Scanning took place this week in Newford Farm, the 100-cow suckler-to-beef herd located in Athenry, Co Galway.

Breeding performance was reduced slightly from recent years, with 86% or 88 out of the 102 cows put forward for breeding scanned in-calf. This compares to 91 cows out of 100 scanned in-calf in 2018.

Looking at the breeding breakdown, 69 cows held to first service, which is significantly ahead of the 60 cows holding to first service in 2018.

Second and third service

Sixteen cows held to second service compared to the 20 which held to second service in 2018. The main difference is in the number of cows holding to third service, with three cows conceiving (11 in 2018).

More in-depth analysis will now be carried out to see if there is any trend with the cows not in-calf, such as late calvers, for example. The other change to recent years is one cow carrying a set of twins when in recent years this figure averaged three to four cows.

Farm manager Iarlaith Collins reports that he had identified a number of repeat cows following the commencement of the 10-week breeding season but says there were cows identified as empty at scanning that showed no heat activity or signs of not being in-calf.

The higher than usual empty rate would normally not be an issue with surplus in-calf heifers joining the herd in recent years and additional in-calf cows sold.

Poor performance

However, scanning of heifers which are being contract-reared also took place this week and returned poor performance.

There was a lower number of 21 heifers put forward for breeding, with 11 of these or 52% scanned in-calf. This leaves the total number of in-calf animals at 99 head.

The management team is weighing up sourcing a few additional in-calf heifers to meet the target of 100 cows and calves at grass with decisions on this taken in the coming weeks.

Steady grass growth

Growth is holding up pretty well despite the heavy rainfall in recent weeks. Growth was recorded at 50kg DM/ha to 54kg DM/ha across the three established blocks last week, while growth on reseeded swards on Cones land block which has joined the project was recorded at 72kg DM/ha.

Ground conditions remain tricky. Iarlaith continues to balance getting a good graze-out in swards and moving on animals before swards get damaged.

Table 1 gives a snapshot of the current grass situation on all four blocks. Weather permitting, the 19.66ha of silage ground on Newford block and 1.69ha in Gort na Habhainn will be harvested in the coming week.