Knottown Saler - Breeding Open Day

patsy_mccabe

On Wed 25th Sept 2019 from 3-6pm, a pedigree breeding open day will take place on the farm of Richard and Joe Fortune, Knottown House, Wexford Y35 KX85. The Fortune’s won the pedigree section of the inaugural FBD Euro-Star 200 competition last December. The farm is home to the Knottown pedigree Salers herd which consists of 120 pedigree cows. The event is being run by Teagasc, ICBF and the Irish Farmer’s Journal and will have speakers from each of these.

https://www.icbf.com/wp/?p=14322

GiantPencil

Father is going to that tomorrow. A lot of their stock have big stars for milk at high reliability rates so it'll be interesting to see what that looks like in the flesh.

Say my name

That farm is supposed to be doing things a little differently than the norm too.
Seemingly members of BASE Ireland.

I think they might talk a little of how they farm?

Say my name

patsy_mccabe wrote: »

On Wed 25th Sept 2019 from 3-6pm, a pedigree breeding open day will take place on the farm of Richard and Joe Fortune, Knottown House, Wexford Y35 KX85. The Fortune’s won the pedigree section of the inaugural FBD Euro-Star 200 competition last December. The farm is home to the Knottown pedigree Salers herd which consists of 120 pedigree cows. The event is being run by Teagasc, ICBF and the Irish Farmer’s Journal and will have speakers from each of these.

https://www.icbf.com/wp/?p=14322

Did you go after Patsy?

patsy_mccabe

Say my name wrote: »

Did you go after Patsy?

Ah no, way too far for me. It just popped up on twitter, so I thought someone here might be interested in it.

Say my name

patsy_mccabe wrote: »

Ah no, way too far for me. It just popped up on twitter, so I thought someone here might be interested in it.

Well I was at it myself.

Lots of things went over my head but some things that stuck were half the cows are bred to charolais, a 50 kg calf is never picked for a stockbull and only occasionally a 45kg - have to be easy calving, the herd overall is not far off €200 for fertility (189) with the top ten cows at I think 220 mark, calve in June all outdoors, factory stock are finished indoors after the first winter on a zero grazed mixed species sward, red clover, ryegrass, chicory.

K9

Say my name wrote: »

Well I was at it myself.

Lots of things went over my head but some things that stuck were half the cows are bred to charolais, a 50 kg calf is never picked for a stockbull and only occasionally a 45kg - have to be easy calving, the herd overall is not far off €200 for fertility (189) with the top ten cows at I think 220 mark, calve in June all outdoors, factory stock are finished indoors after the first winter on a zero grazed mixed species sward, red clover, ryegrass, chicory.

Did they say what the Charolais killed out at?

Say my name

K9 wrote: »

Did they say what the Charolais killed out at?

No. If they did I never caught it.

patsy_mccabe

Fertility is everything when it comes to sucklers. Lads here berating the ICBF stars system but when you have cows that calf early, have loads of milk and no bother calving, then you really see the benefit of it.
I have a cow here just calved 2 weeks ago. She's on her 4 th calf and she calved a month early every year since her first calf. I've other cows then and they are slipping back a month each year.

grassroot1

Say my name wrote: »

Well I was at it myself.

Lots of things went over my head but some things that stuck were half the cows are bred to charolais, a 50 kg calf is never picked for a stockbull and only occasionally a 45kg - have to be easy calving, the herd overall is not far off €200 for fertility (189) with the top ten cows at I think 220 mark, calve in June all outdoors, factory stock are finished indoors after the first winter on a zero grazed mixed species sward, red clover, ryegrass, chicory.

Was there for half an hour as it is near work. I guessed the third species was chicory now you have confirmed it.
A wet and exposed farm can see where zero grazing has its place. Dublin bus type cows,excellent handling facilities, fairly compact yard.
They sold land for development for serious money but to be fair anything there yesterday was achievable.

Hard Knocks

patsy_mccabe wrote: »

Fertility is everything when it comes to sucklers. Lads here berating the ICBF stars system but when you have cows that calf early, have loads of milk and no bother calving, then you really see the benefit of it.
I have a cow here just calved 2 weeks ago. She's on her 4 th calf and she calved a month early every year since her first calf. I've other cows then and they are slipping back a month each year.

Agree
It’s also easy to let a cow slip if 100% AI

Limestone Cowboy

patsy_mccabe wrote: »

Fertility is everything when it comes to sucklers. Lads here berating the ICBF stars system but when you have cows that calf early, have loads of milk and no bother calving, then you really see the benefit of it.
I have a cow here just calved 2 weeks ago. She's on her 4 th calf and she calved a month early every year since her first calf. I've other cows then and they are slipping back a month each year.

Management is everything when it comes to fertility....

148multi

Limestone Cowboy wrote: »

Management is everything when it comes to fertility....

Your system should be top of the pop's for fertility

Buford T. Justice XIX

There's a link to the booklet from the open day in the link below for those that are interested.

https://www.teagasc.ie/publications/2019/fbd-eurostar-200-replacement-index-competition--national-pedigree-herd-winner-farm-walk.php

patsy_mccabe

Limestone Cowboy wrote: »

Management is everything when it comes to fertility....

Yes, but a genetics play a big part too. The limousin bull ZAG is -5.73 days on calving interval. Cerberus (WGE) is +8.38 days. That's a difference of 2 full weeks between those 2 bulls. Extreme examples but still.

GiantPencil

The father was at it and he liked that he could see the 2 mothers of the bulls they have in ai. Most cows were about 650kgs or so with bags of milk. Found it interesting too that they don't register any pedigree bulls over 45kgs so as to keep the easy calving lines, haven't heard of many other breeders having a policy like that in Ireland. By killing all the crossbred progeny and weighing them too it means his stock bulls come away with very high reliabilities so it was easy to see how his stock can have such high star ratings when you're inputting all that data from birth to factory and at that scale too

Mac Taylor

Anyone on here farming salers and crossing with Charolais?
Curious how it’s working out?

Hard Knocks

Mac Taylor wrote: »

Anyone on here farming salers and crossing with Charolais?
Curious how it’s working out?

Did before, you need an extremely muscled bull

Mac Taylor

Hard Knocks wrote: »

Did before, you need an extremely muscled bull

Did you have calving problems? When you said did before, what was the reason for changing? Tks

148multi

Hard Knocks wrote: »

Did before, you need an extremely muscled bull

Bil had them, lovely golden hairy calves, had to buy a land cruiser to herd them, if you had quite, milky ones you'd be on to a winner. Great calvers.

Hard Knocks

Mac Taylor wrote: »

Did you have calving problems? When you said did before, what was the reason for changing? Tks

Had a great cow who calved every 350 days (5 calves).
Culled as proved not incalf
She was off a SIX dam, no problem calving
No problem putting 14-16% CD on her

Sugarbowl

I put a 5%CD CH on a good Saler cow. She had a fine calf - as said above, goldy coloured and hairy.

I have put the same bull on her again for next Feb and tried the same bull on another SA cow. Looking forward to seeing what she has. Both are good and milky.

Have another SA cow who is narrow in frame and average for milk.