Robin Clements currently has 165 cows milking on the farm; 115 are grazing the home farm block of 100 acres and 50 cows are indoors on zero-grazed grass 24/7, which is coming in from the outfarm 2.5 miles away. The stocking rate on the home block is 2.8 cow/ha and can be increased as grass growth continues to move up. In the short term, however, a TB test has meant that young stock are also grazing the 40ha home block.

Zero grazing started in March this year with one load brought in each day for the cows indoors. Cows are now 200 days into lactation and average daily production is 22 litres/cow at 4.3% fat and 3.45% protein, with an average concentrate feeding rate of 2kg/day. This performance is an average of all cows in the herd – both zero-grazed and out in paddocks.

Estimated performance from the two groups is based on milk recording information and manual calculation during milking as the parlour is not equipped with auto identification. The high-yielding, indoor, zero-grazed cows are producing 28 litres on 2.5kg meal at 4.15% fat and 3.36% protein. Paddock-grazing cows are doing 19.3 litres on 1kg meal at 4.95% fat and 3.65% protein.

You can’t compare between indoors and outdoors – they are different genetics, at a different stage of lactation, on different feed and outdoor cows obviously have more walking to do.

Calving finished this year on 15 January with 75% of the herd calved by 1 November 2016. We have 57 replacement heifer calves now on the ground. A TB test closed the herd down back in January, but all bull calves had been sold before the TB test. Breeding started on 15 December.

The pre-breeding work completed before this has improved the proportion of the herd bred in the first six weeks resulting in more replacements on the ground next year and a more compact calving profile.

The last scan was at the end of March with 133 cows and 21 heifers scanned in calf and due in the first 15 weeks of calving.

We have always been putting a lot of emphasis on fertility and what we tend to find is that the poorer fertility cows end up culling themselves. From a management point of view, heat detection has been ramped up with more use of the cow heat monitor from NMR and my son Stephen is now doing all the inseminating.

The breeding policy on the farm is centred on sires with high fertility traits and improving the milk solids components of the herd. The cow type is critical for the future of the farm – the cow must be fertile and able to utilise grass. Sires used are still Holstein Friesian but we have selected on fertility and milk components with little emphasis on milk volume.

The main sires used on the herd are FR2024, FR2036, FR2056, LWR, PBM, WDS. YAB and YAD have been used on heifers. These are all high EBI sires.

Soil samples and analysis for the farm taken early this year has indicated an improvement in soil fertility on the home-grazing block.

We focused hard on soil pH, which was the main issue on the home-grazing block with approximately 250t of lime spread over the 100 acres on the home farm.

Fertiliser

We also targeted P and K in 2016 with a combination of compound fertiliser and straight P and K chemical fertiliser, resulting in 90% of this block now in optimum nutrient conditions in relation to pH, P and K nutrients for growing grass.

We are aiming for pH of 6.3, P index of 2+ and K index of 2. This is a significant improvement from a 22% optimal rate two years earlier.

Zero grazing has worked well this year. We invested in a new machine at the start of the season. I have long-term plans to milk cows on the 160ac outfarm and we are investing a lot into improving this farm with reseeding, drainage, fencing, laneways and soil fertility. However, the zero -grazing option is working for us at the moment.

It means we can carry more cows on the farm and production has increased with 1.2m litres the target for 2017.

Good ground conditions have allowed work to be finished up with essential drainage work completed and some open drains maintained. Drainage specialists from Teagasc visited the farm last week.

We dug a few test pits around both farms and a deep, heavy, stony and compacted subsoil seems to be the main issue. The suggested remedy was gravel tunnels and collector drains.

A total of 60 acres has been reseeded on the farm in what can only be described as perfect conditions. All the ground was ploughed and reseeded this month with a mixture of tetraploid and diploid late heading grass seed used.

The main varieties used include Abergain (tetraploid) and Aberchoice (diploids).