The 368ha farm runs 160 suckler cows split between spring- and summer-calving. All offspring are sold as stores at around one year old. The farm also winter-grazes ewe lambs from September to April. The majority of the farm is in grass with about 20ha of spring barley grown each year for winter feed and straw for bedding.

Cow type is predominantly Angus and Simmental cross. These are mated to either Angus or Simmental to produce replacements or to terminal Charolais bulls to produce store cattle.

The stocking rate on the farm is quite low at 0.86 LU/ha, but winter accommodation is the main limiting factor on the farm. Currently, about 70 of the summer-calving cows are outwintered on hill ground.

Spring-calving starts in early March and runs for about 10 weeks. These cows and calves typically get turned out to grass in early May.

At this stage, the summer-calving cows come in off the hill for calving from early May with the majority being calved by early July.

Benchmarking

Benchmark analysis carried out by SAC consulting puts current gross margin at £405/cow for the spring herd and £291/cow for the summer-calving cows. Weaning percentage is excellent on the farm, achieving 97% and 94% for the spring and summer herds, respectively. This figure is well above the national average of 85%. Mark and Shona keep a close eye on cow condition over the winter period to ensure they calve down at the optimum body condition score of 2.5 (scale one to five).

The challenges

Optimal calving date

For the spring herd, the time between calving and turnout can be up to 10 weeks apart in a typical year. Milk yield of suckler cows will peak at six to eight weeks post-calving.

If cows are still indoors at this time, the energy required to drive milk production has to come from expensive meal feeding.

Grazed grass is the cheapest feed available on farm and with spring grass having a similar energy value as rolled barley on a DM basis, maximising its input to the cow diet is of utmost importance.

Therefore, this year the Mackays will delay turnout of the bulls for two weeks.

This, along with planning to get cows and calves out to grass a couple of weeks earlier, will have a major impact not only on the feed bill but also the daily liveweight gain of the calves.

On the summer calvers, the problem lies at the other end of the season. Being so far north, the growing season is shorter and cows are often housed by mid to late October.

At this point, some of the later calves are only four and a half months old. Again, winter accommodation dictates that a lot of these calves need to be weaned due to space limitations. This has an effect on the weaning weight of the summer calves and is reflected in the lower sale weight and, ultimately, lower gross margin/cow on the summer herd.

There are two options here. Option one is to move to a more traditional spring/autumn-calving split where the summer calving herd is moved back to August/September calving.

Wean the spring calvers in mid-October and outwinter the spring calvers on the hill until calving when the autumn cows would be weaned and move to the hill freeing up housing for the spring herd to calf.

The other option is to tighten up the late summer calvers so that all cows have calved by the end of June. To extend the grazing season for the summer herd,grass reserves can be built up in the back end using deferred grazing.

This option may put pressure on calving facilities with a large number of cows calving over a short period.

Also, in the case of a bad spring where spring calvers are unable to get out to grass, there would be increased pressure on housing.

This is the current direction; however, it will be kept under review throughout the programme to ensure that the Mackays are achieving best possible margin.

Grassland management

Getting more liveweight gain from grass is a must at Greenvale.

With ADG from birth to sale sitting at 0.8kg/day and 0.5kh/day for the spring and autumn calves, respectively ,there is room for improvement here.

Mark and Shona have an excellent herd of milky cows that should be able to support calves ADG in excess of 1.1kg/day through to weaning provided grass quality is good.

This year, rotational grazing will be used to manage grass and maintain a leafy sward ahead of cattle throughout the grazing season.

One of the bulling groups of about 25 cows will run on a 10ha block split into three permanent divisions with the option to split these again during the main grass growing season.

This will allow grass time to recover between grazings.

Silage quality

As a store producer selling animals out of the shed in spring, young stock cannot afford any check in growth rate. To maintain performance as cost effectively as possible, top-quality silage is needed for these animals.

This year, the aim is to make top-quality silage for young stock. Some of this will come from the grazing ground in the form of bales when pasture gets ahead of cows and calves.

Soil fertility

Underpinning all of the above is soil fertility. If the soil is not performing, then none of the above will be achieved. A large proportion of the grazing ground has been soil-sampled in the last few weeks. Average pH of the fields sampled is 5.7 ranging from 5 to 6.1. Lime application will be targeted at the pasture ground as soon as it is trafficable. Silage ground will be treated once the silage is off.

Phosphorus status is low and potassium is moderate on the farm. To rectify this, a fertiliser plan is being put in place. This is a long-term objective and in reality the Mackays will see the real reward in terms of soil status five to six years down the line.

Overall, this farm is in an excellent position to push on and increase output and overall profitability.

The programme has an ambitious target of a gross margin of £750/cow, an increase of £345 and £459/cow on current performance. However, over the next few years with these changes Mark and Shona will close the gap rapidly.