Preparations for breeding
- Pre breeding scan complete and 4 cows were washed out
- Leptospirosis vaccines administered pre-breeding
- Maiden heifers will be bred to Limousin bull
Cathal Irwin May/June Update 2025
- Silage crop is growing well & will be cut before the end of May
- Grass growth is at 92 kg DM/ha/day
- Strong paddocks will also be cut with silage
Grass growth is exceeding demand
- Latest bull sales
- Weights of remaining bulls
- Small water trough was causing an issue for finishing bulls
Sales & weights
Breeding
A pre-breeding scan was completed on the farm to identify any issues with the herd. Four of the cows had to be washed out, one of whom delivered twins this year. The others had hard calvings with the Simmental stock bull.
Cathal recently bought a new Charolais stock bull to run with his cows this year. He was let out on the week of the 21st of April.
Figure 1: Cows and calves at grass with the Charolais stock bull in the background
Cathal began a synchronisation programme with the heifers when he realised that the leptospirosis vaccinations were not completed for the herd. As it is an issue on the farm he vaccinated the cows with a booster shot immediately and gave the primary vaccine to the heifers around the 21st of March. The heifers are due their booster shot around the 19th of May and are currently running with a Limousin bull. Cathal was advised by his vet and AI technician not to continue with the synchronisation programme until at least 2 weeks after the second leptospirosis vaccine so he AI’d one heifer to LM4184 and hope that the Limousin bull will put the others in calf. The Charolais stock bull was also vaccinated against lepto.
The beef heifer calving difficulty of the bull is 5.9%, but only at 61% reliability whereas the target for heifers would be <7% calving difficulty at >90% reliability. Nonetheless Catha is happy that the bull is not too muscly and the heifers are well grown. He has good terminal traits at 20kg carcass weight and 2.08 on carcass conformation, but has poor maternal traits with -0.5kg for daughter milk.
Figure 2: Eurostar traits for Limousin bull
Figure 3: Limousin bull with Simmental cross heifers
Grassland
The silage ground is growing well after receiving 2500 gallons slurry/acre in mid-March, followed by 50 units/acre of protected urea at the end of March and 38 units/acre of protected urea with sulphur on 27th of April. Cathal plans to cut the crop at the end of May to produce high quality silage for cattle for the winter.
Figure 4: First cut silage will be cut before the end of May
Following on from the fertiliser restrictions on his farm, he will buy in his ‘dry cow silage’ from a local farmer which will cost €35/bale delivered.
The grazing block has received slurry, aside from 2 paddocks where grass covers were too strong at the time of spreading. Cathal is currently following the cows and spreading 38 units of protected urea/acre to take advantage of the high grass growth rates on the farm.
The latest grass wedge shows a farm cover of 2030 kg DM/ha on the farm. Grass growth was 92 kg DM/ha/day since the 1st of May and with demand only at 31 kg DM/ha/day, Cathal has 65 days of grass ahead on the farm. The heaviest covers will be taken out for silage with the first cut and Cathal plans to pre-mow some paddocks that are unsuitable for cutting to help maintain grass quality.
Figure 5: Grass wedge on 11th May 2025
Performance
Six of the finishing bulls were sold at 14.9 months of age on averaged on 28th of April. They averaged 407kg carcass weight and graded U=2+. They made €3175 on average at €7.80/kg.
The remaining bulls will be sold over the coming month. Cathal has decided not to buy any bulls this autumn and will instead buy store bullocks or heifers that will be finished out of the shed next spring. He will do the costings on them before buying.
The remaining bought in bulls (10) averaged 643kg on 21st of April and had gained 1.7 kg/day since 25th of March.
The home bred bulls averaged 592kg on the same day and gained 1.58 kg/day during the same time.
Cathal recently realised that the bulls who are on approximately 14 kg of ration/head/day had not enough access to water. While there weren’t any queues to the small water bowel, when he moved them into the spare pen which had a much bigger water trough, they queued at it and drank water for almost an hour afterwards. He plans to install bigger water troughs into the shed for next winter as a result.
Figure 6: The remaining finishing bulls will be sold in the next month
The Simmental stock bull is eating 14kg of ration/head/day with ad lib hay and will be sold in the local abattoir.