Over 1,200 farmers attended Ballyvadin dairy calf-to-beef farm last week with the entirety of the system discussed on the day, from purchase protocol of calves to the finishing protocol.

The unit purchased in 443 calves over a six-week period in spring 2026, with 380 yearling animals from the 2025 intake on farm as well, spread across 138ha (120ha grassland).

Labour was a key focus on the day, with the farm being run by 1.5 labour units in the form of farm manager Jack Spillane and part-time support from Stephen Baskin. Several simple, but key, steps ensure that the farm is run efficiently – even with such a small labour force.

With the volume of calves arriving on farm, health has to be a priority.

Colostrum management has to be at the upper end for farmers supplying calves, with random blood testing carried out to ensure that calves have sufficient Serum Total Protein (STP).

The farm works with nine dairy farmers who supply calves to the farm.

All calves must have a minimum body weight of 42kg and a minimum age of 21 days before arriving in Ballyvaden.

Calves also receive their initial pneumonia vaccination before arriving on farm, five days pre transit.

At 10 weeks of age, they receive their second shot, followed by additional boosters at week 14 and week 40 (10-months-old).

Other vaccinations carried out include IBR at weeks 11 and 37 (nine months old), as well as clostridial at weeks 11 and 15.

Coccidiosis is treated at week six with an oral drench.

Routine use of anthelmintics is not done, with dung samples carried out every three weeks.

Greater than 250 EPG (eggs per gram) mandate a treatment; below this no treatment is used.

Calves remain on a diet of 750 grams of milk replacer across six litres, spread in to two three litre feeds on arrival. Calves are batched in pens of 12 on arrival, with space for 240 calves in the main yard. Slower calves are removed and batched together.

As calves get older and space in the main yard becomes limited, calves are grouped together in batches of 48 and transferred to a separate yard on the farm.

A towed calf feeder with 48 teats makes rapid work of feeding these calves, who by then are on once a day feeding.

Even at peak, with 440 calves on farm, three hours in the morning and one hour in the evening (to feed the youngest calves still on twice a day feeding) sees all calves fed. All milk is mixed and fed manually on farm, with no automatic calf feeder used.

‘’Once calves are a month old, we go once a day feeding for a number of reasons, labour being a big one,’’ explained Spillane. This is done on a phased basis as seen in Table 1.

Once calves hit 30 days of age, it’s four litres of milk with 750 grams of powder. ‘’Aside from labour, this is also done to drive on ration intake. It’s a simple but scalable system,’’ highlighted Jack.

‘’As Jack outlind there, the low milk volume that’s being offered on the once a day feeding is crucial in promoting solid feed intake. We know when calves transition off that high volume of milk and when they increase their solid feed intake, we know they can maintain performance from that blend of liquid and solid feed,’’ explained Dr Nicky Byrne, Teagasc Grange.

‘’At about nine weeks of age, we start looking at weaning calves. We generally wean at 85-90kg bodyweight. We generally don’t have an issue with ration intake at that stage; with once-a-day feeding, we have them up to 2kg/head/day at that stage,’’ explained Jack.

All calves are weaned indoors to avoid any major upsets. Calves are offered ad-lib access to concentrates and straw, with calves consuming over 3kg concentrates/head/day before turn out.

With 800 cattle on-farm, Jack aims to keep the number of grazing groups small, with four groups of yearlings and four groups of calves at grass.

Two hundred and sixty of this year’s calves are off meal, with younger calves are still being ofered 1.5kg/head/day.

Bullocks and heifers are grazed together to minimise groupings, with no negative impact being seen in animal performance as a result of this.

“As the year goes by, I have more mouths and the mouths are getting bigger.

“Every day of the year I’m putting in more grass than the day before, with a crunch point being late August/September when I would be supplementing cattle, but this year [with the drought], I’m supplementing cattle earlier,’’ Jack said.

Young calves are fed in towable troughs that can be easily moved from field to field, while an auger bucket is used for feeding out concentrates to both calves and older cattle.