With 43% of the milking platform grazed to-date, its fair to say Joe Murphy in County Kilkenny is meeting his grazing targets – especially considering the difficult weather conditions this spring.

After completing a level seven diploma in dairy farm management in Moorepark, Joe came home to farm alongside his parents, Michael and Catherine. The Murphys are in their sixth year in dairy production, having previously run a suckler and sheep system.

They have built the herd in the last few years by buying a mix of calves, heifers and calved cows from established dairy farmers across the country. They now have their own replacements milking in the herd, and are happy milking 137 cows on the 42ha milking platform.

Grazing

Grazing is going very well for Joe this year considering the challenging spring. Yes, the farm is a very dry farm, but Joe is doing all the right things to get cows to grass.

Joe began grazing on 1 February once the cows began putting milk in the tank. Cows were milked once a day for the first three weeks, so cows were only going out during the day.

“I don’t really let cows out for a couple of hours, either they are out or in. Yes, if it starts to rain during the day, I’ll bring them in but cows are happy outside and they aren’t doing any damage.” Joe said.

Cows are left standing in the collecting yard after milking while Michael and Joe wash up and feed the calves. This is so cows can build an appetite for grass, as they are also being fed 4kg of concentrates in the parlour.

Cows are grazing covers of about 1,300-1,400kg DM/ha at the moment. So far cows have been grazing low covers in the driest paddocks on the farm. Joe is beginning to run out of his dry paddocks and low covers.

This will affect how quickly he can get through ground, which will ensure he has enough grass coming into the second round.

Farm roadways are all newly constructed and Joe has put a gap every three or four fence posts, which makes spring grazing a lot more manageable, especially in his wetter paddocks.

The average farm cover on the farm is 853kg DM/ha, and there are covers of 300-400kg DM/ha on the first grazed paddocks. Joe is confident he won’t run short of grass, and plans to begin second rotation in late-March, early-April.

Joe plans to reseed the paddock which cows are in today in April. He hopes to graze it again in April and then reseed. He will use 4.3kg Abergain, 4.4kg Astonenergy, 3.8kg Aberchoice and 1.5kg of Aberherald (white clover).

In late January, there was 15% of the farm spread, with 2,500 gallons of slurry per acre targeting paddocks low on P and K. Joe is planning to get another 15% of the farm covered with another 2,000 gallons per acre this week on grazed ground with a trailing shoe.

No chemical fertiliser has been spread to-date, but Joe hopes to get out this week if weather allows. He said he would have had it out two weeks ago, but weather hasn’t allowed.

When he finds suitable conditions, he will spread 20-25kg N/ha of protected urea plus sulphur.

The farm is blanket spread every three weeks, even in the main grazing season. The plan is to spread another 20kg N/ha in late March and cut back to 9kg N/ha from then on.

In 2023, there was 105kg N/ha spread on the milking platform, and Joe hopes to spread similar this year, as there is a lot of clover on the farm.

All machinery work is done by a contractor except for feeding out silage. Fertiliser is spread with full GPS, autosteer and section control, which Joe finds is accurate enough that it justifies hiring a contractor.

Cows are currently producing 1.92kgMS per cow from 3.84% protein and 4.91% butterfat. Demand is high at 39kg DM/ha, as cows are allocated 14kg DM/ cow of grass.

“In 2023, the herd produced 494kg of milk solids per cow from 900kg of concentrates per cow. In previous years they produced over 500kg of milk solids, but we definitely lost out in the end of the year due to housing early,” said Michael.

The herd is crossbred, with an average EBI of €216. The cows are inseminated for the first three weeks of breeding.

A technician comes twice a day, which Joe says has been a great help for using sexed semen.

Conventional semen is only used on cows not suitable for sexed. After three weeks, AI is stopped and three Angus and Hereford bulls go in for the remainder of the breeding season.

With 104 of 137 calved (76%), the Murphys began calving on 25 January, so they are just over five weeks into the calving season now.

Last year was the first time using a fixed time AI programme on heifers. A total of 20 heifers were in the programme of which 12 held to first serve.

“I was happy with the conception results from heifers. We used all sexed semen on the fixed time AI heifers, with a 60% conception rate I can’t ask for much more.

We put in an Angus bull after to pick up repeats.

“It has compacted workload for the first two weeks of calving, but it means we can build a greater demand for grass, and all heifers are well settled now” Joe said.

Milk Fever

Last spring the Murphys had an issue with milk fever. After five cases, the vet recommended they use a calcium bolus at calving.

This year, older cows and cows with too much condition get a bolus 24 hours prior to calving. Post-calving older cows, over-conditioned and under-conditioned cows get a Reviva mix.

Cows are milked with a single electric milking machine in the calving house when calved, so no colostrum is pooled. Calves are fed with teat feeders. Dairy heifer calves go to one shed and beef calves are in another for biosecurity reasons.

All Angus and Hereford beef calves are sold at three weeks old. Last year they were all bought off farm by one farmer. There is a limited number of dairy bull calves due to using sexed semen.

There have been no issues with health with calves so far this spring. All cows are vaccinated for rota virus and pneumonia, which the Murphys also find helps with health of young calves. There have been no issues with scour on the farm so far.