Out of 98 cows put to the bull at Greenmount’s Hill Farm at Glenwherry, Co Antrim, this year, only two scanned empty after a nine-week period with the bull.

“It is the best we have ever achieved,” Greenmount farm manager Michael Graham told programme farmers on a visit to the CAFRE farm last week.

With an additional 24 heifers also in-calf, it means there are 120 to be calved down next year.

Calving on the farm starts in mid-April, so 2019-born calves are still to be weaned, although the plan is to get this done before the end of this month.

QuietWean tags will be inserted in the calves before they are moved to Greenmount’s Abbey farm in Antrim about a week later.

The group of farmers on the BETTER Farm Beef Challenge NI with CAFRE farm staff and technologists on a visit to Greenmount Hill Farm.

Male calves were castrated at three to four months, so will be finished as steers at around 22 months. Heifers suitable for breeding will be synchronised and artificially inseminated, and will return to the hill farm for calving in 2021.

Three breeds

The herd at the hill farm is a three-breed rotation utilising Limousin, Aberdeen Angus and Shorthorn genetics. The system is now well-bedded in, having first been implemented in the early 2000s.

Before that, cows on the farm were mostly black Limousins out of the Greenmount dairy herd.

However, with more Holstein genetics coming through, it became increasingly clear that these animals were not suited to the hill environment.

As a result, the farm started sourcing heifers from the west of Ireland in the late 1990s. But concerns about bringing in disease brought a new focus on breeding replacements.

Suckler cows are a mix of Limousin, Angus and Shorthorn breeding.

To try to replicate some of those west of Ireland genetics, it was decided to introduce the three-breed rotation.

Initially, with cows in three groups, the plan was to use three bulls of one breed for a three-year period, and so on. However, this has evolved over the years, and at present, there is one bull of each breed on the farm.

Currently the Angus bull goes to Limousin cows, the Shorthorn bull to Angus cows and the Limousin bull to Shorthorn cows.

The Shorthorn bull was going to Limousin cows, but the resultant steers were proving hard to finish within the criteria set by the Glenarm Shorthorn beef scheme (fat class 4, and 280 to 380kg).

Performance

Calving interval is an excellent 370 days, although a heifer replacement rate of 25% is quite high for a suckler herd. With nearly all cows in-calf this year, it should be possible to reduce this figure.

Average cow liveweight currently stands at 632kg, with calves at 260kg.

The cows are currently on ad-lib average-quality first-cut silage (ME 10.7MJ/kg dry matter). They are not being fed concentrate, which instead is being targeted at calves.

A Case 145 has been fitted with tracks to help manage rush covered areas at Greenmount Hill Farm.

Since housing in October, calves have been gradually built up, and are currently eating an average close to 4kg/head.

While that might seem excessive, it is only for a short period, and will help break the cow to calf bond. Also, the calf creeps in the existing house are small, so not all calves can feed at once.

Weaned

Once weaned, the calves go to the Abbey Farm in Antrim and on to a diet of silage plus 2kg of concentrate, with meal feeding gradually reduced as turnout approaches.

Despite being vaccinated against the main pneumonia viruses, the mild and damp weather last month resulted in an outbreak of the disease. One calf was lost and the rest required blanket veterinary treatment.

Potential role for autumn calving

The entire suckler herd at Greenmount Hill Farm is spring-calving. However, there is an argument for having at least a proportion of the herd autumn-calving.

Driving that is a long-term objective for the farm to be the top environmental demonstration upland farm in the UK and Ireland.

As pointed out by CAFRE’s senior beef and sheep technologist Graeme Campbell, that means the cattle, along with the 1,100-ewe flock, working hand in hand to deliver environmental outcomes.

He maintains there is a clear environmental benefit to having cows out on heather moorland and rough grazing over the summer months to help manage habitats for the likes of ground nesting birds.

In addition, where heather is allowed to grow unchecked, it becomes woody, and a significant fire risk.

However, it is grazing probably best suited to a dry cow, calving in the autumn.

One of the main limitations to getting cattle to graze out some of the rougher grasses and vegetation on the hill is the inability to confine cattle into smaller areas.

The Greenmount Hill Farm extends to nearly 2,500 acres, and nearly half of this is heather/rough moorland.

However, according to Graeme Campbell, virtual fencing potentially offers a means to manage some of these larger land blocks.

Greenmount technologists hope to demonstrate virutal fencing on the Creeve Hill at Greenmount Hill Farm in 2020.

He is keen to try out the technology in 2020 on a 250ac section of the Creeve Hill, using a group of up to 30 cows.

Buzzing noise

The technology is increasingly being used in New Zealand, and works with a collar on cattle. When the animals move near the virtual fence, they are dissuaded with a buzzing noise which grows gradually louder.

If this does not work, the animal receives a single electric pulse to the back of its neck, encouraging it to turn back.

“Cattle seem to pick up on it very quickly. Sheep are a bit more challenging. It is expensive – about £100 per cow, but a permanent fence would also come with a significant cost.

“We can move the fence boundary using a smartphone, so it has a lot of potential,” suggested Graeme.

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