LEADING DONEGAL SUCKLER FARMER CHOOSES SIMMENTAL AS HIS NO. 1 SUCKLER DAM

Bertie Peoples runs a progressive 50 cow suckler herd in Imlick, Co. Donegal. All progeny produced are taken through to slaughter at a young age - 16 to 20 months. Key to Bertie's operation is reducing meal costs and maximising the benefits of good working cows.

Over 75% of Bertie's cows are three-quarter bred Simmental. He also has a mix of Charolais & Limousin cross cows. Bertie has hands on experience of all breeds and has no hesitation in pointing out that the best performing weanlings always come from the Simmental cross cows.

All the male progeny are taken to bull beef. A necessity in running this system is that animals are not allowed a store period. In spite of this Bertie does not feed any meals to his calves while they are on the cows at grass, stating that "the good milk supply of the cows is more than adequate to keep the calves going". Eliminating this meal feeding is a major advantage when the overall figures are being added up. On average his bulls does 0.9kg/day dead weight gain from birth to slaughter, also showing that his calves are not suffering any setback from not having meals fed.

Bertie plans to continue with his present system post decoupling. He sees Simmental playing an even bigger part in his farm in the future and in fact has inseminated some of his cows to Simmental to breed his own replacements. When asked as to whether he can see a problem with feeding the resulting bull progeny, Bertie replied "Simmental has really improved in conformation and have an extremely high growth rate".

Bertie is setting a sound foundation by continuing to upgrade his breeding cows and as a result looks like continue to be to the fore in Quality Beef Production.