The 200-head Roundhill Pedigree Limousin Herd is based in Fedamore, Co. Limerick.

Established in 1996, it is owned and managed by Timothy, Doreen and Katie Corridan with the assistance of Shauna Canny

The prominent pedigree Limousin herd is set to host a production sale this coming weekend from October 3-7.

Included in the sale are 20 heifers, 14 of which are polled; six homozygous; and eight heterozygous

Agriland caught up with Doreen Corridan ahead of the online sale to hear the backstory to the sale of 20 maiden heifers.

She explained that the focus of the herd is different to most Limousin breeders in that the herd genetics has embarked down the polled Limousin route approximately a decade ago.

She said: "I'd be the only breeder in Ireland really breeding polled Limousins. It's very rare. If you take across Europe, the majority of the Limousins Limousins in Germany are polled and most French breeders are using polled genetics.

"We have many repeat customers. With the calves, you just tag them and let them off.

"I have used the top polled AI sires available from Europe. Initially I used Hinz PP, many of the pedigrees go back to him, then Karlos PP, Idalgo PP and more recently, JK Miro PP has worked very well for us.

"For the last two/three years, I've been using two bulls from France, Pilaf PP RRE and Orrex PP."

Corridan also said that AI companies in France are focusing "quite a bit" on polled bulls but said "it takes quite a bit of time for the imported stock from France to get up into high figures here".

Commenting on the cow families the heifers in the sale are bred from, she said: "When I spoke to the older breeders in France 10 years ago, their point was, do not come out here to France and buy a homozygous heifer and taker her home and flush her and put bulls on her.

"They say it's slow, but it's fast in the long run, because polled is a dominant gene."

Commenting on the cow families, Corridan said a lot of these were imported from France in the past. These include:

Giroflee: dam of Nenuphar. This family won a Tullamore Champion;
Disette: dam of Ideal 23;
Leny: super cow maker

"‘Our breeding programme has always been focussed on powerful, wide working females with good docility," Corridan said.

She added that the sale will appeal to breeders looking to produce their own polled pedigree Limousin bulls.

"There are 14 polled heifers on offer in total; six are homozygous, polled is dominant so you're guaranteed polled calves from these. There are eight heterozygous polled heifers on offer. All of these are from our best cow families," Corridan explained.

She also said it will also appeal to SCEP farmers as well as farmers looking to breed show progeny from some of the heifers in the sale.

Her advice to young breeders looking to source a good breeding heifer was: "Always buy well - a good cow family can build an entire herd.

"Select females that are fertile, with good calving ability and enough milk to rear her calf. You have a great choice of bulls to use on females like that.

Corridan said many of the most popular bloodlines currently go back to "very strong, powerful, wide females".

"Adding heavily muscled bloodlines on these females has worked well. At Roundhill we have build the herd around long powerful, wide females with great docility."

The sale will take place online via timed auction on MartEye in association with Mid Tipperary Co-operative Livestock Mart (Thurles Mart) with bidding drawing to a close at 8:00pm on Tuesday, October 7.