John is a busy practicing Doctor and needs his farming enterprise to be relatively low maintenance.
John runs 65 suckler cows and a total of 170 head of stock on the farm.
Like many in Northern Ireland TB has impacted the way John farms. Traditionally John sold weanlings coming off the cow or stores. He now finishes everything the farm produces through ABP Lurgan.
John runs two Blonde bulls and more recently he acquired a native as an outcross. Once John made some tweaks to increase forage supply onto the farm he has settled into the new role finishing cattle.
John had been topping Saintfield and Ballymena markets with his Blonde sired weanlings and stores and had to adapt quickly to provide the factory what they require.
John states: “I have no difficulty in getting Blondes away at 20 months hitting the 380-400Kg deadweight specs usually with a fat cover of 3 and I am not going back to stores.”
John finds the Blondes have an ideal carcass and hold their shape all the way through. He aims to have the Blondes factory fit as young as possible as every month on farm has a cost in terms of both premium shed space and bought in feed.
John has optimised his finishing ration with a mix of standard and high maize content nuts. John enjoys his day off every week looking over the stock which he takes great pride in. He maintains a relatively young cow herd leading to few problems with feet, fertility or low elders. John puts around 20 replacements to the bull every year. For the two previous years he was bulling Blonde x heifers back to the Blonde bull. So, the Blonde breed is proving exceptionally effective at lending itself to profitable finishing with excellent feed conversion, daily live weight gain and high meet to bone ratio along with producing ideal suckler replacements. Like many Blonde converts John believes the bonus is built into the exceptional carcass.
The Spring Show and Sale of Blonde Bulls will be held at Dungannon Farmers Mart on Friday, 21st March. All entries are tested clear of IBR, Lepto and BVD with dams clear of Johnes. Judging the entries is Victoria Johnston of Ballymacan Blondes, Clogher with the show starting at 10 and the sale from 12 noon. Look out for photos of all the entries on facebook.com/NIblondecattleclub23
