Watch: Achieving compact calving with Future Beef Farmer Shane Keaveney
Shane Keaveney farms full time, with help from his wife Gráinne and three children, in Ballinlough, Co. Roscommon. He took over the farm in 2014 with five Saler in-calf heifers and has since grown the suckler herd to 37.
The farm is well stocked at 160kg of N/ha. The system is simple, with all cows calving in February and March. The male calves are finished as under 16 month bulls. The heifers are sold as forward stores or slaughtered at under 21months of age. The cow type is mainly Limousin and Saler crosses. A terminal Charolais bull is now used on the mature cows.
Shane farms 27.46Ha, which is split into three blocks. The main grassland block of 18.13Ha is approximately half a kilometre from the farmyard. Most of the soil on the farm is heavy in nature, with a mixture of clay and peat soils. The main grazing block is well paddocked and Shane is measuring grass regularly on PastureBase. The overall aim is to make high quality silage for his weanlings and to keep high quality grass swards in front of the herd for a long grazing season.
Compact calving - a key focus on this farm
Since 2014, Shane has focused on building a high value, maternal herd by using a Saler bull. His cow type could be described as very functional, with plenty of milk and the ability to rear a heavy calf. Last year, the male calves weighed 300kg at 200days of age, while the heifers weighed 280kg. A Charolais bull was used last year and thankfully the calving has gone very well this year.
The breeding performance of his herd is excellent, see table below.
Table 1: Key Performance Indicators of Shane's herd
| Shane's herd | National average | Bottom 10% | Top 10% | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Calving interval (days) | 362 | 393 | 437 | 358 |
| Mortality (% dead at birth) | 0 | 0.86 | 3.7 | 0 |
| Mortality (% dead at 28 days) | 2.7 | 2.07 | 6.9 | 0 |
| Calves per cow per year | 1.04 | 0.87 | 0.68 | 1.02 |
Shane believes that having a compact calving period of less than 10 weeks is a key driver in an efficient, profitable, suckler herd. Compact calving is one of the main metrics in contributing to the excellent breeding performance figures of this herd.
In 2022, all of his cows calved in less than eight weeks and it will be similar this year. In the video below, Shane outlines how he manages the herd during a busy calving period and also speaks about the main benefits of having a tight calving period for his farming system.
This article first appeared in the March Future Beef Programme newsletter. For more information on the programme, click here. If you are interested in receiving similar articles, along with technical advice, straight into your indox, subscribe to the Future Beef newsletter here.