by Fiona Sloan
It was a cold and bright day in Northen Ireland,
when Robin Boyd, Norman Weatherup and I went to visit Philip
and William Dick at Rockmount, Saintfield.
Together with
land at Pinehill, this father and son partnership run 150
acres owner occupied alongside another 100 rented. The 20
acres which is down to arable grows the feed for the 100
cows and followers which are worked on a part time basis,
as are many farms in the province, in conjunction with Philip’s
other two jobs.
The cattle are fed on a diet of home grown
winter barley which is bruised and supliamented with good
silage, cut in two crops from 70 acres of summer grazing.
Since
Philip took on the farm from his father William, who is now
semi retired, he had no particular preference in selecting
replacement heifers, looking only for a medium sized crossbred
which would suit their system best. He had some experience
of using a Simmental bull, which he had borrowed from his
uncle and was breeding some of his own replacement females
and buying in stores to make up numbers.
Following a visit
to the Premium Quality Beef Development Herd run at the Enneskillin
Campus of the College of Agriculture, Food and Rural Enterprise
and a talk with Norman Weatherup, who is the Beef Technologist
based at Greenmount Campus, the decision was made to purchase
a batch of heifers from the herd which is made up of Simmental
X Limousin Females. This was then followed by purchasing
the second calves produced from the herd as well.
For ease
of calving, Philip and William decided to continue their
policy of putting the heifers to the Limousin bull.
“We
are delighted with how well the heifers have done” says
Philip.
”They have calved down well and are very milky
so the calves are thriving”
From where we stood in
the shed, the calves were in fine fettle and were tearing
off round the shed with their mothers showing the typical
mothering ability of the Simmental and keeping a close eye
on them as we watched.
“With having another two jobs
to fit in, it is essential that we have cattle which are
easy to work with, says Philip and the Simmental Cross has
proved much better than what we have been used to.”
 |
| New shed and handling system at Rockmount |
The
Dick family have just built a new shed with a self designed
handling system, which they hope will make the dosing and
injection of the cows even easier. “The cows eat well,” says
William, who is feeding them with good quality silage as
we speak.
“People have always been sore on the Simmental
for being too expensive to keep through the winter, he continues,
but with very little additives they are able to thrive and
rear calves from the silage we give them. Even if it takes
an extra ton of silage to feed a cow through the winter it’s
only £10!” he jokes.
Speaking about the future,
which many farmers are doing at this point, it is clear like
all of us that the family are worried about the future of
the suckler cow without subsidies. We also discuss what they
intend to do to maintain their income. William is convinced
at this stage that the way forward is to put the Simm cross
cows to the Angus as is traditional in Northern Ireland,
particularly with the Beef Priemium still available for the
Angus Beef.
We discuss the premium for replacement heifers
and the fast growth rate on the bull beef, which they also
run on the farm. With the introduction of the single farm
payment, the family appreciate that the fast growth of the
finishers is essential and agree to look into it further.
Philip recently received training through
the Beef Quality Initiative (BQI). There are two parts to
BQI. Part I aims to develop the competence of beef cattle
breeders and finishers in modern breeding and production
practices. Part II offers financial assistance in adopting
this practice, which includes the performance recording of
stock, purchase of bulls with high Estimated Breeding Value
(EBV) for muscling and milk, and the implantation of high
genetic merit embryos. The use of EBVs has become very important
in the province and with so much to gain must be seriously
taken into consideration.
We left the farm feeling that the
CAFRE project is proving successful for this partnership.
The crossbred females suit the system at Rockmount and it
was great to meet farmers who were totally open minded to
the future and what was needed.
As we drove off to the Northern
Ireland Club meeting that night I remarked to Robin and Norman
that I felt we had achieved what we set out to do that morning
and that was to ensure that the Enniskillen Females were
assured of a good future from a project which has had its
difficulties over the years.
The Premium Quality Beef herd
is delivering the goods – high
quality heifers and steers achieving ‘gold box’ grades
(E, U, R grades at fat classes 3 and 4L). It was clear that
this five year project is working well for the breed.
So
did the Dicks come to Perth and buy an Angus? Next time I
spoke to William he was at Perth and had just purchased his
new Simmental Stock bull and was looking toward to the future.
Result!! |
