FARM PROFILE:

Area: 83 net acres farmed. All land in one block, surrounded by 2 rivers, roadway, and one adjoining farm, - David & Miriam Brickley. Entire farm under grass.

Stock: 35 Cows, of which approx 25 Simmental and 10 Charolais.

Farm Details:

• Farm inherited in 1995 and set up as separate unit. Domestic house and cattle shed built and passageways and extensive fencing, including some paddocks constructed, mostly in ’95 & ’96.

• Entered R.E.P.S. (Rural Environment Protection Scheme) in Jan’97.

• Labour inputs: 50% of time of one employee, Martin Jordan, who divides his time with David’s farm, 50% of Angela’s time, and Gerard on weekends.

• No silage pit . Baled silage used. Grass is cut at an early stage – grazing height, and wilted until very dry, then baled either as hay, or more usually as haylage. Some rough hay and straw purchase to feed to the dry cows. The very high quality of the silage made on the farm allows us to rear heifers without any supplementary meal feeding. Suckling cows also manage to stay in very good condition with the silage alone.

• Semen is imported from wherever suitable stock are found to do a particular job – the UK, Austria, etc.

Grassland Management:

• A topper is used extensively to keep thickness in the swards and fresh grass coming.

• Slurry and Urea spread in spring and usually no further fertilizer spread unless re-seeding.

• Cows with Autumn bull calves have been kept separate from all other females, and generally grazed ahead of the remainder.

• Cows with calves rotated through fields with average grazing length of 7 - 14 days each. Dry cows used to mop up after cows and calves. Paddocks near the shed used for smaller groups such as Autumn bulls.

• Paddocks and fields rotated for baled silage cutting, taking only one cut off each field if possible.

Livestock Management:

• Calving is in 2 batches, - 1 Sept to mid – Nov. and 1 Jan to end of April,

• All DIY AI, wash – outs and fertility treatments done by Angela and Martin.

• Stock have been built up through purchases and upgrading, over last 15 years, on this and rented land. Culling is very rigorous, on Quality grounds, the object being to build an ever improving herd of Pedigree stock. Embryo transfer widely used, taking embryos from the best cows and transferring into poorest cows and heifers.

• Bulls sold at 13 – 17 mts. for Breeding, culls sent to factory.

• Best heifers usually retained for breeding. Heifers usually calve down in Autumn at 2.5 to 3 years old, and fed some meal over the early part of 1^st lactation. Best of remaining heifers sold in-calf, poorer ones retained as recipients for embryos.

• Calves treated with Ivermectin pouron , only when necessary. Yearlings treated once or twice with white wormer. Cows treated for liver fluke at housing. All cattle treated twice for lice after housing. Magnesium fed through the water supply in Spring and Autumn. All cows vaccinated against Leptospirosis once a year. No other vaccines used. All dry females, including weanling heifers have a rub-on mixture of Stockholm tar and fly repelant every 2 weeks throughout the Summer, applied with a plastic glove to udder area.

• Pre-calver, post-calver and general purpose minerals, sprinkled on silage during the winter. Occasionally salt block minerals fed at grass.

• Preventative hoof paring routinely done on older cows requiring it, in Spring and Autumn, and has proven very effective in avoiding lameness.

Livestock Performance:

• Autumn calves creep fed up to max 2 kgs. beef nut until turn-out. No further meal fed until weaning which takes place around 1^st August.

• Spring calves offered creep before turn-out. They eat very little, but it’s useful in Autumn when introducing the creep feeder for weaning, to have the oldest ones already used to the taste of meal. Normally no creep fed during the summer, except to show calves.

The Celtic Pedigree Herd

Establishment. The herd has been built up mainly by:

• Importing cattle from Austria and Denmark

• Purchases at top Dispersal sales, - “Star” and “Ballintlea” herds.

• Semen importation from Austrian, British, N. Irish, and US bulls.

• Transfer of cattle from “Anatrim” herd, including some from all cow families. The Anatrim Herd was established in 1972 by Tom and May Brickley with the importation of 8 females from Austria.

Main Bulls used:

• “Amstrong”, imported from Austria, where his mother was national Champion Young Cow, with a milk yield of over 1600 gallons. Amstrong bred very tall long cattle, with great milk supply.

• “Eureka” bought out of Performance Test station in Austria, is the 12^th natural calf of his mother. In the first 11 lactations. Eureka’s calves are very small at birth (usually 35 – 40 kgs) but grow well and all have good muscling. Eureka was the perfect type to cross on Amstrong daughters, to add more muscling. They have won numerous championships, including the All-Ireland Yearling Bull Championship with Celtic Hunter. Eureka’s daughters are excellent milkers and very fertile. Many of his sons have gone to dairy herds, where a lot of their progeny grade “U” as 2 year old steers. We still have some Eureka semen, which we collected on-farm, and continue to use, especially on heifers.

• “Brinkton Brilliant” has crossed well on our cows, especially the “Eureka” and “Hercules” daughters, their easy fleshing and high milk yields complementing Brilliant very well.

• “Celtic Highflyer” is out of the top show cow and Siegfried daughter, “Anatrim Josephine” and he is a top Tully Performer himself.