The Emyvale, Co. Monaghan-based McAnenly Family is busy preparing for its annual in-calf heifer sale later this month.

Titled: 'Mables 2026 in-calf heifer sale', it will take place at Ballybay Mart, Co. Monaghan, on Friday evening, September 11.

Ahead of the sale and farm open day, Agriland caught up with Pauric McAnenly from Mableview Farm to hear how he has grown his business of sourcing and producing in-calf suckler bred-heifers with a growing cohort of return customers over the past approximately 15 years.

Viewing of the 50 in-calf heifers entered in the sale will take place at Mableview Farm (Eircode: H18 Ny220) in Emyvale, Co. Monaghan, on Saturday and Sunday, September 5 and 6.

McAnenly explained: "We started off selling some of our replacement suckler cows and some of them we would have sold as springing.

"We then focused our system entirely on sourcing replacement heifers and supplying suckler farmers with these in-calf heifers."

The number of years the family has been in the business of selling these heifers is a testament to the reliability and quality of the heifers that Mableview Farm has been supplying.

McAnenly said that size, pelvic depth, feet, build, as well as overall structure and functionality as a suckler cow are the key traits in the in-calf heifers that the farm aims to produce.

He explained: "The animal has to be functional. If you're going to get seven or eight calves out of her, she has to be a functional heifer that will last the test of time.

"We do like a good bit of muscle as well but if you're going for the more muscley-type 'E' grading heifer, she needs to have size.

"She can't be small and butty because that's where the calving issues will start.

"What we find with a muscled heifer is that if she has the correct size, there won't be the same problems with calving."

According to McAnenly, there is a misconception that muscled heifers might not calve themselves, but he said a lot depends on their maturity and the pelvis.

"Some of our more muscley heifers, it's a lot of them that do calve themselves," he said.

"I'd say 70% of our sales at last year's event were to repeat customers so when you see buyers coming back year-on-year, it tells you you're doing something right."

This year's sale is set to feature approximately 50 in-calf suckler heifers with a rage of heifer types on offer.

"Every farmer runs a different system and is after a different type of heifer for their system," McAnenly said.

In this year's sale, there's predominantly a lot of Limousin blood in a lot of the heifers.

"There's good cross heifers for going back to a Limousin bull; there's good, big red Limousin and black Limousin heifers for going back to a Belgian Blue bull; and there's good Simmental crosses for going back to a Charolais bull, so there's a mix of everything."

The majority of the heifers in the sale are in-calf to artificial insemination (AI) bulls 'Loyal' and 'EBY'.

Some of the heifers in the sale are also in-calf to the farms' stock sire which is a Limousin Cavelands Jolly-bred bull.

The sale will kick off at Ballybay Mart at 7:00p.m on Friday, September 11.