The ‘Dairy Beef Index Series’ is a collaboration between Agriland Media and the Teagasc DairyBeef 500 team.
Sean Barry farms in Pallasgreen, Co. Limerick and milks 70 Friesian cows. Sean works closely with his father, Paddy running the dairy herd, which runs along the busy N24 Waterford to Limerick road.
The farm is typical of the area, with soils possessing a high clay content, which can become saturated in years like this where rainfall levels rise to excessive levels for a prolonged period.
Sean works off farm for the main breeding season as an artificial insemination (AI) technician with Munster Bovine, and has always shown a keen interest in breeding on his own farm.
Sean uses close to 100% AI, with an Angus stock bull used to mop up the heifers after two rounds of AI.
The herd has a maintenance sub index of €10 and a beef sub index of -€9 across his cows, meaning Sean’s herd sits somewhere near national average in terms of the beef merit.
Working with his joint programme advisor, Nora O’Donovan and DairyBeef500 programme manager, Alan Dillon, Sean has selected a team of bulls suitable for his cows.
Sean has broken his selection down into bulls suitable for breeding on heifers, second calvers and mature cows.
A small number of longer gestation beef bulls will be used on early bullers, while some short gestation bulls will be used at the end of the breeding season in an effort to tighten up the calving spread.
A number of test bulls are used on mature cows each year, and this year he has selected a small number of Angus and Limousin bulls from test sires.
Sire Calving diff Gestation length Carcass weight Beef Sub Index AI company LM9379* 5% 1.63 days 33.2kg €190 NCBC LM7416 3.9% 2.07 days 22.6kg €155 NCBC
Sire Calving Diff Gestation Length Carcass Weight Beef Sub index AI Company AA5280 3.4% -1.79 days 8.4kg €104 NCBC
Sire Calving Diff Gestation length Carcass Weight Beef Sub Index AI Company BB7278 4.6 -2.46 days 20.4kg €145 NCBC HE9382 3.6 -1.32 days 12.2kg €109 NCBC AA9860* 2.8 -2.19 days 20.8kg €120 NCBC AA9532* 3.0 -0.43 days 14.9kg €114 NCBC AA9607* 2.8 -2.3 days 20.1kg €134 NCBC
Heifer repeat sires
Sire Calving Diff (Heifer) Gestation length Carcass Weight Beef Sub Index AI Company AA4089 6.5 -3.6 days 9.7kg €102 NCBC
Sire Calving Diff (Heifer) Gestation length Carcass Weight Beef Sub Index AI Company AA8472 2.2 -3.02 days 7.9kg €84 NCBC
For timing of AI, Sean uses automated heat detection and serves cows at 6:00p.m each evening after milking is finished up.
If a cow is seen bulling late in the day, she will be served at this time also, and if she is still showing signs of heat the following day, a second straw will be used the following day.
Sean will use sexed semen to breed his replacement heifers and has been happy with this system for the past few years.
When Sean looked at the bulls used on the ICBF sire advice tab, it showed the average DBI of the beef bulls used was €159, but more importantly, the beef sub index of the bulls used was €122.
The average gestation length of the bulls used was -1.7 days and the average calving difficulty of the bulls used was only 3.3%.
This means in addition to having no issues with hard calving sires and long gestation lengths, Sean will have high CBV calves that will continue to sell well out of his yard each year.
Sean sells all his calves from the yard with repeat customers coming back each year.
This is the most important factor when working on improving beef breeding and repeat customers is a sure sign of customer satisfaction.
When the current CBVs of Sean’s calves were examined, it showed Belgian Blues ranging from €130-172, Angus ranging from €61 -151 and Herefords ranging from €75-98.
The evidence is apparent in the effort Sean has been making and will continue to make, in terms of producing quality beef calves from his dairy herd, which will be attractive to purchase from an Irish beef farmers point of view.
The sires selected will also qualify Sean for the CSP Dairy Beef Welfare Scheme.
For more Dairy Beef Index Series articles, keep an eye on Agriland over the coming weeks.