Content developed in collaboration with Agriland Media as part of the ICBF & Agriland 22025 Commerecial Beef Value Series.
Farming in Navan, Co. Meath, Aidan Maguire and his son Luke operate a registered farm partnership and run a calf to beef system. Calves are brought in at three weeks of age and are reared all the way through to beef, at around 23-24 months of age. The three main breeds on the farm are Friesians, Angus, and Hereford-sired cattle bred off the dairy herd. When sourcing calves, the farm deals with four dairy farmers in the locality who supply Aidan and Luke with their calves.
Aidan said: “We usually buy about 60-70 calves in the autumn and 110-120 calves in the spring time.
“We buy the calves in at three weeks of age and we put them on twice-a-day milk feeding until they’re four to five weeks old and then we move them on to once-a-day milk. It has worked out very well for us over the years.”
Calves are vaccinated on the second day on the farm for Infectious Bovine Rhinotracheitis (IBR) and Bovine respiratory syncytial virus (RSV).
Aidan said: “We found that it has kept calves extremely healthy. We don’t have a pneumonia problem anymore, thank God.
“Our aim is to get them on to as much meal as possible, as quickly as possible, and after 10-12 weeks, we wean them off milk completely.”
Commercial Beef Value
Aidan and Luke pay close attention to the Commercial Beef Value (CBV) figure allocated to each calf they are buying.
All animals on the farm have a CBV available when purchased as calves, and Aidan highlights this to his dairy-farmer calf suppliers. He is continuously looking to source calves with high CBVs within their respective breed.
The table below shows the CBV star-rating percentiles based on the November 2024 evaluation:
Aidan said: “Going forward, we’ll have the discussion with the dairy farmers to try and encourage them to produce a better calf using CBV to measure this.
“The calves we have all have CBVs at the moment. Some of them are not as good as we would like, but it will help us in the future to sort the good from the bad.
“Using the Irish Cattle Breeding Federation (ICBF) to tell us what the CBV is of our cattle, we found that very useful for planning going forward,” he said.
Aidan noticed that the calves he purchases with higher CBVs reach higher performance targets on the farm.
“The potential of our cattle to actually finish at 22-23 months of age, the higher the CBV, the better chance the animal has of hitting the targets,” he explained.
“Those cattle are then very suitable to go into the Kepak Twenty20 club, hitting carcass weights of just over 300kg. To date, we’ve had no problem getting all our cattle sold under 24 months, which leaves the place ready and set up for the next batch of cattle coming along.
“We are now using ICBF and the CBV as part of our purchasing policy. It’ll help us to select calves that will hit the targets for us in the future.
“It’s good advice for the dairy farmer. He can see where he’s going with his breeding plan, too. When he produces a higher CBV animal, it makes it more profitable, possibly for both of us,” he added.
Aidan is confident of the farm’s future in dairy-beef production saying: “Our dairy beef business is looking good for the future.
“I have a registered farm partnership with my son Luke and he’s now 100% involved, and doing a lot of the heavy lifting makes life a lot easier for me and hopefully it makes a good living for him in the future.
“Using CBV as a tool here on this farm will help our business to be more profitable for the future,” Aidan said.
Click here for more information on the Commercial Beef Value.