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The Stanleys have the largest farm in the BETTER farm beef programme, with over 300 cattle acres on the holding. Dwayne, his father Raymond and uncle, Gilbert, farm full-time here.
There are currently 110 cows calving on the Stanley farm, with 65 calving in the spring and 45 in the autumn. The plan is to push this to 120 cows.
In addition, the Stanleys will take in 100 to 120 dairy calves for rearing – again, split between spring and autumn.
Once their grassland is running close to full potential, the icing on the cake will be a short-stay indoor bull-finishing enterprise – utilising their buildings during the summer when other stock are at grass.
In 2016, a 21.5ac field adjacent to the main yard got three grazings: 25 cows and calves were let in for three weeks at a time.
Alan Dillion
BETTER farm adviser Alan Dillon earmarked this field for reseeding straightaway.
“On 27 March this year, we sprayed off the field and the cows went in to clean it out.
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On 22 April it was tilled twice with a power harrow and two days later the power harrow went in again and it was sowed with the Premium Gold grass mixture,” Dwayne told me.
This mixture is described as being ideal for grazing or one-cut silage and contains Tyrella (strong for spring growth), Soriento (excellent ground cover attributes), Dunluce (good grass quality), Trend (one of the highest yield varieties), Aran (clover) and Aberherald (clover).
The field got 3t of lime/acre before, and three bags of 10:10:20 after sowing.
We actually had to let suckler cows and calves in for a while when growth was really strong earlier this summer
Soil tests on the ground in late 2016 showed low index (1/2) for P and K and a pH of around 6.0 (target 6.3).
“On 20 June, 48 2017-born dairy calves went in and two days later 31 of our own weanlings went in as followers. We installed three permanent troughs along the middle of the field and are splitting the field currently with poly wire.
There are 10 divisions in the field now,” Dwayne said.
“We actually had to let suckler cows and calves in for a while when growth was really strong earlier this summer,” Raymond added, “I can’t get over the grass we’re growing with the paddock system. We installed water points all over the farm and though it was a big investment, it has unleashed the farm’s potential to produce grass. We have made 260 unplanned bales of silage this year.”
On the reseed, the Stanleys’ dairy calves are currently growing at a rate of 0.71kg daily (155kg) while their followers are gaining 1.05kg (345kg).
Cattle are moving every three days.
In recent days, the followers have been swapped for beef heifers, born in autumn 2015.
They were on an older pasture and the team thought it best to get them on to the high-quality reseed with a view to a finish off grass in the coming months. Clean-outs have improved markedly.
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