No better place to be on the first Sunday of September than at a Limousin Open day with like mind breeders in the picturesque surroundings of Castlequarter house in Fedamore, Co. Limerick. Breeders from Clare, Cork, Kerry and Limerick met at the home of Roundhill Limousin for a field evening, YMA event and a general catchup which was orgainised by Micheal Roche of the South West Limousin club and Kieran Noonan of the Cork Limousin Club. Roundhill Limousin herd, the largest Polled Limousin herd in Ireland is the property of Tim and Doreen Corridan. The herd consists of approximately 200 pedigree Limousin cattle. The Roundhill herd is predominantly A.I. bred with a small amount of ET work.
Tim and Doreen’s goal is:
The production of profitable and sustainable Limousins. Easy care, fertile, milky cows that consistently produce U grade, docile cattle with high growth rates. We produce Limousins strong in terminal and maternal traits, without compromising on calving ease or docility and always respecting the fundamentals of the Limousin breed. Years of focusing intensely on influential cow families has ensured that Roundhill is one of the most uniform, performance-driven and maternally powerful cow herds globally.
Performance Recording
A strong passion at Roundhill is a scientific approach to breed progression, using a high degree of performance recording. Since its establishment, Roundhill has linear scored. and weight recorded annually, recorded all calving difficulties, birth weights and weaning weights. A strict culling policy is in place for the non-performers. We are a member of the WHPR – Whole herd performance Recording.
Genotyping
The entire herd at Roundhill is genotyped for generations. Each calf is genotyped at birth to ensure the accuracy of its ancestry. Therefore, purchasers can subsequently validate all the progeny, from their purchased animal and have the confidence of increased reliability of the genomic indexes.
Health
Our policy is to produce cattle with high genetic merit and a high health status. Roundhill is a member of SAC’s Premium Cattle Health Scheme (PCHS) and is accredited free of Johnes level 1 since 2009. The herd has achieved ‘BVD Negative Health Status BHS’ with the Irish national BVD eradication programme. Since we started farming, we have never had a case of TB and our ‘Herd History Risk is C10’ the lowest possible risk.
Polled Programme
Roundhill is the first herd in Ireland to undertake a polled programme on a large scale. We decided to go polled as the demand for polled animals across all breeds is growing rapidly and becoming mainstream in many countries. Our polled herd is built from our best cow families Giroflee, Leny, Romance, and the best homozygous polled sires available VIKING PP, HINZ PP, IVOIRE PP, GREENSONS HOWLETT, IDALGO PP, KARLOS PP, LORENZO PP, JK PORTO PP, HELLIOS P & JK MIRO PP and more recently ORREX PP, PILAF PP and GREENSONS TESTAMENT PP. Our confidence in Polled Limousin has increased considerably by the interest and demand for Polled bulls from our commercial customers. They love the polled bulls – one less job to do is always welcome especially when farming part-time and with no set back – Tag and Go! All our customers who have bought polled bulls to date returned to buy polled again. Once you go Polled you never go back.
Visitors got a chance to view the 20 heifers on offer from Roundhill at their upcoming Genetic Advantage sale.
Cathal O’Meara gave a clipping demonstration to the YMA – guiding through each step and giving helpful tips of the does and don’t when clipping. Orla Curtin gave a showing tutorial and gave each member a chance to try their hand at showing. Winning the YMA was Ronan O’Connell of the Ballybrown herd based in Clarina, Co. Limerick. Ronan regularly attends shows with his grand-dad Bobby. Coming second was Jason Noonan of the Dromanig herd based in Charleville, Co. Cork. Joint third was awarded to Kate Roche of the Knockcoolkeare herd based in Mountcollins, Co. Limerick and Jack Stokes from Charleville.
Noted cattle judge Clive Jennings was on hand to judge the heifers for a Stock judging competition, this was won by Jimmy Hegarty, Andrew Naughton and Daire O’Meara. Junior stockjudging was won by Iarla and Kian O’Meara.
Chris Daly of ICBF provided information on ICBF and the National Genotyping Scheme.
Thank you
The South West and Cork Limousin clubs would like to thank Clive, Cathal, Chris and Orla. We would also like to thank Tim and Doreen for hosting and Anna for the wonderful hospitality.
Diary date
Roundhill herd will be out in force in Roscrea mart on Saturday 14th of September, where in conjunction with the Castleview herd they are hosting their 10th Genetic Advantage sale. Roundhill re offering twenty polled heifers of which fifteen are homozygous PP and five are heterozygous P.
➡️The Catalogue can be viewed by clicking here.⬅️
A few snaps of the open day:
