New shed up and first cattle finished

It’s all go on plumber Nigel O’Kane’s Claregalway suckler farm at the moment. He is increasing his cow numbers in 2018 and has just completed a new shed.

“We had a decent weekend here I suppose – the rain stopped on Saturday night and we were in Croke Park on Sunday for the big win. I was working on Monday so Sunday night was quiet,” Nigel said.

Nigel runs his own plumbing business and so must keep things tight on his 22ha farm. Ninety percent of the herd calve in eight weeks from early February. The herd was scanned in mid-August, with two heifers proving empty and one cow, which had been on Nigel’s culling list, but received one chance during breeding, not in-calf.

“I would like to sell these but I’m currently tied up with TB so will have to finish them myself. There is a big TB problem in our area. I went down with it last year and have gone clear twice since, but recently had a reactor again. Other guys in the locality are in the same boat but we can’t find any badger sets. I think I’ve identified a pathway they use to get into my farm and there are a couple of cages set now.”

A combination of TB and the results from previous phases of BETTER farm led traditional live seller Nigel to move towards finishing. During the summer, he slaughtered eight 2016-born bulls and will have some dairy-beef cattle to slaughter later in the year.

“Our original plan with the bulls was to get 100 days at grass and then 100 days of intensive finishing. However, with the drought conditions in May I ran out of grass and they had to come in. It meant that I missed the under-16-month cut-off but I was relatively happy with their own performance given the disruption. They averaged 359kg carcase weight at 17 months and graded U= 3-.”

Nigel has taken in dairy calves to rear for the past number of years in an attempt to boost farm output in an easy manner. In 2016, he bought in 24 Friesian bulls and while these would typically be sold on as stores in the weeks before the Galway Race Festival, his hand has now been forced with TB.

The 10 strongest, averaging approximately 500kg liveweight, have been separated and are being supplemented at grass with 3.5kg of a beef nut (€235/t). He is aiming to slaughter in approximately one month.

Nigel broke the ribbon on his new shed in mid-August, using its in-built handling unit to scan the herd. A full 60% TAMS grant was obtained for its construction, after which Nigel has put up just over €25,000. It’s 63 x 40ft with a 12ft creep area one side and a similar width of feed passage on the other side of a 14ft slat which is split into four bays.

Calving well but can’t get in to cut

Ken Gill is BETTER farm’s first organic beef producer. He runs a steer beef enterprise on 95ha near Clonbullogue, Co Offaly. His 70 cows calve in the autumn time and we touched base this week to see how it was progressing.

“We had 50 calve in the month of August, which was great. I now have 14 left altogether – things are good and tight. I lost one premature calf from a heifer – he never stood up. We have had a set of twins though so I’m still at a calf per cow, thus far. There was one big pull too. The calf’s legs were coming wrong and the cow had more or less given up trying to calve herself. I got the vet out to straighten things and a big effort followed. The calf got sick since and has had a couple of vet visits but he’s doing better now.

Ken is in an interesting position now in that he must try and ensure that he has enough grass for the back end, without being able to spread any nitrogen fertiliser.

The fact that he is autumn calving means that he can close up his farm at a lighter cover at housing time, as his demand for grass in the spring is low relative to a conventional spring-calver.

What will be important for Ken is that he is strategic with his closing sequence such that calves will be able to creep out from the sheds to good covers of grass early in the new year.

Ken has recently erected a roof over an existing 60x60ft concrete slab that adjoins his main shed. This will principally act as a creep area for his calves this winter, getting them away from cows into a better ventilated, cleaner area.

Organic oats

Ken grows organic oats, which are typically sold to Flahavans, as well as a pea-barley combi mixture that he had planned to keep as a concentrate feed – any meals on an organic farm must have come from organic tillage operations and can typically cost in excess of €500/t.

However, while he successfully got his oats in, he has been unable to get the combi crop and now faces the prospect of being forced to wholecrop.

Ken also has 12 acres of turnips, rape and kale, which he plants annually as part of his organic rotation. Weather dependent, it should carry sixty bullocks for the month of November.