Weigh up your cattle performance with BQI

How often do you look at your cattle and make a visual assessment of their performance and think cattle growth rates are higher / lower than in previous years? It is only through physically weighing your cattle on a regular basis that you can determine exactly how good your livestock performance is.

Commercial suckler herd owners who have successfully completed the Beef Quality Initiative (BQI) Cattle Breed Improvement programme can claim a financial allowance ranging from £350 to £500 for weight recording their calves. Calves must be weighed on three occasions during a 12 month period and can claim this allowance for three consecutive years throughout the BQI scheme.

To be eligible for this allowance, herd owners must weigh a minimum of 15 progeny which can be sired by stock bulls or through A.I. To be eligible, five calves must be sired by BQI elite bulls, or alternatively, all 15 calves can be sired by BQI superior bulls. On completion of weighing, weight records are submitted via e-mail to your local beef and sheep advisor.

Joseph and Fergal McAleer are a father and son partnership farming on the outskirts of  Plumbridge who completed their third year of weight recording under BQI. They run a 50 cow suckler herd of autumn and spring calving cows, as well as a sheep enterprise of 300 ewes.

All cows are artificially inseminated using a combination of Charolais, Limousin and Simmental bulls. Bulls such as Rocky, Mozart and Malibu have been regularly used on the herd.

Weighing calves on a regular basis allows Joseph and Fergal to monitor cattle performance. They can identify which bulls suit their cows to produce calves with high growth rates. Having completed a BQI programme, Fergal is confident in using EBVs to source potential bulls. Emphasis is placed on muscle, growth and milk traits for selection purposes.

Calves receive creep feed whilst in the house, but this stops on turnout to grass. All males are housed in autumn and finished as bulls at 14 – 15 months on a home mix ration and straw, heifers not selected as replacements are taken through to slaughter. The cattle are weighed in May, August and December. A summary of the weights for the bulls is outlined below;

Table 1. Summary of the performance of bulls

Using A.I. to mate the whole herd requires excellent stock management and high cow fertility. This is certainly not lacking on the McAleer farm, with approximately 75 - 80 percent of the cows getting in calf to the first service. The remainder will hold to the second service. Fergal attributes this to having a large percentage of cows calving in the autumn time in the house allowing him to manage cow nutrition to boost fertility, aid heat detection and handle cows with minimal stress.

As progressive farmers, Joseph and Fergal have used BQI on their own farm to their advantage. For more information on commercial weighing of progeny, or BQI in general, contact BQI admin on 028 94 426878 or your local Beef and sheep development advisor.

Fergal McAleer and Francis Breen, Beef and Sheep Development advisor discuss animal performance