A strong calving performance underpins success within any suckler system. Table 1 shows the calving performance of the spring-calving BETTER farm participants in 2019.

The 2018 figures and the national average figures are provided as a comparison. For context, there are 15 solely spring-calving farms in the programme, calving between 19 and 110 cows. The average is 53.

The length of the calving periods range from as low as seven weeks up to a high of 17 weeks. The target for any system calving at any time of the year should be no longer than 12 weeks and 80% within the first six weeks.

The last two weeks of February and the first two weeks of March see the bulk of the activity.

Calves per cow

I think the calves per cow per year figure best reflects the overall performance of a calving period.

The figure represents the number of calves born per year in comparison to the number of eligible females in a herd and it therefore takes reproductive performance into consideration, as well as mortality and calving rate. Obviously, the gold standard is one calf per cow per year.

However, a more practical target is 0.95. Data from ICBF shows that the national average figure is 0.85 – so every 100 eligible females are producing just 85 calves in the year.

After falling just shy of the target in 2018, this year performance of the BETTER Farm group was excellent at 0.96 calves per cow per year.

Financially, the benefits of this are huge. Research carried out by Teagasc has shown that hitting the 0.95 target, instead of the national average (0.85), is worth an extra €87/cow net margin.

This is worth over €4,500 net margin per BETTER farm, based on the average herd size of 53 cows.

Mortality at calving in 2019 decreased from the year before. At birth, it dropped from 1.93% to 1.23% and under one month of age it dropped from 5.86% to 2.37%.

Without doubt, weather conditions played a pivotal role here. A fatality rate of 5.86% at one month old was very high in 2018 driven by terrible weather conditions resulting in the inability to get calves outdoors and subsequent over-crowding in sheds.

It was a different story this year. Added to this, a greater emphasis on herd health, particularly vaccines, played a part. After some farms encountered significant health breakdowns in 2018, there was a big push on the idea of prevention rather than cure.

Pneumonia vaccinations and scour vaccines were more widely used, on top of the more standard Lepto and BVD vaccines. Farmers will be hoping the shortage of Lepto vaccines this year will not have a negative effect on calving in 2020.

More focus on breeding has also had a positive effect. The percentage of difficult calvings has decreased from 5.45% to 3.02%. Farmers are paying more attention to the calving difficulty of AI sires or stock bulls and are picking cows accordingly.

Calving interval

Calving interval was the only figure that moved in the wrong direction, jumping five days to 376. It’s still well below the national average of 396 days, however.

I think there are two reasons for the increase. Firstly, there was re-structuring on a number of farms. Five farms have moved from split-calving to solely spring-calving.

The transition distorted the calving pattern on each of these farms and with that, they carried over an average calving interval of close to 390 days. Another reason was down to the weather last year.

At the start of breeding, cows were coming off the back of an extremely difficult spring and many farmers noted that cows were slower to begin cycling.

Added to this, the intense heat during the summer coincided with the middle of the breeding season on some farms and a small number of farmers reported temporary fertility issues with stock bulls.

Robert Abbott

Longford

Robert is mixed suckler and sheep farmer based near Edgeworthstown in Co Longford. Cow type on the 33ha farm would be mixed continental and dairy-cross.

There are also two stock bulls in place – a Charolais and a Salers. In 2019 he calved 42 females – 16 heifers and 26 cows. He is one of the farmers who made the move from split calving to spring calving. To do so, he decided to cull the autumn herd and buy in his replacements for the spring. Originally, the farm plan was to move towards 50 cows.

Given the circumstances within the sector at present, Robert believes the most sensible option for now is to put expansion plans on hold and stick at 40 to 45 cows.

Calving performance on the farm is good. The 42 animals calved in eight weeks and three days in 2019.

Eighty-six per cent calved within the first six weeks. The exact same number of animals calved in 17 weeks and five days in 2018.

Without doubt, the two most impressive figures on Robert’s calving report are the 362-day calving interval and the 0.96 calves per cow per year figure.

A good scanning (90% pregnant) after just eight weeks was a key driver of this. After problems with during calving in 2017, particularly abortions, more attention to Lepto and BVD vaccines has tidied up his mortality figure which now stands at a respectable 4.8%, or just two out of 42.