Thirty years ago he bought his first pedigree Belgian Blue bull to join the dairy and mixed-breed livestock herd on the 133-acre farm at Gortnamuckla, Dunmanway.

He now keeps 15 pedigree Blues beside a commercial beef enterprise.

“For a very small herd we have been very lucky. We got three cracking cows in the beginning and they bred massive cattle for us,” he says.

“I felt that the quota and the farm was too small for dairy farming. I was working off-farm as well at the time and the prices the Belgian Blue calves were making was much better than any other breed.

“I saw the Belgian Blue calves out of Friesian cows making £50-60 more than the other breeds at Bandon Mart and I felt there was more value in breeding them.

“And I liked the Belgian Blue for their docility and ease of management.”

Having laid a solid foundation with some excellent cows, his objective was to improve the herd with every generation, selling bulls for breeding and keeping the females.

“We put a lot of thought into breeding. We were always looking out for bulls, thinking about a bull for months before we’d use him,” he explains.

“We are continuing to work on improving the calving and getting more height into them. Some of the Blues can be a bit rough about the head and I’d like a bit more sweetness. It is easy to talk about it but hard to do it.”

Some AI was used in the early years. He bred from EPI and OVO and found that the popular Imperial “ticked a lot of boxes”, with the trio becoming his top pick of sires.

Some of the original bloodlines are still being used for breeding, with a number of the females used as embryo recipients each year to increase the number of progeny born by up to 50pc.

He attributes his love for animals and farming to his parents, Denis and Hannah, who always insisted on each task on the farm being done correctly, while his uncle Denis Collins was a regular on the show circuit with sheep.

Tim’s son Dan and daughter Denise help out at the shows and on the farm. Dan has a full-time job on a 200-cow dairy farm in the area, and Denise is a special needs assistant at a local school.

“I took an interest in Blues from an early age,” says Dan (27). “I was showing animals at seven or eight years. From the time I was able to walk, my summer Sundays were all in the show rings. It was even a bonus if there was a show in the middle of the week because I got a day off from school.

“Growing up on the farm, we knew nothing only the Blues and showing cattle. We enjoyed what we did and that made it easy.”

Dan got his own first pedigree Belgian Blue in 2018, and Don Moriah won the Breeds All Star award in 2019.

“We were transferring three embryos one day to three recipient heifers,” Dan recalls. “I was helping and I told my father I wanted to get one of them. That was me claiming my payment for the previous 25 years helping out, and from day one it turned out to be very lucky for me.”

In her first year on the show circuit, at less than a year old, Don Moriah won 24 first prizes out of 27 show classes. She was born in October 2018 and bred by the sire Imperial and out of an Empire cow in the home herd.

A 2am departure from West Cork for Tinahely, Co Wicklow was vindicated when she was crowned All-Ireland Champion as a 10-month-old, and the following Sunday she was judged the supreme overall Belgian Blue champion at the National Livestock Show.

“I will always remember getting the Gold Medal because that is what every man wants,” says Dan.

During 2019 they travelled over 2,250 miles on the show circuit, attending 21 shows and winning 15 firsts, eight female championships, and 11 overall championships.

“Having nowhere to go in 2020 really made me appreciate more what we had in 2019,” says Dan.

“We were looking forward to 2020. We had three calves that are full sisters to the heifer that won the All-Ireland… if they achieved even half as much as their sister they would have been very successful.”

Dan remains firmly committed to the Blues and continuing to work on improvements to the herd.

“I like working with the dairy animals, but not enough to sell the Blues and bring on the Friesians.

“The Blues are here to stay and maybe some increase, but not massively because with the smaller numbers there is more time to focus on managing them,” he says.

“For me the Blue is a lot about their docility. They are a very quiet animal and the quality, the width and the muscle that is what does it for me.”

Tim adds: “As long as I am alive there will be Blues here anyway.” 

‘A dairy man will buy a Blue bull for the cows and want an Angus for heifers’

Having been placed Reserve RDS Champion of Champions on three consecutive years, and collected up to 300 championships for pedigree and commercial cattle, Tim Donovan says: “You can learn more from losing than winning sometimes on the agricultural shows circuit.

“There was a lot of road, a lot of diesel and a lot of tyre wear and a lot of hard work involved going to shows all over the country, but we also got a lot of enjoyment out of it and you always pick up something new about stock.”

Tim’s son Dan and daughter Denise have both won many livestock handling classes; they do all the work on the training and grooming of the animals for showing.

“We start training the animals for showing about February and they are ready for the show season when it starts in May” says Dan who explained that in reality the planning starts with the breeding long before that.

He has added pedigree Angus to the herd.

“I just found over the past the last four or five years that a dairy man will buy a Blue bull for the cows and want an Angus bull for heifers,” he explains.

On the breed he says: “In the last few years the Irish Belgian Blue has got a lot taller.

“I’d like to focus on is keeping the height coming, and carry on with the muscle they have and very correct legs.”

On calving ease with the Blues he says: “The majority of the time there is no difficulty with calving.

“We have sold a lot of the Blues bulls for pedigree breeding, and they don’t seem to have any problem with calving.

“This spring selling bulls we found that farmers bought without seeing them, going on the stars.

“I would not agree with that. I think the appearance of the animal is important.

“You will find the man who is not worried about the stars only looking at the bull.”