The Beef Edge

Galway Future Beef farmer, Aonghusa Fahy, features on this week’s Beef Edge podcast to give an update on his farm system and management at weaning, plus he discusses the cattle from his farm that will be on the Teagasc stand at this year’s Ploughing Championships.   Even though the weather has been challenging the weanlings have still performed well, Aonghusa explains.   Weaning will take place in...

It was a very challenging August this year and for the monthly Grass10 update, Niamh discusses how farmers have fed silage out over the past few weeks.   Calves have been creep grazed in front of cows to break the bond and concentrates supplemented earlier as well as calves being weaned earlier in September versus late September. Supplement introduced 4 weeks pre weaning and will be continued 2 we...

Roscommon Future Beef farmer, Shane Keaveney, features on this week’s Beef Edge podcast discussing management of his suckler to beef system and the upcoming National Beef walk taking place on his farm on Wednesday, 11th September at 6pm.   Shane explains that he farms with his wife Gráinne and 3 children and operates a suckling to finishing system with bulls finished under 16 months and heifers th...

Aidan Maguire, DairyBeef 500 farmer from Navan, Co. Meath, is on this week’s Beef Edge podcast to discuss management on his farm and his upcoming National Beef open day taking place on September 5th at 6pm.   Aidan, alongside his son Luke, runs a dairy calf to beef enterprise on their farm, in conjunction with a contracting business. The farm stretches to over 70ha, with 54ha in grass and the rema...

Billy Gilmore, Grass10 Grassland Farmer of the Year Drystock category winner, is on this week’s Beef Edge podcast to discuss his farm system and grassland management on his farm. In recognition of the award, Billy will host a farm walk on Tuesday, 27th August @ 6.30pm.   Billy, along with his wife Anne, operates a contract heifer rearing system rearing over 200 heifers a year. The system has chang...

Margaret Brennan, Assistant Principal Officer for Beef Schemes with the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, discusses and explains the 2024 Beef Welfare Scheme on this week’s Beef Edge podcast.   The 2024 Beef Welfare Scheme (BWS) will support farmers in meal feeding suckler calves before and after weaning, and in vaccinating against clostridial diseases and calf pneumonia. Calves elig...

Teagasc researcher and vet, John Donlon, is on this week’s Beef Edge podcast to discuss the main issues that arise around weaning time and how to prevent them.   It’s been a difficult year for cows and calves and performance of some calves has been impacted by the extended spring and grazing conditions and weather. John says that many calves may have had health issues in the spring and it is impor...

Teagasc Grass10 advisor, Niamh Doyle, gives her monthly update discussing grass management tips for the month ahead.    Currently, growth is ahead of demand on farms and Niamh highlights management and targets for the coming weeks.   Second cut harvested in the past few days indicates the yields are back around the country and for farmers that will need a third cut, Niamh advises to apply 2,500 ga...

Teagasc Beef Specialist, Aidan Murray, discusses beef management tips for the month ahead on the latest Beef Edge podcast.     Aidan says that farmers with autumn calving herds should keep cows fit prior to calving, ensure minerals are supplemented pre-calving, particularly iodine and copper, and he explains ways to avoid mastitis and create awareness at this time of year.   Aidan recommends that...

This week’s Beef Edge podcast is a joint episode with Ciaran Lynch from Ovicast and we are joined by Grass10 advisor Niamh Doyle to get an update on the current situation and discussing management tips for the coming weeks.   Niamh says there have been many factors that have limited grass growth over the last number of months such as lower temperatures, especially at night, harsh winds, high rainf...

Reducing the mean finishing age of prime beef cattle from 26 to 22-23 months by 2030 is fundamental to achieving Ireland’s 25% reduction in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from agriculture and on this week’s episode of the Beef Edge podcast, Teagasc researcher Paul Smith discusses this topic.   Paul explains the main messages relating to reducing age at slaughter from the BEEF2024 Open Day and futu...

Barry Caslin, Teagasc Energy & Rural Development Specialist, is on this week’s Beef Edge podcast to discuss energy and farm diversification options and the areas for farmers to consider.    It is a very big area including: Anaerobic Digestion, Energy, Solar, Electricity, Biomass, Community Energy, Business Diversification, Food Business Start Ups, Agri Tourism, Organics, Forestry, Bio-economy...

Alan Dillon, Teagasc DairyBeef 500 Manager, is on this week’s Beef Edge Podcast to explain the key messages discussed with farmers who visited the Dairy Calf-to-Beef Village as part of BEEF2024, Teagasc’s National Beef Open Day.    Alan outlines the benefits of the Commercial Beef Value (CBV) and how its use at purchase time can result in more profitable and efficient dairy-beef systems.   The imp...

With the launch the GROFarmS project taking place today at BEEF 2024 National Beef open day in Teagasc Grange, Teagasc organic specialist, Elaine Leavy, and Teagasc researcher, Kevin Kilcline, join Catherine Egan on this week’s Beef Edge podcast to discuss the role this research programme will have for anyone interested in converting or currently in organics, as well as detail on the variety of or...

Emma Dillon and Kevin McNamara from Teagasc join Catherine Egan on this week’s Beef Edge podcast to discuss the findings from the recent National Farm Survey Small Farms Report.   Teagasc collects farm data through the National Farm Survey (NFS) and this report focuses on the economic, social and environmental sustainability of the approximately 48,000 farms in Ireland that are too small in econom...

Teagasc researchers Peter Doyle and Nicky Byrne join Catherine Egan on the latest Beef Edge podcast to give an update on the suckler and dairy beef herds in Grange, what research is currently ongoing in Teagasc Grange and what’s happening at the National Beef Open day BEEF 2024 on Wednesday 26th June.      The theme of this year’s event is ‘Securing your future’ and Teagasc are delighted to invite...

With the upcoming Irish Grassland Association National Beef walk taking place on Tuesday 11th June, suckler and sheep farmer Martin Shaughnessy from Co. Mayo, and the Irish Grassland Association Beef chairperson, Paddy Casey, are on this week’s Beef Edge to discuss Martin’s system and the upcoming open day.   Martin runs a suckler-to-weaning system while also lambing approximately 150 ewes – a typ...

Future Beef farmer, Trevor Boland, who operates an autumn calving suckling system in county Sligo is on this week’s Beef Edge podcast to give an update on the farm including harvesting of silage and management of grass in the coming weeks.    With current weather conditions very changeable, Trever discusses how he has some first cut silage harvest and the rest will be made in the coming days.   Th...

For this joint Beef Edge and Ovicast podcast with Catherine Egan and Ciaran Lynch, Future Beef Farmer, Olivia Hynes from Roscommon, discusses how she is managing grass this year and how mixed grazing is working on her farm.   Olivia describes the farm system and how this spring has been on the farm. She is using 100% AI with breeding in full swing and she discusses various sires she has selected. ...

Teagasc Researcher, David Kenny, is on this week’s Beef edge podcast to discuss how to deal with current breeding issues and the key tips to be aware of.   With extended housing this spring, David outlines the  impact this has had on suckler cow fertility and body condition.    In some cases breeding season has been delayed by 2-3 weeks. With some cows only calved in the last 3 weeks, David discus...

DairyBeef 500 advisor, Tommy Cox, is on this week’s Beef Edge podcast with an update on the programme farms, management tips for the coming weeks and he discusses the weaning process.    It has been a challenging spring and Tommy outlines the targets on the farms up to weaning.  He describes the weaning process on the farms and the amount of concentrates fed to calves at grass.    In a lot of case...

Margaret Brennan, Assistant Principal Officer over Beef Schemes with the Department of Agriculture Food and the Marine, is on the Beef Edge podcast to discuss the Suckler Carbon Efficiency Programme (SCEP) course.    One of the eligibility conditions of SCEP participation requires that participants MUST complete the mandatory SCEP training course by 15 November 2024.   The Department of Agricultur...

David Quinn, Superintending Veterinary Inspector at Department Of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, is on this week’s joint episode of the Beef Edge and the Dairy Edge with hosts Catherine Egan and James Dunne to dispel some of the myths around TB (Bovine Tuberculosis).   Ireland’s TB Eradication Scheme started in 1954. A TB forum was set up in 2018 and a new eradication strategy was launched in 2...

With the current extended rainfall, on this week’s Beef Edge podcast, Future Beef advisor Gabriel Trayers and Alan Dillion DairyBeef 500 manager give an update from around the country along with tips and advice to implement on farms for the coming weeks.    Alan also discusses health issues while Gabriel outlines issues in relation to the breeding season and cow nutrition options.   With grazing r...

With the difficult weather conditions, DairyBeef 500 advisor Gordon Peppard is on this week’s Beef Edge podcast with some timely tips in relation to closing ground for silage.   Gordon highlights that on many farms silage ground won’t be cut but this could provide an opportunity to cut this silage earlier and hence have after grass coming into the rotation faster or the ability to close ground ear...