Heat-detection collars facilitating 100% AI in Tullamore Farm

Visitors to this year’s suckler and sheep open day on Tullamore Farm would have seen how the farm has implemented the use of herd health and heat-detection collars on its sucklers. While heat-detection collars have been implemented on a lot of dairy herds in the last few years, there is a growing interest in suckler farmers looking to increase AI usage on their farm without increasing labour, while the TAMS grant aid for cow collars also has pushed them closer to reality for beef farmers.

Why collars on Tullamore?

AI usage has always been high on the Tullamore suckler herd. Traditionally, over 75% of cows and heifers bred were done so with AI. For heat detection, three vasectomised bulls were purchased each year; two for the two batches of cows (40-43 per batch), with the third used on the 40 maiden heifers.

Once several weeks of AI were complete (generally seven to eight weeks), a stock bull was turned out to mop up remaining cows and heifers.

However, even with the high AI usage, the farm was not insulated from sub-fertile bulls causing issues. In 2020 and 2023, sub-fertile bulls being turned out to mop up cows resulted in late-calving cows, or cows having to be culled from the herd, with the net result being a higher calving interval.

Both bulls had been used in previous years on the farm without issue, and both served cows and put them in-calf in the year they became infertile.

After recovering from the implications of the sweeper bull pushing out calving interval out in 2021 to 374 days, farm manager Shaun Diver successfully peeled this back to 365 days in 2022, only for it to jump back up to 375 days this year. Shaun had luckily noticed an issue early on, with a replacement bull being sourced, however, it still affected calving dates and intervals.

Sexed semen usage

Sexed semen has also been something that the farm has dabbled with in the past, with heifers on the farm last year being synchronised and served with sexed semen. A 50% conception rate was seen in the heifers, and at €80/head cost it was seen as too expensive for too little reward.

The reality between the in-calf heifers and the under-16-month bull beef finishing system was that the heifers typically ate 300kg of meal compared to 1.3t for the bulls, with the in-calf heifers leaving in the region of €250/head more than the bull system.

With the farm generating its own replacements, only 20-25 heifers were ever available for sale from the 85-cow herd. Sexed semen was seen as a way of increasing the number of heifers produced, which would not only allow for more heifers to be available for sale, but would for more selective culling of lesser-quality types.

In order to remove the need for a sweeper bull and to allow for targeted use of sexed semen in the herd, the option to install heat-detection collars was chosen.

What are heat-detection collars?

Heat-detection collars are a wearable device that can be used on dairy or beef cows that measure cow behaviour in terms of physical activity, rumination, ingestion time and other statuses, which are then fed back to a control unit to provide real time information on the health and reproductive status of animals through the use of an algorithm.

Collars can also be substituted for an ear tag or a bolus.

All this information is fed back to the farmer through an app, with alerts to cows in heat or poor health. The system adjusts to individual cows’ activity and ingestion levels, with deviations from normal activity highlighted. The systems have been popular in dairy herds for a number of years now, and have recently garnered more attention from beef farmers due to TAMS aid now being available.

TAMS

TAMS II saw the introduction of herd health and fertility monitoring systems into the Animal Welfare and Nutrient Storage Scheme (AWNSS), Young Farmers Capital Investment Scheme (YFCIS) and Women Farmers Capital Investment Scheme (WFCIS).

As part of this, up to 120 collars and a base station can be grant-aided, at a rate of 40% for the AWNSS and 60% for the YFCIS and WFCIS. The collars/tags/boluses have a reference cost of €112.25/unit, with a singular base station to be selected for each investment holding a reference cost of €2,833. Tags generally work out at about 75% of the cost of collars or boluses.

The requirement of a booster station (for paddocks too far from the main base station) is not grant-aided.

Regarding VAT, the above reference costs, like all TAMS costs, are exclusive of VAT. Collars/tags/boluses are not seen as fixed items and are not reclaimable for flat-rate VAT farmers, and while base station were initially claimed by some farmers, it seems the same can be said for these.

The upside to this is that both are classed as ‘mobile’ items under TAMS, meaning that they can be purchased after an application is submitted (at the applicants own risk) and still likely receive grant aid.

Table 2 charts the cost of the SenseHub system installed on Tullamore Farm back in April. The farm is at the upper end regarding cow numbers as suckler herds go, which has helped to dilute the cost of the base station across a larger number. Smaller herds would see a higher cost per cow due to the requirement of the base station, while larger herds would see costs diluted further.

If the farm was able to avail of the 60% grant rate, the cost per cow would fall to €20.50/annum.

Vasectomised bulls are generally born quite cheap and, bar the cost of the vasectomy, do not require much input costs. However, a good-quality stock bull has a much higher purchase price, and as he waits on the farm all year round, he has higher maintenance costs.

If we are to take a purchase price of €4,000 and a sale price of €2,000 after five years’ service (ICBF show the average lifespan of a stock bull is four years) and a conservative maintenance cost of €800/year, our stock bull has a cost of €6,000. Where he is being used as the main bull on-farm across and will sire 40 calves/year, his cost per calf is €30.

Where the bull is used for a smaller number of cows, like as a sweeper bull, or does not last the five year, these costs go up considerably, while bulls can cost significantly more than €4,000 to purchase as well.

The above was not the main reason for the installation of heat-detection collars on Tullamore Farm, but it is worth noting the cost of the collars versus a stock bull.

Initial results in Tullamore

Initial results are positive regarding the collars, with farm manager Shaun Diver pleased with how the collars have worked and the information it gives him. Heat scores are given for each cow when she comes in heat by the system, and even if the cow has been selected for sexed semen beforehand, Shaun will only use sexed on a cow with a heat score of 75 or greater.

Anoestrous cows have been identified early and synced, while the breeding season has been shortened to 10 weeks this year, with an eye to eliminate April calving as much as possible.

A full scan is yet to be completed, with the results to be available through the Tullamore Farm weekly updates.

The collars are very much in their trial phase, with the scan results and more years of data yet to prove how useful they are in a suckler herd.