Based in north Co. Tipperary is Gurteen College, a farm covering approximately 1,000ac with a dairy, beef, tillage and forestry operation.
The farm also grows willow to use as biomass for heating and has impressive equestrian facilities on-site too.
Ahead of its 75th anniversary celebration las week, Agriland paid a visit to the college to see Gurteen’s suckler, beef and calf-to-beef operations.
The college’s principal, John Parry, the drystock unit manager, Ger Carey, and Peter Grogan, the college’s beef lecturer were on hand to show off the farm’s impressive beef operation.
Sucklers
Speaking to Agriland, Carey explained: “We have 70 suckler cows which we calve down in both spring and autumn. 40 of the cows are spring calving while the remaining 30 are autumn calving.
“The spring-calving herd calves from February 1 to April 1, while the autumn calvers calve in September and October.”
The spring calvers were scanned on August 10, and a 100% conception rate was recorded.
After scanning, cows with bull calves at foot are separated from the cows with heifer calves at foot to avoid any bulling of young heifers. Bull calves are also offered creep feed to prepare them for weanling sales.
Autumn-born bull calves from the suckler herd are finished as under-16-month bull beef and the early spring-born bull calves are sold as weanlings. The rest are kept for beef as steers.
Heifers from the suckler herd are finished as beef, with replacement suckler heifers coming primarily from Limousin-sired heifer calves from the farm’s dairy herd.
“All the systems we have in our suckler/beef unit are for student purposes and aim to reflect the systems on the farms in regions of the country where our students come from,” Carey said.
Dairy-beef
The first 50 male calves born from the dairy herd are kept and finished as steer beef at 24-27 months of age. These are primarily Friesians, with some Angus and Limousin too.
Cary said that a preference is given to keeping the early born calves from the dairy herd for beef.
“The farm was increasing its dairy herd over the past few years so a lot of Friesian straws were used,” he said.
“As the dairy herd growth here levels off, we hope to get more beef-sired calves from the dairy herd.”
Dairy-beef calves go to grass in May at 100kg and are fed 1kg concentrates/day as well as good grass all summer.
“We graze them in a paddock system and they get fresh grass every three days,” Carey added.
All prime cattle finished on the farm are processed through ABP’s Advantage Beef Programme which offers a 20c/kg Sustainability Bonus for meeting the scheme’s criteria.
Commenting on the programme, Gurteen College’s drystock unit manager said: “The programme is very straight forward, most of our beef cattle were meeting the criteria anyway and the 20c/kg bonus on the eligible cattle makes it very lucrative.”
The Gurteen enterprise
Of the 1,000ac, approximately 750ac is for agricultural use with the remaining land in forestry, willow or marsh.
As well as the 70 sucklers, there are 250 dairy cows plus the replacement dairy heifers, 60 beef bullocks, 30 beef heifers, 10 suckler maiden heifers and 50 calves from the dairy herd destined for beef production.
The tillage operation covers approximately 100ac and grows wheat, oats, barley and fodder beet.
The sheep enterprise consists of a flock of 430 breeding ewes.
100 of these are lambed in January before students go on work placement in March and the remaining ewes lamb from St. Patrick’s Day onwards.
Finishing cattle
The last of the autumn 2020 and the spring 2021-born heifers will all be finished before winter housing this year.
Five heifers were finished on the farm last week and had an average grade of R=3= with an average carcass weight of 345kg. The heifers all qualified for the Advantage Beef Programme’s 20c/kg Sustainability Bonus.
The autumn 2021-born heifers will be finished in May 2023, with the remainder finished in autumn 2023 along with the spring 2022-born heifers.
Under-16-month bulls receive concentrates at grass and are housed in September. They are built up to ad-lib concentrates and the aim is for a finish before they cross 16-months of age.
The spring 2021-born bullocks will be housed for the winter and finished between February and April 2023.
The dairy-beef calves are the last animals to be housed, generally around December 1. They are fed quality silage along with concentrates and beet and return to grass around March 15.
After their second season grazing, they are housed in late-October and are finished early the following spring.
ABP Beef Benchmarking Report
Earlier this year, ABP issued a Beef Benchmark Report to each of its beef suppliers.
The report features data on all cattle the farmer slaughtered with ABP in 2021.
It aims to offer farmers ‘a bird’s-eye view’ of their beef cattle performance and identifies opportunities for farmers “to increase the revenue and reduce the carbon footprint of beef farms”, according to ABP.
Gurteen College’s beef unit received a report too and while the slaughter performance for 2021 was impressive, it outlined areas that need improvement.
100% of the suckler-bred steers and heifers met the report’s market targets.
The report indicated scope for improvement in the dairy-beef and dairy-bred steer slaughter performance.
Meeting the minimum carcass conformation grade of greater than or equal to O= proved more challenging for the dairy-bred beef cattle and is an area the Gurteen farm could improve on.
Interestingly, the benchmark report showed a strong correlation between good slaughter performance being linked to cattle with a high Commercial Beef Value (CBV). The report will be used as a tool in the future when determining the beef genetics to be used on the farm.
Replacement suckler cows
Replacement heifers are mainly sourced from beef-sired heifers from the dairy herd, but some heifers from the suckler herd are also used.
“The first cross from the dairy herd is my preferred replacement suckler heifer. They tend to be docile animals with plenty of milk that bring a good, consistent calf,” Carey said.
“With this system, one problem we are starting to have is we have too much milk. We will have to use a more terminal bull on Friesian cows when breeding for replacement suckler heifers because their elders won’t last long term.”
A Charolais stockbull with a high terminal index is used on suckler cows.
“We pick a bull with high terminal traits such as carcass weight and conformation,” Carey added.
The dry spell this summer has impacted grass growth levels on the farm and silage is being included in the diet to stretch the grazing rotation.
The plan for the future of the suckler and beef unit at Gurteen College is to keep suckler numbers at 70 cows with both an autumn and spring-calving system in operation, and to continue improving the genetic merit of the beef progeny on the farm.