A large crowd of almost 800 farmers attended the BETTER farm open day held on Chris McCarthy’s 28ha grassland farm near Mullingar last week. Those who attended left the event with one clear message from Chris – keep the farming system as simple as possible.

According to Chris, there is no need to over-complicate the suckler system. When a system becomes complicated, it affects the ability to manage the herd. A simple system means that he can give attention to detail throughout the year.

Off-farm employment as a tiling contractor means that Chris has limited time to spend carrying out farm tasks. He outlined to the crowd that he spends two hours per day completing all management tasks for his 55-cow suckler herd.

“My job cannot suffer because of the cows. I am always thinking and planning out when things need to be done,” said Chris.

Planning

The herd is spring-calving and calves over a 10-week period from late January to early April. While calving cows in such a tight timeframe is labour intensive, it is short-term according to Chris. He can plan better for the calving period as he knows when the cows are due to start and finish calving.

“Farmers know when they are going to make silage and when they are going to sell cattle, so there is no reason why they can’t plan better for when they want cows to start and finish calving.

“Compact calving is a heavy workload for a short period of time, but I know when it will finish, which means I can get on with other things on farm,” said Chris.

With limited time to spend on-farm, having a compact calving period offers Chris other benefits, such as:

The farm is set up for a one-man operation. Laneways and fencing have been installed to allow movement of cattle from field to field with little effort. Cattle can be brought into the yard for handling with ease.

During the winter period, cows can be moved between the dry house and calving pens without the need for additional help due to the layout and use of gates.

Cows coming close to calving and in loose boxes are monitored using cameras that are linked to Chris’s phone.

Breeding

Replacements are bought in annually from known farms and purchased in-calf. Buying in-calf heifers means that there is one less stock group on farm, as Chris is not keeping a separate group of home-bred heifers. Buying from repeated sources means he knows the background of the animals and their health status.

Breeding his own heifers means Chris would require a maternal bull, as he said that AI is not an option for him. He does not have the time for heat detection or bringing in spring-calving cows for inseminating.

As the herd produces weanlings for sale, a maternal bull could compromise calf weight and quality for selling live.

Instead, the breeding programme is simple. Limousin and Simmental cross heifers are sourced off-farm to ensure that milk is being retained in cows.

As they are bought in-calf in autumn, Chris can focus on using terminal sires on his cows. Two Charolais bulls are used to serve cows and bred from CF52 and Balthazaar.

While growth and conformation are important, there is also a requirement for calving ease when selecting stock sires.

Cow condition also plays a huge part in calving ease. Stock bulls are often blamed for calving difficulty, yet no blame is placed on the cow that is often overfat.

Using two bulls means there is a high conception rate in the herd. Compact calving means that large numbers of cows will be in heat at one time, which is difficult for one bull to handle.

This year, only four cows are empty from 55 in a 10-week breeding period. Last year, there were only two empty cows at scanning. A later scan showed both cows to be in-calf.

Weanlings

All calves produced on-farm are sold in November and December. In the past few years, they have been sold out of the yard to repeat buyers.

Calves are weighed up to five times per year on-farm using his own weigh scales.

The average calving date is 6 March, but this has been gradually moving forward. The plan is to get the calving date moved forward to 6 February to have heavier weanlings for sale in late autumn.

One of the first of this year’s bull calves, born on 25 January, currently weighs 87kg more than the last bull calf born on 31 March. Assuming a sale price of €2.40/kg, the difference in sale value would be €208 between the two calves.

“Weighing the calf is the only measure of letting you know how the cow is performing. I have cows that are in strong body condition that you would assume are not milking, yet their calf is gaining 1.5kg/day and is as big as the cow.”

Bull calves have averaged 1.42kg/day since 10 July and weighed 288kg on 20 August. They will be sold at a target weight of 375kg liveweight. Heifers are gaining 1.29kg/day since 10 July and averaged 249kg on 20 August.

No meal has been fed to calves as yet. Meal will be introduced shortly ahead of weaning. Calves are creep grazing ahead of the cows on good grass.

The average daily liveweight gain of calves from birth to weaning on the farm over the past five years is outlined in Table 1. Bull calves, on average, have gained 1.36kg per day, while heifers averaged 1.20kg per day.

This performance is well ahead of the national average for bull and heifer calves, which currently stands at 1.15kg per day and 1kg per day, respectively.

Compared with the national average liveweight gain, Chris’s weanlings would be generating an additional €7,600 in terms of farm sales from his herd of 55 cows.

Considering that most of this weight gain is achieved from a grass-only diet, the actual margins are more than likely higher.

Calves have been vaccinated for pneumonia for the first time. The reason for this is that, as the days get shorter in autumn, it becomes more difficult to check cattle in the dark after his work. A calf with the early signs of pneumonia could be easily missed. Vaccinating is a safeguard against illness.

Grassland

Over 50% of the farm has been reseeded since 2008, with 10% now reseeded annually. Most reseeding is carried out using minimum tillage, as it is quicker to get stock back onto the ground to graze compared with conventional ploughed reseeds.

Grass is measured weekly and silage is made from closing up surplus grass for baling. The farm consists of eight fields split into 17 paddocks.

“Setting up the paddocks has been one of the best things I have done on the farm. It makes stock management so much easier. There is no wasted grass on farm now like before,” said Chris.

The farm follows the autumn planner to close up grazing ground in rotation. This ensures there is grass available for getting cows out to grass in late February to early March. The autumn planner for the farm is outlined in Table 2.

Gross margin

Gross margin on farm has increased from €649/ha to €860/ha in 2014, which is high for a weanling system. With suckler-to-weanling farms, weight for age is crucial and, more importantly, producing weight from grass.

Grazing costs on-farm are 30c/head to 40c/head, whereas 2kg of concentrates costs 50c/head at a purchase price of €250/t.

The herd has potential to reach the target of €1,000/ha gross margin. The herd has been expanding in recent years, which adds to the cost of production.

From this year on, the 55 cows will be producing a calf for sale. Adding the value of the extra calves sold and moving the calving date forward to early February will increase the average sale weight by 30kg to 40kg per head.

Variable costs are under control, so the additional output will increase gross margin in future.