Ken Gill farms full time in Clonbullogue, Co. Offaly. A full symbol organic producer, Ken operates an autumn-calving suckler system, with all animals brought to beef.
With 100% AI used to make use of the best genetics available, Ken aims to achieve a tight calving pattern annually. Aisling Molloy, Future Beef Advisor to the farm, provides an update on Ken’s latest ICBF report, detailing how the farm has performed.
Calving commenced on the farm on July 29th and finished on September 6th 2022. This was a total of five weeks and four days, which resulted in a 100% six-week calving rate. The calving rate for the herd is 367 days, which is well ahead of the national average of 393 days.
While mortality on the farm was low in 2021, unfortunately, this increased last year. Five calves were dead at birth, with a further one dead before 28 days, which gave a mortality figure of 8.2% at 28 days. There were less twins on the farm in 2022 too, so the calves per cow per year figure finished at 0.91, which is still ahead of the national average at 0.87.
100% of Ken’s heifers calved at 22-26 months of age and no cows were recycled on the farm. 22 cows were culled, which shows a replacement rate for the farm of 30%, whereas this is typically 19% on other farms. The higher replacement rate is mainly attributed to the tight six-week breeding season.
The herd were scanned and 64 cows are confirmed in calf. One cow was scanned with a set of twins and another with a set of triplets. Calving is expected to start from 12th August and continue to 20th September.
Table 1: Top 6 key performance indicators (ICBF calving report)
Column 1 Ken's herd National average Bottom 10% Top 10%
Calving interval (days) 367 393 437 358
Mortality (dead at birth %) 6.8 0.86 3.7 0
Mortality (dead at 28 days) 8.2 2.07 6.9 0
Calves per cow per year 0.91 0.87 0.68 1.02
Heifers calved at 22-26 months 100% 24% 0% 75%
Autumn six-week calving rate 100% 62% 18% 100%
Breeding
71 females were bred in total, consisting of 15 heifers and 56 cows. 58 females held in calf to one serve. This shows a conception rate to the first serve of 82%, which is excellent; the target is over 70%. Eight females were bred twice and six of these were scanned in calf. This left Ken with 11 cows that weren’t served, as they were pre-selected for culling and five cows and two heifers that were served that did not go in calf.
Ken is considering using sexed semen on the herd this year, but the lower conception rates are a concern. At a 25% replacement rate and a target of 70 cows, he will need 18 replacement heifers per year. In order to breed these he will need the following numbers:
Breed 18 replacement heifers to sexed semen at a conception rate of 60% and 90% gender bias = 9 females;
Breed 20 maternal cows to sexed semen at a conception rate of 50% and 90% gender bias = 9 females.
While this will not account for any embryo loss or mortality, it means 38 sexed semen straws would be required in total to produce 18 replacement heifers. For Ken, however, he could then use more terminal sires on approximately 32 other cows, plus terminal sires could be used on the repeating heifers and cows (~17) that don’t go in calf with a sexed straw.
Source: EMM/ A&FDA