Focus: Straight-talking Mayo suckler farmer hosts IGA beef event – Agriland.ie

Hundreds of farmers and agri-industry personnel flocked to Ballinrobe, Co, Mayo, on Tuesday evening, June 11, for the Irish Grassland Association (IGA) beef event on the suckler and sheep farm of Martin Shaughnessy.

Farmers who open their farm for the benefit of showing other farmers their system have to be commended and in particular Martin, who gave an honest overview of the system he operates.

The farm size is just short of 28ha (70ac) of both owned and rented ground and is divided in three blocks.

The breeding livestock on the farm consists of 17 suckler cows and 160 ewes. Lambs are brought to finish and progeny from the suckler herd are sold as weanlings.

Mayo suckler enterprise

Martin is evidently a specialist weanling producer and breeds top-quality E- and U-grade weanlings. The prices he achieves for his weanlings reflects the quality of his suckler herd’s progeny.

In 2023, his average price for both male and female weanlings stood at €1,700/head at 8-9 months-of-age.

The farm uses 100% artificial insemination (AI) for breeding the weanlings and has been predominantly using AI for the past 25-30 years.

The cow type is predominantly red Limousins and these are crossed to Belgian Blue bulls with the replacement heifers bred back to Limousin sires.

Commenting on his cow type, Martin said: “I wouldn’t be going for double-muscle cows. I use a Belgian Blue bull here and don’t want to cross muscle with muscle, so a good R-touching-U grade cow, a good square cow.

“I have a lot of CWI (Castleview Casino) cows here; I’ve Joskin cows (LM2188) which I think battled with stars, they’re down at 2-3 stars but they’re probably some of my best cows to be honest.

“They have great pelvises and you have to look for that width in a cow because a narrow cow is never going to be able to calve the Belgian Blues I want.”

AI sires used on the cows:

• BB7638 New Red;
• BB4369 Coolbanagher King;
• BB6700 Moderato;
• BB4438 An De Beauffaux;
• LM6529 Claddagh Mccabe;
• LM2014 Ewdenvale Ivor;
• BB7443 Newton De Fontena;
• BB8283 Villablues Oxo ET;
• BB9463 Hong Wang.

AI sires used on the heifers:

• LM4058 Lodge Hamlet;
• CWI Castleview Casino;
• CWI Castleview Casino;
• LM2395 Cavelands Jolly.

He explained that he selects bulls with 80-90% reliability and a calving difficulty of 10-12% in the Belgian Blues. For mature cows that he knows can calve a higher percentage, he goes to 16-18% calving difficulty.

Challenges

Martin was honest about the challenges his high-end weanling production system involves and said: “You have to be there when they’re calving and you need a good [calving] jack too.”

He said that of the cows he calved this year, there was vet assistance for one, eight or nine calved on their own and the remainder of cows were assisted at calving.

He explained that he prefers to be there to assist the cows at calving. “I would have jacked some of them out more as a precaution,” he explained.

“I put the cow in the calving gate and assist with the calving. You have more control so if anything goes wrong, you have more of a chance of the survival of the calf.”

He admitted that it is important to know when to call for assistance: “I’m 20 years calving blues. If there’s too much pressure on the calf, I ring the vet.

“The last few years it has been working out alright. There’s years it does go wrong. It’s all a bit of luck as well but the calving jack is a thing you want to know what you’re at,” he added.

Suckler calves

After calving, he said he often milks-out the cow to get 2L of colostrum into the calf and prefers to feed this through a teat to get the calf sucking and only uses a stomach tube where a calf is not sucking.

Iodine and methylated spirits mixed together are applied to the calf navel. He said the mixture helps the calf navel to shrink quicker.

“The problem with iodine is the first thing a cow will do is lick the navel off the calf,” which he said can cause infection in the calf.

To avoid this, when the calf is born, Martin places lime over the calf navel as well as the iodine mix to stop the cows licking the naval which he says “works well”.

At one-week-old, calves go on straw bedding for a few days and then go on timber slats. He said too much straw means it “is hard to keep disease out” and added that the timber slats are great for keeping calves dry.

Supplements

Martin has great faith in feeding pre-calver minerals to cows: “It is key to a healthy calf that will get up and suck as well as good colostrum.”

As well as pre-calver minerals, cows receive a bolus after calving in advance of breeding with a copper, selenium and cobalt bolus administered which lasts for six months.

Three weeks after calving, an 18% concentrate is fed to cows until they go to grass “to help get them back in calf”.

This is fed alongside high Dry Matter Digestibility (DMD) silage. Lower DMD silage is fed to cows in advance of calving.

He attributes the success of his AI breeding strategy to the use of a vasectomised bull to identify cows in heat.

Every autumn, a weanling bull is purchased and vasectomised. This bull is used for the following breeding season to identify cows in heat.

He said: “I’m over seven years using teaser bulls with a chin ball. This year, all cows were bulled by May 27.”

This year, cows went to grass on April 20 so a lot of cows were served in the shed.

A new bull is purchased every year to reduce the risk of a larger bull in the shed hurting calves. The vasectomised bull is then slaughtered in July or August, following the breeding season.

He said: “I’ve yet to lose money on a vasectomised bull.” He also advised farmers to consider the use of a vasectomised bull saying: “It saves time on heat detection and if you’re going all AI, a teaser bull is the answer”.

Age at first calving

Martin explained that calving heifers at two-years-old is not feasible for his system. He said: “I’m a spring-calving herd. I calve from January to March and a lot of Limousins won’t come bulling until 15-16 months-of-age.

“If that happens, they’re calving in March and to be honest, March is too late for calving my heifers. If you have March in 2024, you will probably have April in 2025 which is too late for calving. Heifers are generally around 34 months-of-age at calving here.”

Martin regularly monitors the performance of his calves. He said: “I weigh the calves regularly and them bull calves would be doing 2kg/day no bother at the peak.

“1.5-2kg/day gain is my target in the last four to five weeks before I sell them. It is possible… I’ve got it several years,” he said.

He has great faith in creep grazing allowing calves access to better-quality grass while making cows graze out paddocks better.

Calves are also fed ration in the lead-up to sale and Martin builds calves up to 2kg/head/day in the five weeks before sale.

“I never overdo it. Grass and 2kg/head/day of meal will do plenty on the calves.”

The event was sponsored by FBD Insurance and representatives from the business were in attendance and also gave a presentation reminding farmers of the importance of farming safely.