The O’Connors have some dry fields near the farmyard where the stone is closer to the surface but, in general, most of the 80 hectares (200 acres) grazing block is heavy land that needs to be looked after carefully. A further 36 hectares (90 acres) are leased and used mainly for silage and rearing.

For 20 years the O’Connors had another 61-hectare (150 acres) farm rented near their home farm in Ballingarry where for ten years Michael senior milked the pedigree ‘Munster’ herd. That rented farm was sold in 2009; the O’Connors didn’t buy and instead decided to consolidate and invest in the home farm at Ballingarry.

They went from milking 40 to 140 cows by buying milk quota and cows and investing in upgrading the milking parlour and facilities. In a short space of time the Ballykennedy herd went from producing 180,000 litres (40,000 gallons) to over 800,000 litres (163,000 gallons).

Only recently the O’Connors were able to buy 30 acres on the boundary ditch, bringing the total area around the parlour to 200 acres, to graze the 140 milking cows, 70 heifers and 25 pedigree Herefords. John said: “We are still debating how many cows will be milked post 2015 but we are near our maximum; maybe another 10 cows. Land type is heavy so we can’t carry high stocking rates but for the moment we want to consolidate what we have. We have a lot of money spent on quota and facilities over the last number of years so we need to get a return on that first.”

farm system

John continued: “Our aim is to grow and utilise as much grass as possible throughout the year. Regular grass measurement is carried out, baled silage is made on paddocks growing surplus grass and 10% of the farm is reseeded every year.”

However, this year, up to 20% of the farm has been earmarked for reseeding to compensate for the lack of reseeding opportunity in 2012.

Meal is fed when there isn’t enough grass and last year (wet 2012), 800kg of meal was fed to milking cows. The herd is spring calving, starting in mid-January, and cows are typically housed over a five-month winter with calved cows turned out by day on 10 February. The aim is to have cows grazing day and night by 10 March. The breeding season starts on 5 April with AI used for eight weeks followed by a sweeper bull.

Last week the O’Connors hosted an open day for the Irish Pure Friesians. This was an opportunity for a stockjudging competition and to display the Ballykennedy herd to the public. Last week the herd were milking 24 litres at 3.53% protein and 3.77% fat (1.8 kg MS) on 2kg of meal and grazed grass. Most of the herd is in-calf and while John hasn’t scanned anything yet this year he expects over 80% of the herd will calve in the first eight weeks of breeding next spring.

He measures grass regularly and recorded 63kg of growth for the week before the open day last Friday and suggested that this warm and dry weather will really suit the farm and it won’t dry up like other farms. John will continue to try and maximise growth because stocking rate is high with reseeding planned.

He has followed the cows with Pasture Sward (27:2.5:5) and watery slurry on the last number of paddocks to help improve phosphorus and potassium, which have both dropped back over the last number of years. During the open day the cows were going into grass that was a few days past its best but that was simply a factor of logistics for the day dictated by the fact that the herd had to be close to the yard for stockjudging, etc.

This year John introduced 22 first calved heifers into the herd (15%). He said: “We sold milking cows in the spring and I would have sold more of the first calvers only the purchaser from England wanted second and third calvers, so we brought the heifers into the milking herd.”

Average milk production in 2012 was 5,650kg (1,225 gallons) at 4.10% fat and 3.48% protein.

The herd

Unfortunately for the O’Connors the home dairy herd was wiped out with brucellosis in 1999. A large part of the herd was restocked from the dispersal sale of the ‘Moyvane’ herd from nearby Kerry. The other foundation cows for the Ballykennedy herd stems from the ‘Munster’ herd (previously rented farm) which contained animals purchased from the ‘Leitrimeast Pedigree Friesian Herd’ (WRT cows), including breeding stock purchased from the ‘Kilsunny’ herd, the ‘Blackisle’ herd and stock bull purchases from ‘Castledale’ and ‘Langley’.

This year John has used bulls like Deansgate Centurion, Deansgate Quentin, Morecourt Hilton (MJL), Coolmohan Rebnautical 1 (RBJ), CDQ, VML and RNC that are mostly minus in milk (low milk EBI) and high fertility sires (Table 1).

John works part-time with the Eurogene AI station and maintains that over 80% of the herd are still pure Friesian. I asked him whether he would he continue down that pure Friesian track of using negative milk bulls and would the herd have enough milk solids for a post-quota world? He replied: “Yes. It’s a package. We have heavy land that won’t carry heavy cows when grazing. We want a cow that is not too big, will survive grazing, go back in calf quickly on 500kg to 800kg of meal. We have been using low milk bulls for years from select cow families.”

I asked John whether stock classification was important for his farm business. When 55 cows were classified this year the results were 11 EX, 29 VG and 15 GP cows. He said: “We are not into showing cows but cows that are good on type will breed good type animals. Farmers coming to look at stock bulls will check out the herd first and good cows will sell the stock bulls very easily.”

The EBI of the Ballykennedy herd is €144 EBI, with fertility EBI making up the most of this at €121

calves

This year the heifer calves were kept on whole milk, fed twice a day for six weeks and then switched to once a day feeding. They still got the same volume of milk (four to five litres/calf/day) when once a day feeding until they are between 12 and 14 weeks of age. The O’Connors have kept 38 bull calves that will be reared and registered as potential stock bulls for sale next year. John said: “We will go through the 38 bulls again later in the year and pick out the top 30 for sale as breeding bulls. Most farmers buying a clean-up bull will purchase bulls starting next January. It’s important that they are reared well.”

John is also keen to rear the heifer calves well. He said: “We finished AI after eight weeks this year. We let out the Hereford stock bull at that stage so that we don’t have any March-born dairy replacements. In the past we have tried to push March and April-born heifer calves but we find they are too small and if you have to keep them for a second winter (three-year-old calving) there is no profit to be made from these animals so that’s not good business.”

The future

I asked John whether he will continue to keep almost 40 bulls around the farm every year if he has the opportunity to milk more cows.

He said: “For the foreseeable future, yes we will. We are not sure how many extra cows we will carry as the new 30 acres are only settling in now and we have to see how much grass they can grow. We have built up a good reputation for bull sales so we will continue with that business for as long as it makes profit for the business.”

The facilities

The parlour was extended in 2010 when the big shift upwards in cow numbers took place. The original seven-unit parlour built in 1983 was extended to 14 units. It’s a very functional herringbone parlour with feeders, cluster removers and plenty of uncluttered room in the pit.

John said: “The mistake we made when renovating is that we put a 14,000-gallon slurry reception tank behind the 14-unit parlour and really we should have extended to a 20-unit. We might extend in future but we must pay down some of what we have spent in the last few years first.”

Winter feed

The O’Connors have cut 120 acres of first cut silage and have most of this closed again for the second cut (90 acres). The second cut will fill most of the 500 tonnes’ deficit and straw will be purchased if more forage is required.

KEY POINTS

Report from Irish Pure Friesian Open Day last Friday on farm of John and Michael O Connor, Ballingarry, Co Limerick.

The business has moved from supplying 180,000 to 800,000 litres

Heavy soils limit stocking rate and cow size

Very keen interest in Pure Friesian breeding and cow families

KENNEDY COMMENT

EBI challenge for pure Friesian

During the open day last Friday the farm looked excellent. I walked down through the farm and the scars of 2012 were very evident – uneven ground and bare patches in some paddocks. The O’Connors had carried out some ripping and ditch drainage to sort out some of the heavy soil problems but when the sun shines and it’s rock hard underfoot like it was last Friday it is hard to appreciate the challenges.

John said they didn’t get out day and night with the herd this year until mid-May due to the slow growth and damage from last summer. I fully agree with him that he can’t push the same stocking rates as the very dry farms and maybe 2.5 cows/hectare (140 cows for 140 acres) is close to the maximum on these type of heavy farms, provided that most of the extra feed is sourced from outside the grazing block.

John obviously has built up a good name among local and national pure Friesian dairy herds and has a deep interest, knowledge and respect among those buying and selling breeding stock. Will the bull sales part of the business continue to be part of this commercial farm that is largely dependent on selling milk solids to provide a living for at least two families? I’m not so sure in a quota-free Ireland. Maybe genomics can play a part in making it stay.

In terms of the sire choice, for me some of the pure Friesian sires used (Table 1) have very low overall EBIs (high fertility EBI). I am an EBI believer so, for me, better bulls are available with higher EBIs relative to what is available. The dilemma for John is that he is looking for outcrosses from a relatively small availability within the pure Friesians and the O’Connors are reluctant to bring the Holstein breed into the herd.

They want a smaller cow to suit the spring calving, grazing system on heavy land. John has made his choice and will continue to select sires on what he considers will deliver to the bulk tank. In fairness, fertility and milk performance so far has been very good, despite the big changes that have happened on the farm over the last number of years.

The people I met last Friday had a very keen interest and good communication skills. The farm and yard had all the signs of excellent attention to detail, hard work and top quality stock.

I met the next generation of O’Connor farmers selling sweets and drinks from a cardboard box around the farmyard – never too early to start buying and selling.