A good year for Shinagh Greenfield

Performance in 2017 was good for this beef-to-dairy conversion farm. The first dairy cows were milked in 2010, so the oldest cows on the farm have just completed their seventh lactation. The herd has sold 390kg of milk solids (MS) per cow or 1,192kg MS/ha – just over 93t MS from the farm.

This production was achieved from a farm stocked at a little over three cows/ha and fed a total of 320kg of meal. The Irish Farmers Journal visited the farm on Monday and while the midlands, north and west were battling with ice and snow, Shinagh farm manager Kevin Ahern was basking in the winter sun with no weather woes.

But ex-hurricane Ophelia had left her mark, blowing off the roofs of two straw bedded sheds. These sheds were used to house freshly calved cows. The cows spend the first four days after calving on a straw bed and are fed silage ad lib. As soon as they are ready for the bulk tank, they join the main herd at grass.

The calf feeding area where milk replacer is mixed.

A new roof is being installed this week and, while they are at it, a new slatted tank under the feed area is being built too.

Cows will be standing on the slats while eating silage. Kevin hopes this will mean less bedding required and cleaner straw. The clean-up from the storm is continuing.

Grass on the farm grew exceptionally well this year, with the most grass grown on the farm yet at 17.12t/ha of grass dry matter. Nine hectares of silage was purchased for first and second cut. With this silage and silage grown on the block, there will be enough winter feed for all cows on the farm.

Cash surplus will be close to €150,000 after debt repayments and tax. Capital expenditure in 2017 will be €60,000.

All heifers and bulls are contract-reared, so the only stock on farm for most of the year is dairy cows. They milked 239 cows this year. There are 270 in-calf animals at the moment, but Kevin plans to sell about 15 in-calf heifers and between losses and mortality he expects the final number milked in 2018 to be around 240 cows.

There are 50 heifer calves being reared by contract and some of these will be sold again next year. Kevin says they could get away with getting less heifers reared, but 50 is the number that the contract rearer would like, so Kevin is prepared to stock the contract rearer fully in order to keep the arrangement going.

Thirty surplus heifer calves (March born) were kept on the farm this year and sold in July. Kevin says he intended selling them at a few weeks old, but felt that the prices being offered at the time were too low, so he hung on to them.

“It was a really good year for grass so we got away with it. I kept them for as long as we had grass and as soon as we were beginning to get a bit tight I sold them.

“That was in July and they averaged about €635/head, which is a lot more than I was being offered in March. On the flip side, we did have the work and expense of rearing them. My plan is to sell them at a few weeks old next year,” Kevin said.

Breeding went well again this year, with 6.7% of the herd not in calf after 12.5 weeks of breeding. Kevin places huge emphasis on heat detection.

The cows are checked in the paddock before milking, after breakfast at 10.30am, after lunch, before evening milking and again in the evening when the cows are being locked in. In total, there are two hours per day allocated to heat detection.

For the first three weeks of breeding, there are always two people milking to help with identifying and drafting the cows in heat. For the next three weeks, one person can milk, but heat detection is assisted by the introduction of three vasectomised stock bulls.

These are one-year-old bulls that were chosen as strong bull calves born in the first week of calving the year before. The bulls for next May were vasectomised last week.

After six weeks of AI, the stock bulls are released. There are five stock bulls on the farm and these are used in rotation. Two of these bulls are old purebred Jersey bulls, while the other three are strong bull calves that were kept. Calves from these bulls are sold as beef animals, including the heifers.

Labour

Kevin Ahern is the only full-time employee on the farm. Part-time employees and students support Kevin throughout the year. A student from CIT or Clonakilty Agricultural College usually does a 12- or 15-week placement in spring. A student usually comes in the autumn also. These students do 40-hour weeks.

Part-time help is a critical part of the system. For the last few years, Eoin Sugrue and Sinead Minihane have been working two or three days a week, along with a few night calvings. Eoin and Sinead are previous work placement students.

Kevin says that a number of former students have come back to work on the farm part-time following placements.

“Some of these students have farms of their own, while others also work part-time for a few other farmers in the area, so the two or three days a week of work that we require suits their schedule,” Kevin said.

Part-time help for next season has already been lined up. With Kevin working full-time and with part-time and student help throughout the year, total labour input into the farm is probably between one and a half and two labour units.

Kevin sets it up so that he has help in the spring to help him with the busy period. He takes very little time off during this time of year, as he feels it is really important that he, as the farm manager, is hands on then.

But as soon as the bulls are out, he takes a lot more time off and the part-timers and students come in then to replace him. So for half the year he gets help and for the other half of the year he gets replaced.

Work on the farm is minimised by having a simple system. Kevin says that if someone likes machinery they won’t like working in Shinagh.

While there is one tractor with a loader on the farm, the majority of machinery work is carried out by two contractors. One does the fertiliser, feeding and drawing bales, while the other does the silage, baling and slurry. Silage is fed out every Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday.

The system is designed to reduce the workload. Cows are bred for fertility, so they calve in a short period and go back in a short period. While this makes these periods extremely busy, they are for short periods, so Kevin can get in extra help then. There is always light at the end of the tunnel.

The main jobs are milking, calf rearing, managing grass and pushing in silage during winter. Kevin writes a cheque for the students and part-time employees every Friday.

He says he tries to involve everyone in the decisions being made, such as grass and fertiliser and even in bigger things such as laying out the new shed. Facilities are good and a new utility vehicle was purchased this year, replacing a quad.