Breeding

Breeding started on Aonghusa’s farm on 22^nd April and finished on 2^nd July, lasting for 10 weeks in total. 36 females were bred in total, consisting of 8 heifers and 28 cows. Aonghusa will be able to scan the herd from early August onwards, and has been a small bit concerned with a few cows that repeated on him. He suspects that there have been 3 possible embryo losses and has decided to cull one cow that was already bred for docility purposes. So this would leave him with 32-33 cows possibly in calf.

Figure 1: One of the cows that repeated is evidently marked by the chin ball on the teaser bull

The vasectomised bulls have been great for heat detection with their chin balls, but Aonghusa has found that checking them 2-3 times daily has been laboursome. He was using the Mooheat collars on them, with the tags on the cows, but the collar stopped working and had to be sent away for repair during the breeding season. He is now looking at the Sensehub system as an option for next year to reduce the heat detection time for him.

Four cows were synchronised as they had not been bred. Two of them were fixed time AI’d at the end of the programme, but 2 showed no signs of heat after synchronising and were not bred.

Aonghusa had previously picked 3 cows for culling that were not bred at all; 2 for age and 1 for docility.

Grassland

Aonghusa measured grass on 4^th August. His latest farm cover shows a strong farm cover of 1022 kg DM/ha. His growth rate from 26^th July to 4^th August was 54 kg DM/ha which is matching the demand of 50 kg DM/ha. However he has 20 days of grass ahead which is a little strong for the time of year, the target is 18. His grass wedge also shows that 9 paddocks have a cover of over 1000 kg DM/ha. The Bog has the highest cover but this can’t be cut so Aonghusa will have the option of taking out some of the other paddocks as surplus silage. This will help to meet his feed demand for next winter and should be excellent quality silage for the weanlings.

Figure 2: Grass wedge on 4^th August 2025

Performance

Eight bullocks were finished on the 8^th of June. They averaged 398kg carcass weight and graded U=3- on average, making €3027 at 27 months of age. One heifer was also finished on the same day and she was 404kg carcass weight, grading R=3- and making €3030 at 26.9 months of age.

Figure 3: Some of the finished bullocks