For this week’s beef focus, Agriland paid a visit to a fully-integrated dairy and beef operation on the Tipperary-Kilkenny border.
Farming near Moyne, Thurles, Co. Tipperary, close to the Lisheen Mines where lead and zinc was formerly extracted, are brothers Richard and Paddy Daly.
The two brothers run a 220 cow spring-calving dairy herd, with all surplus calves reared and finished as beef cattle at under 24- months-of-age. Cull cows are also fattened and sold to the factory.
The farm also buys cattle in which are reared and finished in the same system. Their enterprise is called ‘Daly Livestock.’
The Dalys are supplying their cattle to ABP Food Group, and are involved in the processors sustainability programme called the Advantage Beef Programme.
Their Advantage farm liaison offer is Amie Coonan, and their procurement manager is James Hickey.
The Daly brothers mantra for the farm is simple, and focuses around good grassland management.
According to Paddy: “It’s important to get the basics right. The basics would be breeding, feeding and a bit of reseeding.
“The farm is run with the help of staff member, John Paul, and student, Brian Campion, who helps out at the weekends.
“You need good grass for silage and grazing, you need a good breed, and then you need the right grass to do them properly.”
The farm also grows beet and winter barley. The winter barley is sold and ration is bought back in as required.
All beet is grown and used on the farm. It is washed and chopped, and then fed as part of a total mixed ration (TMR).
“It’s a high energy feed and the cattle love it. There’s high sugars in it, and it does a great job on the beef cattle. The beet is also offered to the milk cows in a TMR after calving,” Paddy added.
“It’s fairly straight forward, and we didn’t have to change a whole lot from what we were doing already,” Paddy commented on the sustainability scheme.
The dairy enterprise
The dairy enterprise on the farm entails a spring-calving herd of approximately 220 cows.
60% of the herd is British Friesian-Holstien crosses and 40% of the dairy herd is Fleckvieh crosses.
Generally, about 100 cows go in-calf to Friesian sires, and all remaining cows are bred to artificial insemination (AI) beef bulls.
The herd is averaging 6,000L/cow/year, with an average protein content of 3.65%, and an average butterfat content of approximately 4.8%.
Speaking to Agriland, Richard said: “We like a good, square cow basically. We probably do take a little bit of a hit on milk yield, because we’ve not gone too extreme in either direction.”
“We always needed something to give a bit of value on the beef side, so if we increased the milk, we would take from the beef.
“There’s a balance with the breeding but this is just our system, it works for us, it might not work for others,” Richard said.
The Daly duo believe that “with a good, strong cow, you get longevity out of her, and you get a good cull cow price. She will produce a good calf and milk reasonably consistent”.
The herd is 100% spring calving and all cows are generally dried off by late November.
Rearing dairy beef calves
All calves are reared on automatic milk feeders. Calves start at 4L/day and are built up to 6L/day and fed on milk for approximately 72 days. Each calf can make three visits/day to the feeder.
“We like to have them eating up to 2kg meal/head/day before weaning them,” they said.
The brothers say that the robotic calf feeder is “a great way of weaning stock off milk. There’s less stress on the calf, as it can gradually reduce the amount fed per day over the last 10 days”.
Some of the calf housing on the farm ready for the arrival of the 2024 calves:
Once weaned off milk, calves go to grass and are fed approximately 1kg concentrate/head/day. The calf ration used on the farm is a 17% protein mix from the local co-op, Centenary Thurles.
Replacement heifers are reared at the dairy unit, while the dairy-beef calves are reared at the beef unit on the farm.
Calves are housed for their first winter and fed straw, silage and approximately 2kg/head/day of the finisher ration for the duration of the winter.
Yearling to beef
Male cattle are castrated by a veterinary professional before the second season at grass. Male Friesian calves born on the farm are generally finished in an under 24-month bull-beef system, however some Friesian bullocks are bought in and finished as steers.
Heifers and steers are grazed in separate batches, and are fed no meal during their second season at grass, but concentrates are sometimes introduced before cattle are housed for their second winter.
Heifers and steers are housed for their second winter from October onwards, but cattle are picked off as they come fit for slaughter from September onwards.
Approximately one load of cattle are slaughtered every week from November until late spring.
Heifers generally come fit first, followed by the bulls and then the steers.
Generally speaking, the Angus heifers would have an average carcass weight of 290kg at 20 to 21 months-of-age. The grades range from Rs and Os but can vary depending on the batch.
The most recent batch of Angus heifers slaughtered came into an average price of €1,530.
“The Charolais heifers off the Fleckvieh cows would kill out at a lot more than that,” Richard said.
The target carcass weight for the Angus bullocks is from 350-360kg.
The finishing diet for the heifers and steers is approximately:
- 10kg silage;
- 0.5kg straw;
- 8kg ration;
- 8kg fodder beet.
The ingredients of the finishing ration includes: Maize meal; rolled barley; distillers; soya hulls; wheat and soya bean meal (5%).
The ration is approximately 13.5% protein. The silage currently being fed on the farm has a dry matter digestibility (DMD) of 75%, and the second-cut silage has a DMD value of 75.8%.
Bulls go to grass in batches of 30. This is because the paddocks on the beef farm are set up to suit this number, and cattle can be penned up this way.
The core focus on the beef system is on good grass growth and utilisation. The aim is to keep batches of bulls separate to the other cattle.
Bulls are housed for their second winter in September or October. They are gradually introduced to a finishing diet and are generally fit for slaughter before the end of January.
The bulls finishing diet/head/day includes:
- 0.5kg straw;
- 6kg silage;
- 10kg ration;
- 10 kg beet.
The target carcass weights for the bulls is somewhere between 380-400kg, however the Fleckvieh-cross bulls can reach much-higher carcass weights. The highest carcass weight achieved last year was 530kg for an under-24-month Fleckvieh bull.
The farm
The Dalys carry out much of the machinery work on the farm themselves, but a contractor makes the pit silage on the farm.
The brothers now shake out the grass themselves, and the contractor rakes the grass, lifts it and draws it to the pit.
Most silage is made in pit format with only a small number of bales used.
Cattle which are bought in are generally purchased direct off farm, and the brothers say this is beneficial – as they know the vaccinations the cattle have received and the type of cattle they are getting.
Paddy and Richard said their plan for the future of the farm is to continue to improve the efficiency of their dairy and beef operations.