Peter McEnaney is a suckler, beef and tillage farmer in Edmondstown, near Ardee, Co. Louth and has been farming since 1996 when he took over from his father.
Agriland recently paid a visit to the farm to find out more about his suckler enterprise and why Peter goes to the west of Ireland to buy in additional weanlings for finishing.
Commenting on his farm system, Peter said: “We calve approximately 50 suckler cows every year. All heifers are finished at 18 to 20 months of age.”
Peter also buys in approximately 30 weanling heifers for finishing every year. These heifers are sourced at marts in the west of Ireland.
Generally, male calves are sold as store bullocks at 24 months of age but this depends on the balance of heifer and bull calves born at calving.
“I’m full-time farming on a part-time basis,” he laughed.
Peter added that his son Shane is currently studying agriculture at Ballyhaise Agricultural College, Co. Cavan and is involved in the running of the farm too.
West of Ireland cattle
Peter has a preference for weanlings sourced in the west of Ireland. Approximatley 30 weanling heifers are bought every year and are finished at 18-20 months of age.
The best of these heifers are finished off grass and the remainder are housed and finished in time for the Christmas market in November.
He explained: “It was a tradition in the past that cattle were bought in the west of the country and went to farms in the east of the country for fattening.
“We have continued that tradition here and it works very well for us.
“The stock coming from the west are better-quality stock. Over in the east of the country there’s a lot more dairy-bred stock so it’s harder to get that good continental animal, there’s more of a selection coming from the west.”
The weanling heifers are bought in the autumn time when weanling sales tend to be largest in the west.
Beef producer group
All Peter’s cattle are finished through the Louth Beef Producer Group of which Peter has been a member of since it was established in 2015.
Peter explained that the group has approximately 30 farmer members and it was originally formed so farmers could pool more finished cattle together.
“We wanted to get numbers of cattle so we would have more of a say with the factory and so we weren’t just individual farmers with small numbers of finishing cattle,” Peter explained.
Peter is also involved in the Irish Farmers’ Association (IFA) at both branch level and national level.
He is the Louth representative on the IFA’s national livestock committee. Every year, his local IFA branch travels to a different part of Europe on a farming-related trip.
Calving
Calving takes place on the farm in February and March. Peter said: “We try to keep it compact and it usually takes place in a 10-week period.
“The bulls go out with the cows on April 25, and are taken away on July 4 .
“We would rather bring the calving season forward into January for a week or two than have calves born in April. We find the April-born calves don’t do as well as they’re born too late in the season.”
When cows calve on the farm, they go straight to stubble ground where they are fed silage from a feeder and once conditions allow, they go to grass.
Peter said the stubble ground is “a great place to let sucklers as they are healthy and happy lying out on it”.
“Once they come off it, the ground is ploughed and goes back into tillage,” he said.
Some of Peter’s lighter heifers are currently on grass. The farmer said he was reluctant to let more cattle out as he was concerned about weather breaking.
Paddocks are currently being slurried after they are grazed off.
Suckler scheme
Peter hopes to apply for the new Suckler Carbon Efficiency Programme (SCEP) when it opens for applications in March.
He outlined that his main concern about the scheme is the proposed requirement that in years one and two of the scheme, 80% of the calves born on the holding must be sired by a four- or five-star sire.
Peter believes this figure is quite high and said while all the mature cows in the herd get a five-star Charolais and Simmental bull, the sire used on heifers this year was a three-star Limousin bull.
Tillage
As well as the suckler and beef enterprises, Peter also runs a tillage enterprise on the farm.
He explained: “We grow winter wheat, winter barley and spring barley with crops sold to a merchant. Last year was a great year for tillage farming but it’s very hard to know what to expect for 2023.”
Last year Peter availed of both the Tillage Incentive Scheme and the Straw Incorporation Measure.
“We don’t use much straw on the farm here. There’s some used in the dry cow feed and some is used in for bedding at calving. It’s mostly slatted accommodation on the farm here,” he said.
In the past, there was a lot of straw bedding used on farms around here but now, most farmers house their cattle in slatted sheds.
With the machinery needed for the tillage enterprise already on the farm, Peter decided to add to this and recently purchased a forage harvester. He now cuts his own silage with the help of his son Shane and few neighbours.
He believes good-quality silage is essential for his beef operation and has great faith in cutting silage early.
“Around here, the winter housing period is shorter than other parts of the country.
“We can get out to grass early so we close paddocks off early in the autumn and get them back to grass early in the spring. We always try to do our first cut as early in May as possible,” he said.