John Mullholland has a full-time job in Ulster Bank and spends a lot of time in Dublin and travelling around the country. He wanted to create a farming system that would allow him to do a full day’s work, spend time with his family and make a decent margin.

John, who farms 90 acres, followed the progress made by farmers in the Teagasc/Irish Farmers Journal BETTER Farm Beef Programme. He decided to implement some of the concepts of the programme on his farm and has felt the benefits.

Implementing a paddock system was the most beneficial change. When John started farming in partnership with his father Tommy five years ago, he had 20 suckler cows. Now he has 40, and plans to keep 50 cows by 2019. He said this increase in stocking rate would have been almost impossible to achieve if he did not have a paddock system in place.

The Mulhollands have a 40-cow suckler herd made up of Charolais and Simmental cross cows. The strongest bull calves are sold in the autumn and the remainder are kept as bulls and sold in July. One third of the heifers are sold in the spring, while the remaining handpicked heifers are kept for breeding. John started farming five years ago in partnership with his father Tommy. His father was dairying on the farm but switched to suckling just before John started farming with him.

They started out by installing a few paddocks around the sheds and were so pleased with the results they continued to build more paddocks until the entire farm was complete. To install the paddocks, a mains electric fence was set up around the boundaries of all the fields. The different-sized fields were divided with wire and wooden stakes to make up one-acre paddocks. The cost of fencing was kept low by John doing most of the work himself.

They bought small water troughs that were not too expensive and were low to the ground to enable calves to drink. He was able to put the water in himself and left some water pipes over ground until there was a digger on the farm that could bury them. To date, he has spent less than €5,000 putting the paddocks in place.

Benefits of the paddock system

John feels that cows are now far easier to handle. He said: “In the old days, if cows saw you walking into the field they would start running to the four corners. Now they are happy to see me coming because they relate me to good things – getting more grass.”

A far better handle is now kept on the amount of grass available on the farm. John said: “With the paddocks, I now know how many days ahead I have. For instance, if I have cows on two-day paddocks and have 10 paddocks allocated to them, I know it will be 18 days before cows will return to the first paddock.”

He is now able to get cows out far earlier and have the confidence to do so. Maiden heifers didn’t go in until 1 December and were back out in the paddocks by 20 February. He found the paddocks came into their own last spring when growth rates were extremely low. He runs the cows in two groups of 20. He decided last spring to bring one group in for a couple of weeks. The other group was given access to more paddocks. John feels he would have had to bring all the cows in had they been set-stocked and his costs would have doubled.

Management in wet weather is far easier because cows will only damage a very small area, not a whole field. He can now be far more flexible; if prolonged wet weather occurs, he can bring cows back indoors for a period. It is no longer a big job because they are quieter. Grass surpluses are identified early through eyeballing and earmarked for round bales. In his conventional set-stocked system, this would never be possible because cows would have the run of the entire field. The extra bales will be like money in the bank if a fodder shortage occurs in the future. After the fodder crisis last year, farmers are more aware of the need to have extra stocks in place. “I skipped four acres for silage a few weeks ago and skipped another four last week because grass was too strong for grazing,” explained John.

The grass is growing a lot thicker and topping does not have to be carried out as often because cows are cleaning down swards to 4cm.

Fertilizer

The philosophy with fertilizer has changed over the years. The farm was in the REPS scheme where restrictions were in place on the level of P and K that could be spread. A soil test indicated that the farm had low lime levels. Two and a half tonnes of lime was spread to the acre on affected fields. Most fields tested were only index 2 for P and K.

He now makes better use of fertilizer compound mixes. He has reduced the amount of straight nitrogen he spreads on the land because he feels this is a drain on the land when fertility is low.

Discussion group

John is a member of the NEWS discussion group (Nightime Evening and Weekend Sucklers). This is facilitated by his sister Mairead Kirk, a Teagasc adviser who has been a great help with advice and direction on the farm.

His discussion group joined forces with Castleblaney Active and Positive discussion group and Monaghan group to set up a special breeding heifer sale at the beginning of May.

This was the second time they held such a sale and he felt it was a huge success. “I sold some of my heifers at this sale. Their average weight was 446kg and sold for €2.60/kg.”

Plans for the future

Plans are to continue to increase stocking rate. At the moment he has a stocking rate of 2,000kg/ha. He feels he can push this up to 2,500kg/ha comfortably. A reseeding plan will be key to this. He is also planning to build a farm roadway to service the paddocks. This will help to increase access to the paddocks and reduce damage done when getting slurry out in spring.