Gene Ireland Maternal Bull Breeder Participant, William O’Halloran with ‘Curaheen Beyonce’. She is sired by ‘Hillcrest Butcher’ and is out of a ‘Carnkern Titan’ dam.

 Backround of the herd: The herd was started in 2009 with females bought from a number of herds such as: ‘Cruithill’, ‘Curaheen’, ‘Ballyduff’, ‘Dripsey’ and ‘Clonagh’.

 Maternal Breeding: The herd of 15 pedigree Simmental cows has an overall replacement index of €132 (27% reliable). The youngstock in the herd have an even higher replacement index value of €176 (24% reliable).

 Top Maternal Cows: One of the best breeding cows in the herd is ‘Mohona Alana’. She is sired by ‘Kilbride Farm Newry’ and out of a ‘Marbelhill Liam’ cow. She is a 5 star cow for both the ‘Replacement’ (€208/34%) and ‘Terminal’ (€93/32%) indices. She has had 2 bull calves to-date (by ‘Milnafua Graduate’ and ‘Dripsey Super King’) and has an average calving interval of 345 days.

 Key traits of interest: Docility, Milk, Muscle

 Recent Sires used: Milnafua Graduate, Hillcrest Champion, Curaheen Vio, Drumlone Anchor and Hillcrest Jerome.

 Breeder’s comment: “Having got into pedigree breeding only a few years ago I have been carefully building up numbers by only retaining females that are able to rear a good calf themselves. Anything that is slow to go in calf is’nt kept in the herd – simple as that. I want a herd of cows that are all hard workers, not requiring any special treatment. A good number of bulls have been sold out of the yard so far and it is a market that I have to look after by only producing good quality stock that deliver the goods for their new owners”.

Brogeen Winifred (Omorga Murray x Ballagan Kelly)
Brogeen Winifred (Omorga Murray x Ballagan Kelly)

Bearna-Dhearg Elisha 2nd (Curaheen Vio) and Bearna-Dhearg Edina (Bearna-Dhearg Captain)