On Thursday, September 5 at 6:00p.m, Aidan Maguire will be hosting a Dairy Beef 500 farm walk and live forum on his farm.
All are welcome to attend and see his dairy calf to beef system in action. On display on the evening, will be his 2023 autumn-born and 2024 spring born calves, yearling steers and heifers and his finishing animals.
The theme of the event is ‘Making the winter gains’, which will be of great interest to both dairy farmers and those interested in rearing dairy bred stock.
Topics on the day will include, Aidan’s current farming system and his financial performance; grassland management tips including red clover swards; animal health and winter feeding options for finishing and weanling animals.
Farm walk
Attendees will also have the opportunity to participate in a live forum, where there is an excellent panel of key industry stakeholders lined up to give their views and opinions on current dairy calf to beef enterprises.
John Donlon from Teagasc will discuss all animal health matters in preparation for the upcoming winter housing period.
Matthew Armstrong on behalf of Drummonds, will discuss winter feed diets and non-feed factors that help to maximise animal performance.
Aidan will give his personal experiences of dairy calf to beef systems and how he maximises his performance form grass.
Jonathon Forbes from Kepak will provide information on the market specifications and what type of animal for slaughter is required by the factories.
Head of Dry Stock at Teagasc, Pearse Kelly, will chair the forum providing an opportunity for all in attendance to ask the experts views on all things dairy calf to beef.
This farm walk and forum is free to attend and should be of great interest and provide excellent information to both dairy and beef farmers.
All involved look forward to meeting you on the evening of September 5.
Farm overview
Farming outside of Navan, Co. Meath, Aidan and his family run a dairy calf to beef enterprise, on their farm in conjunction with a contracting business.
The Maguire’s farm stretches over 70ha with 54ha in grass and the remainder in forestry. Up until 1999, Aidan operated tillage and suckler cow enterprises on his farm.
Having initially changed to a calf to store system, Aidan then moved to a dairy calf to beef system where approximately 100 calves were purchased each year and finished as beef.
The predominant breeds purchased were Aberdeen Angus, Hereford and Friesian animals.
Since joining the Teagasc DairyBeef 500 programme, the Maguires source all their calves from four local dairy farmers and finish their heifers at around 18/19 months and bullocks at less than 24-months-of-age.
The target is to have heifers at over 550kg live weight at the end of the finishing period and for bullocks to be 600kg, leaving a minimum carcass weight of 270kg for heifers and 300kg for bullocks.
Calf numbers purchased annually have now increased to 150 calves between autumn and spring born.
Even though the numbers of calves on the farm have increased there has been no increase in health issues associated with the rearing of these extra calves.
Aidan and his son Luke maintain that buying calves from local farmers has been key to reducing the health issues on the farm.
Aidan is very particular when it comes to the age of calf that he buys: “I will not buy a calf that is less than three weeks of age and even at that if the calf looks thin or anyway off form I will not take him.
“Leaving calves to greater than three weeks of age before they come on to our farm, means that the calf is over the danger period for Rotavirus and Coronavirus scour and if he does get a touch of crypto scour he is strong enough to overcome it.”
A comprehensive vaccination plan also plays a key role in reducing the instances of pneumonia that occurs on the farm.
Grassland management is key
Last year the farm grew over 13t of grass dry matter (DM)/ha using less than 150 kg of chemical nitrogen/ha.
The low level of chemical N used on the grassland block is attributed to the introduction of both Red and White clover on the farm.
Aidan believes that the application of chemical N on the farm will reduce even further over time as more clover becomes established.
In spring 2022, a red clover silage sward was established which received no chemical N apart from three bags of 10-10-20 applied at sowing.
In 2023, this sward was cut four times yielding 28 bales /ac, tested >73% DMD and 14.4% crude protein, while only receiving cattle slurry after each cut.
In 2021, Aidan won the dry stock Grassland Farmer of the Year, where he put great emphasis on having an excellent paddock system, where a new central (grass) roadway was put in, grass measuring was increased, all these have helped contribute to the increase in grass grown and utilised on his farm whilst reducing the amount of chemical fertiliser applied.
Aidan is a big advocate of measuring grass and regularly uploading the figures on Pasture Base. In 2023, Aidan uploaded over 40 grass walks onto the system.
He believes that measuring grass is one of the keys to him achieving good weight gains at grass.
Improving genetics
Going forward Aidan is going to place more emphasis on buying calves from local farmers that on average have better beef genetics.
He has a target that purchased dairy bred calves will have a Commercial Beef Value (CBV) of > €0 and his beef bred calves will have a CBV of > €100.
