a targeted breeding approach over many years – putting the herd in the top 10% of herds nationally.

John credits the development of breeding indexes such as the Terminal Index and the Replacement Index as being a game changer for suckler beef breeding, with both examined and studied when matching potential sires to cows in the Kildalton herd.

“When I started here 20 years ago, you’d go out to buy a bull solely on appearance. You had no information on calving ease, the bull’s genetic potential for carcass weight or conformation or his ability to produce daughters for the suckler herd.

“The figures now are fantastic and it means that every year, Billy Fraher and I can sit down and match the individual bull to each cow, while watching for the bull’s calving difficulty and reliability figures.

“We now pick the best 20 cows on the Replacement Index and past performance, along with 10 heifers, and AI them to the top maternal bulls. The lower index cows are put with the stock bull. No daughters are retained off the stock bull. All his progeny are destined for beef as he has good terminal traits,” John explained.

John O'Connor speaking at the Autumn Beef Event in Kildalton College

The bull team used on Kildalton’s suckler herd in 2023 consisted of: Curaheen Earp; Lisnacrann Fifty Cent; Ewdenvale Ivor (targeted at heifers); and a Charolais stock bull, with a Terminal Index value of €124, with 32.8kg of carcass.

Along with breeding, another focus area has been the conditioning of cows pre-calving. By having the cows in the correct body condition pre-calving, through offering them hay for 5-6 weeks pre-calving, the incidents of calving difficulties have reduced. Combined with a focus on using easy-calving bulls of high reliability, this means that the college’s herd is achieving the critical one calf/cow/year metric.

Table 1: Cow numbers of the last five years in Kildalton

Slaughter performance

The primary systems being operated at Kildalton are under 16 month and 20 month heifers, although a small number of males are slaughtered as steers.

John said: “90% of the bulls are finished as under 16 month bull beef. Our aim is for a carcass weight of 400kg; the lighter bull weanlings aren’t capable of doing that so are castrated and finished as steers.

“This year, we slaughtered 28 bulls – the biggest number ever – at an average age of 15.6 months. After consuming 1.5t of concentrate from just prior to weanling to slaughter, they produced 393kg carcasses. These bulls were slightly behind the 400kg target, as they were lighter at weaning last autumn on account of the drought last summer.

“We aim for a carcass weight of 330kg for the heifers at 20 months of age. Last year’s group of 21 were slightly disappointing, producing 315kg carcasses at 20 months at a fat score of 2+, but we were hit very hard with the drought on the farm last year and this had a knock-on effect on the slaughter performance.”

Table 2: Slaughter performance on the Kildalton herd (24/08/2022 – 26/06/2023)

Grassland and soil fertility improvements

The team at Kildalton endeavour to maximise the levels of animal performance gained from grazed grass – the cheapest source of feed available to Irish beef cattle. A strategic focus has been placed on having the correct grazing infrastructure in place – with sub-dividable 5ac paddocks present – and soil fertility improvements ongoing.

This year, the farm is expected to grow 12t DM/ha of grass, achieving 7.3 grazing events on each paddock from a system stocked at 2.52LU/ha. Weekly grass measuring is undertaken and grass budgets are completed through PastureBase Ireland. The information gathered during this activity is also used to identify poorer-performing paddocks for reseeding.

Through having the correct grazing infrastructure in place and achieving a long grazing season, the male progeny from the suckler herd have achieved an average daily gain of 1.22kg over the past three years. Over the same period, females have gained an average of 1.13kg/head/day during their first grazing season.

Lecturer at Kildalton, Jamie Cahill gave an overview of the herd’s grazing year, commenting: “Our 270-day grazing season doesn’t happen by accident. To achieve it, we have to get out early in the spring time. Calving starts here on January 10^th and by February 1^st, we have the first bunch of cows and calves ready to head to grass.

“Approximately 10 cow and calf pairs would go to grass in early February and we keep adding to the group as more cows calve. The first paddocks grazed are planned from the autumn beforehand as part of our autumn rotation planner; dry paddocks with good roadway access are selected, as it is easy to get cows out.

“We aim to have 7-10 paddocks for every grazing group, as it is vital in maintaining a supply of grass ahead throughout the grazing season and to be able to grow the grass is three weeks and graze it in three days.

“Each paddock also has access to a creep gate, which is beneficial during the main grazing season or periods when grass quality drops slightly in that the calves can graze ahead of the cows and the cows can clean out the lower quality grass in the paddocks. These gates also serve to weaken the cow and calf bond when it comes to weaning time, reducing some of the stress associated with weaning.”

Jamie Cahill, pictured above, discussed grassland management at Kildalton College

Jamie also detailed how having a Nutrient Management Plan in place paid dividends when soil fertility improvements were targeted. Back in the winter of 2017, just 35% of the farm was at the optimum levels of soil fertility, phosphorous (P) indexes and potassium (K) indexes. Now almost 80% of the farm is at optimum soil fertility.

This has been achieved by correcting soil fertility through lime applications and moving to a fertiliser spreading programme based on compound fertilisers such as 0-10-20 and 0-7-30. All chemical nitrogen on the unit is now also spread in the form of protected urea, with no CAN-based products being used.

Slurry is also managed in a targeted way and applied using LESS equipment. On this, Jamie said: “Slurry is probably our biggest asset on the farm. It is saved and used as our first round of fertiliser in the spring, but we also make sure we save enough to supply P and K to our silage ground. It is a way of reducing the levels of artificial fertiliser being used on the farm and to make the best use of the nutrients that we have here inside the farm gate.”

The bottom line

Joe Day, Lead Educator in Kildalton College, provided an overview of the financial performance being achieved from the college’s suckler herd.

“The level of financial performance being achieved is down to a number of factors,” Joe explained, “and it’s a combination of getting many things right. There’s in no one factor we can pinpoint as having the biggest effect.We have focused on grassland management, animal health, animal breeding and performance over recent years and it is all starting to come into fruition in the profit being generated.

“We operate a high input and high output system, which is typical with under 16 month bulls, and that’s reflected in the levels of gross output being achieved of €3,550/ha in 2022.

“Our variable costs totalled €1,973/ha in 2022. Meal feeding costs were €889/ha, which would be typical for a system carrying under 16 month bulls offered ad-lib meal prior to slaughter and 20 month heifers supplemented at grass.

“Our veterinary costs were €97/ha last year, which includes vet call outs – of which we had very few – animal doses, medicines and vaccinations. The implementation of a vaccination programme has been beneficial in that we have fewer sick animals and have been able to reduce our overall veterinary spend.

“Spending on contractors was €136/ha and this is probably a little low when compared to most commercial beef farms, as machinery and labour is shared with other enterprises here on the college. Our gross margin then, which is out gross output less our variable costs, came to €1,812/ha.

“Fixed costs are individual to any farm. They are dictated by the level of investment in machinery, buildings or infrastructure. For a typical herd this size, you could be looking at fixed costs of over €700/ha. As some of the costs are shared with other enterprises here, we attributed €617/ha to fixed costs in 2022, which gave us a net margin of €1,195/ha in 2022 when direct payments were excluded."

Joe Day, pictured above, detailed the financial performance achieved from Kildalton College's suckler beef unit.

Future plans

Although the level of profit being achieved is excellent in Kildalton’s beef unit, Joe cited a number of areas that will be targeted in the near future. Firstly, to ease the pressure on the system during periods of drought, the stocking rate is planned to reduce from 178kg of organic nitrogen/ha (2.51LU/ha) to <170kg of organic nitrogen per hectare by reducing the herd by five cows, with the poorest performing cows targeted for this reduction. However, the focus will remain on breeding top-quality replacements through improving the Replacement Index values of the herd.

In addition, to further boost the health status of the herd, which already involves the implementation of an effective vaccination programme, the use of faecal egg counts will be increased to prevent the risk of anthelmintic resistance developing.

On the grassland front, white clover will continue to be included and incorporated into grazing swards, while red clover is being investigated as an option for silage area.