Despite the weather conditions, the crowds gathered on Richard Williamson’s farm in Hill of Down Co Meath.

Since joining the BETTER farm programme in 2012 Richard has put a relatively simple system in place which sees all progeny brought through to slaughter.

Breeding policy

This spring 86 continental cross cows calved down to an Angus bull. Cow numbers have increased from 66 in 2012 with the aim to increase this to between 110 and 120 over the coming years.

In 2014 a sub-fertile stock bull caused a setback on the farm and Richard says it was an expensive lesson to learn. He now fertility checks all bulls pre breeding. Mervin Parr a post-doctorate researcher in Teagasc Grange emphasised the importance of heat detection both pre, during and post breeding season. “Even where there is a stock bull running with cows, if you see a cow in heat take a note of it and keep an eye out for any repeats” he said.

Sourcing

The majority of replacement heifers are bought in. Richard is reluctant to keep too many of his Angus cross heifers as he likes to keep the frame of the continental in his finishing stock. His prefers a Simmental or Limousin cross heifer that will have plenty of milk.

“They can be hard to source, and you don’t know the star rating of them so it’s hard to know. That’s where using your own replacements has its advantages” he said.

Housing facilities are the limiting factor at the moment, however there is planning permission for a new shed to be built in the near future. The fact that winter accommodation is limited on the farm, has led to Richard finishing all stock prior to the second winter.

Heifers are slaughtered from grass at 18 to 19 months of age at an average carcass weight of 261 kg in 2015, while steers are finished at 20 to 21 months of age predominantly from pasture with little supplementation and averaged 324 kg carcass in 2015.

This has allowed Richard to increase cow numbers and make the most of the farms primary asset, the land.

Soil fertility

Richard has put a lot of effort into correcting soil fertility issues on the farm in the last few years.

“Before joining the programme I was only using nitrogen fertilizer for about 10 years and the farm hadn’t received lime in about 30 years. When we soil sampled the farm we found that the P and K levels were mainly index 1 and 2,” he said.

Since then he has limed the majority of the farm and been using 18-6-12 which he believes is paying dividends. “It has been costly over the last few years, my fertiliser bill is about €200/ha but, if you want to increase production from grass it has to be done” he said.

When asked if there was any plan to carry out reseeding on the farm, Richard’s Teagasc advisor Ned Heffernan said “not at the moment, the farm is growing enough grass for the number of stock on the farm. If there was investment on the grazing side of things it would be on increasing the number of paddocks on the farm.”

The farm recorded a gross margin of €777 / ha in 2015, up from €678 in 2012. With the money invested in soil fertility and with a steady increase in cow numbers over the next few years the farm has the potential to further grow the gross margin into the future.

The next BETTER farm walk takes place on 12 July at 2pm on the farm of James Strain, Burnfoot, Co. Donegal.

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