Over the festive period, Agriland will be revisiting some of the most interesting ‘Beef Focus’ articles, in a ‘Beef Focus revisited’ series.
Suckler farming in Tullycorbet just outside Ballybay, Co. Monaghan, is Darrin Quinn and his father Vincent Quinn.
Darrin is full-time suckler and poultry farming at home, while his father also works off farm as well as on farm.
Agriland recently paid a visit to the farm to find out more about the Quinn’s 50-cow suckler-to-beef enterprise, and how the farm is managing to secure an additional 20c/kg for its beef progeny.
Darrin’s attention to detail and impressive farm management skills are immediately evident on arrival to the farm, which could only be described as a model suckler farm.
Some of the farm infrastructure:
Everything has been considered in both the design of the yard, and the handling facilities to prioritise safety and minimise stress on livestock when handling.
Suckler cow type
The majority of the cows on the farm are Limousin, Simmental and Salers.
“Most of the cows and heifers on the farm are four-and-five-star animals, and we use all five-star sires,” said Darrin.
The farm has 50 suckler cows, most of which are spring calving. Darrin said the plan for the herd is to move to having approximately 20 autumn calvers and 30 spring calvers.
“The autumn calving is a new introduction. We decided to move some cows to autumn calving just to try something new,” the farmer explained.
“Also, when you’re all spring calving, it leaves a dry period where there’s no cheque coming in, so we hope that by having more cows calving in the autumn, it will split the income and also the workload.”
He added that the most recent autumn-calving season “went very well”.
“We got great weather in September and most of the cows calved unassisted outdoors,” he said.
All calves are vaccinated at weaning. Weanling paddles are placed on the weanlings five days before they are taken from the cows.
Sires
“We started using artificial insemination (AI) on the cows a number of years ago and also began to focus more on star ratings,” Darrin explained.
“We found using the better genetic bulls were making a big difference, as we saw improvements in our calf performance.”
Commenting on the sire selection, the farmer said they “try to keep it simple”.
“We like to have a calf where the cow can do all herself and not have to intervene in the calving,” he said.
“The Limousin sires would be about 5% calving difficulty and the salers would be 2-3% for difficulty.
“All cows get one round of AI and then we use the stockbull to mop up.
“We used a teaser bull last year which was a great help and this year, we bought heat detection collars, so hopefully that will be a help,” he said.
Cattle sales
The farm previously sold all of its cattle as stores, but after making changes to the genetics being used, the farm began to finish its beef progeny.
“We would have originally sold the best bulls as weanlings in the mart, and squeezed the smaller bulls and put them to grass as steers to sell as store bullocks. We originally sold the heifers as stores,” Darrin said.
“The reason we went back to finishing was when we moved to using five-star AI bulls, we were getting cattle with better beef potential.
“We also improved our grazing management and infrastructure, which greatly improved the cattle’s performance at grass,” Darrin explained.
Last year, the Quinns joined ABP Food Group’s Advantage Beef Programme, which offers farmers a 20c/kg sustainability bonus for meeting its criteria.
Darrin outlined: “Our factory agent, John McKenna first told us about the Advantage Beef Programme when it was launched last year, and we joined it shortly after that.”
The first cattle were finished through the programme last year, and Darrin said they were “very happy with how it went”.
Commenting on the requirements for the programme, Darrin said: “Most of the criteria, we were doing already.”
Oisin Lynch is the farm’s ABP farm liaison officer and is on hand to offer advice and support on genetics, nutrition and soil fertility.
The farm aims to finish steers at 22 months and heifers at 24 months. The carcass weight limit is 400kg for bullocks and 380kg for heifers. Through good genetics and careful management, most of the cattle from the farm are managing to meet their targets.
“There’s always room for improvement,” Darrin added.
All cattle on the farm are weighed every month, and the aim is for store cattle to achieve 1.5kg/day liveweight gain.
Suckler farm layout
Darrin outlined that a number of changes were made to improve the grassland management on the farm and some new housing facilities were also built.
“We started with improving small things and getting them right and we took it from there,” he said.
“We laid out paddocks, installed drinkers, and drained some of our heavy ground to try achieve the early turnout.”
The target turnout date is as close to March 17, as possible. Cattle are moved to fresh grass every 2-3 days.
“With fences, farm roadways and the handling units, most tasks are now a one-person job. It leaves it easier to move and work cattle. It’s back to keeping it simple and safe,” Darrin explained.
The most recent shed was built in 2021, and most slatted units on the farm have a straw-bedded lie back.
“It’s just in case there was a bad spring or summer, so we could let cows and calves back in,” Darrin explained.
The autumn-born weanlings have access to a straw-bedded lie back and can also go out to a field to graze during the day.
Plans for the future
Darrin is happy with the current system in place on the farm, but plans to further improve some of the farm’s key performance indicators (KPI’s), such as the six-week calving rate and the age at slaughter.
A 16-month bull-beef system was considered for the farm, but Darrin decided against this, saying “we prefer to achieve as much live weight gain as possible from grass”.