Our new BETTER farmers headed south last week to visit three of the most successful operations in the previous phase of the programme. While the BETTER farmers have had, and will have, a dedicated advisory team around them for the duration of the programme, meeting previous participants is vital to instil confidence and peace of mind for the journey they are about to embark on.

Donal Scully (Limerick), Ger Dineen (Cork) and Mike Dillane (Kerry) finished the programme in 2015 having recorded net profit/ha figures of €1,139, €1,486 and €1,281 (before subsidy) respectively.

Each were kind enough to walk their farms with the new participants, give a breakdown of their systems, detail how they went about achieving their success and answer any queries.

While there are similarities between each of the three farms – namely the fact that all three produce under-16-month bulls – there are stark differences too.

Donal Scully calves his cows in the height of summer and is blessed with some of the best land in the region in terms of workability. Ger Dineen is a spring-calver, whose farm sits on a rocky plain with some wet spots. Mike Dillane, on the other hand, calves in the autumn on what was one of the wettest farms in phase two of the programme.

Mike Dillane

Both Donal and Mike consolidate their cow herds with bought-in stock. Mike purchases suckler bulls at approximately 450kg to 500kg and aims to finish them under 16 months of age.

He erected a four-bay single slatted shed in the initial years of his time in the programme and now uses it to finish bought-in bulls when his own stock have cleared it.

It is full year-round and Mike is now slaughtering cattle almost every three weeks – a huge boost to farm cashflow. Mike explained how autumn calving suits his heavier ground and advised the group to exercise caution when designing vaccination regimes in herds that were set to grow.

Donal Scully

Donal boosts his output with bought-in bulls, heifers and dairy-cross calves. His summer calving pattern fits in with his work commitments – Donal is a full-time fireman. The group witnessed first-hand the ease at which Donal works his grazing.

He described a farm roadway and paddocking as the best money he had spent on the farm. Cattle are moved daily on Donal’s farm, keeping grass quality and animal performance as high as possible. Permanent paddocks are divided using reels and his home block of 29ha has over 100 grazing divisions.

Ger Dineen

Ger Dineen gave the farmers a detailed breakdown of how he operates a 100% AI-based breeding policy on his 60 suckler cows. At this point, his farm is set up such that he spends minimal time at heat detection, instead using a teaser bull and cow-calf separation to drive bulling activity and conception rates in his cows.

“I have other interests outside the farm, like the GAA. I can’t be spending the whole time watching or rounding up cows to bull. That’s why I’ve adapted my farm and strategy to what it is today,” Ger said.

The group saw the ease with which Ger manages calf separation in his self-designed separation area. Cows get access to calves twice daily in a holding yard and it is here that Ger identifies animals for AI, separates and breeds them.

All breeding stock are run in one group, which reduces workload and gives Ger huge grazing power. The group were also able to catch a glimpse of Ger’s 2016-born bull crop, who are approaching slaughter. All are by maternal AI sires and yet all are achieving finishing weight gains in excess of 2kg daily, destined for carcase weights over 400kg and will grade U, in Ger’s estimation.

The parting message from each of the farms was the same – embrace the programme and buy in from day one.

“You only have access to these guys (advisers) for a few years; after that they’re gone. Listen to their advice and don’t wait around. Get stuck in early,” Mike Dillane told them.

High-index cows doing the business on new farms

Toward the end of phase two (2012-2015), performance data from more than 3,000 suckler cows on programme farms were analysed in order to disseminate whether or not the replacement index was working for our BETTER farmers. Age at first calving, calving interval and progeny weight gain were the variables measured.

The results clearly showed a genetic effect on animal performance. Now, the ICBF has repeated the analysis on the new BETTER farm herds, using 2016 data (1,497 animals).

In phase two, five-star heifers calved an average of 75 days younger than one-star heifers and, similarly, in 2016, five-star heifers calved 71 days younger than one-star animals on the new BETTER farms (Table 1).

Click on image for full-size table

All of the BETTER farmers past and present will have been pushing to calve their heifers young. The fact that the five-star heifers calved younger is an indication of heightened fertility and leaves the animals better placed to integrate into their respective suckler herds successfully in the long term, versus the one-star heifers.

The average calving interval for one-star cows during phase two was 387 days, with five-star animals coming in eight days less at 379. On the new BETTER farms, the difference was 14 days in 2016. In the €150/cow challenge series, published in the Irish Farmers Journal in February of this year, it was demonstrated how each day beyond a 365-day calving interval costs €2.20. This means that, on phase three BETTER farms, extended calving intervals for one-star cows cost an extra €31/head compared with five-star cows in 2016.

The ICBF continuously laments how difficult it is to generate accurate daughter milk index values, given that the principal measure of milkability – calf weight – is measured on less than 5% of suckler farms. However, 909 of the progeny (>60%) on phase three farms in 2016 were weighed between 50 and 350 days of age. On these farms, consistent with phase two (0.2kg), progeny from five-star cows grew 0.18kg faster than those out of one-star cows. Selling a March-born calf live in November (eight months old) at €2.60/kg leaves an extra €114 for the five-star farmer (44kg heavier).

See more from Co Kilkenny BETTER farmer Michael McDonald in our video below:

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All reports from the BETTER farm programme