Breeding
Calving is progressing very well on the farm with 45 heifers and cows calved by early March, and only 23 to go. The tight calving pattern suits Michael and Niall as they can plan their time to be around and they can focus on it. The AI bull choices worked out well and there has been very little issues at calving, aside from one dangerous cow who will be culled as a result.
Figure 1: Some of the 2026 born calves in their creep area
The calves have been tagged and disbudded and the first main group were turned out to graze the silage ground on 4th March. Michael and Niall decided to graze this first so that it can be closed in mid-March with the aim of cutting it in mid-May.
Michael and Niall bought in 19 weanling heifers in 2025 and will now decide which ones to breed this spring. They are mainly Saler and Limousin crosses and have good maternal figures for daughter milk and calving interval, but are low on carcass weight. However this can always be improved over time. Michael and Niall also have their 9 home bred heifers that were bred from sexed semen to put in calf this spring. Therefore they decided to buy an easy calving Limousin bull to run with them. He is 6.5% calving difficulty for heifers at 63% reliability. With a replacement index of €151 he has strong maternal traits for his breed with a carcass weight of 23.8kg, daughter milk of 4.3kg and daughter calving interval of 1.94 days. He is €144 on the terminal index and has a carcass conformation of 2.31, meaning that Michael or Niall would be happy to have a bull of heifer calf from him, once it’s alive. The bull also has 2 x F94L myostatin mutations so his calves will inherit 1 of these from him and be double muscled, but with limited extra difficulty at calving.
Figure 2: The new Limousin bull purchased for breeding with the heifers
Figure 3: Eurostar figures for new Limousin bull
Animal Health
One calf had a bad outbreak of scour despite the cows having been vaccinated against rotavirus, coronavirus, e.coli and cryptosporidium. It was treated with a drip and antibiotics and has since recovered. It was moved straight to a field with its mother to avoid passing the scour on to any other calves.
Cows and heifers will receive a single and double shot vaccine against leptospirosis respectively. This will be given at least 4 weeks pre-breeding. Michael and Niall have also decided to vaccinate the breeding stock against bluetongue this year, due to its presence in Ireland. It will cost €4.50/shot and 2 shots have to be given 3 weeks apart. They will vaccinate the cows, breeding heifers and Limousin stock bull (80 in total) as fertility is an issue in infected animals. They will have immunity 3 weeks after the second shot is given.
Figure 4: All breeding stock will be vaccinated against leptospirosis and bluetongue
Performance
The weanling bulls will be sold from the shed this spring. Nine were weighed on 10th February and averaged 370kg, after gaining 1kg/head/day since 23rd December.
Seven of the breeding heifers were weighed on the same day and they averaged 335kg, after gaining 0.64lg/day since their rumen fluke treatment. All weanling heifers are getting 1kg of ration per head per day, along with high DMD silage.
Figure 5: Home bred weanling heifers have recovered well from rumen fluke