Earlier last month, Agriland paid a visit to Tullow, Co. Carlow, to the suckler and dairy-beef farm of former Irish and Leinster rugby star, Seán O’Brien.
While retired from playing professional rugby, the Carlow man is now a Leinster rugby coach and has a busy career and lifestyle off-farm, but is highly committed to improving the performance of his beef farm at home also.
O’Brien is an ambassador for Irish Hereford Prime, and while there are a range of breeds in his dairy calf to beef enterprise, the calves are predominantly Herefords.
Calves are reared through to beef and are generally finished before the second winter.
As of early October, he said weights of his beef cattle were back 40-50kg on other years and attributed this to harsh weather conditions earlier this spring and reduced grass growth over the summer.
The suckler enterprise
The suckler enterprise on the farm entails approximately 30 suckler cows and these are predominantly Belgian Blue cross and Shorthorn cross cows. Two stock bulls are used on the farm and these are Limousin and a hybrid bull.
The breeding goal for the suckler enterprise is “trying to get as good of quality into the weanling as we possibly can”.
The hybrid bull O’Brien uses on his cows is a Belgian Blue/Limousin hybrid. The bull’s sire is An De Beauffaux (BB4438) and the bull’s dam was sired by Elderberry Galahad (EBY).
He said: “He’s a roan-type bull and he’s a young bull, I only put two cows in calf to him last season because he was so young. I had two great calves after them and he brought colour straight away into the herd.
Some of the autumn-born suckler calves on the farm:
“I know the colour thing [in weanlings] was in vogue last year and the year before, it’s probably dying out a little bit now but the quality of the calves is what I’m most concerned about.
“I done a bit of homework before I bought him and he has worked out well now. I’ve three heifers calved down to him already now. He’s an easy calving bull which is a priority for me too – I don’t want to be jacking [calves] or having too much hardship round calving.”
This year, “the bigger, more shapey heifers” were bred using sexed semen to EBY “because I know it’s going to be a heifer calf so it’s not going to be a monster of a bull calf and secondly, I’ve something that’s bred really well and if it’s good enough, I might keep it for a cow replacement going forward and if not, you still have something very decent to sell on”.
Hereford calves
While there are a range of breeds in O’Brien’s dairy calf to beef system, he admitted he has a preference for Hereford-cross calves in this system.
Commenting on his preference for the Hereford’s, he said: “The first thing is the docility of them, they’re very quiet and they’re calm.”
He also noted that there is a breed bonus available for in-spec Hereford heifers and steers slaughtered through Irish Hereford Prime and said that the Hereford-cross dairy cattle generally perform well in his dairy calf to beef system.
Commenting on his plan for the future of the farm, he said his plan is to keep “a manageable number” of Hereford cattle for the dairy-beef system and keep bringing these on for finishing and “just get quality in the sucklers that I have”.
“We’re definitely not going to grow to more cows in the sucklers, just have 20-30 really good quality cows and produce a top-class weanling if possible.
“Whatever stock we have, have them done as well as possible,” he added.
While O’Brien certainly has enough going on to keep him busy without farming, it is evident that working on his farm and improving it, is a real passion of his.
He said: “I enjoy farming. I’ve always enjoyed farming, it’s something I get a lot out of and while it’s quite difficult in the current climate, it’s still something I want to stay involved in and try do as best as I can at.”