Winner of both the 2015 Ulster and British Grassland Farmer of the Year competitions, Colin Boggs milks 120 mostly New Zealand Friesian dairy cows on his 140-acre farm near Banbridge, Co Down.

Rolling yield is 6,023 litres, with 5,022 litres coming from forage and 4,054 litres coming from grazed grass. Concentrate feed rate stands at 0.09kg/litre, with rolling concentrate usage at 565kg/cow. Cows calve from the end of January to the end of April and are currently yielding 26.1 litres/cow per day at 4.23% butterfat and 3.35% protein.

“It’s alright growing as much grass as you can, but the main thing is to get maximum utilisation of the grass that you grow,” Colin told around 170 visitors to his farm last week.

The main method used to increase grass utilisation on the farm is to pre-mow all paddocks after the first rotation. Colin said that this leaves a clean sward for regrowth with no dung patches and grass that is unpalatable for cows.

He said that he pre-mows enough for 24 hours of grazing each day, which usually amounts to 2.5 to three acres and takes around an hour and a half to complete. He maintained that, similar to making silage, the best time to mow grass ahead of cows is when it is dry so some wilting can occur before cows enter the paddock to increase dry matter intakes.

“On a wet day when there is no chance for drying, I would usually leave the mowing to when the cows are being milked. It is just my father (Frank) and myself here with help from relief milkers. I milk the cows in the morning and a relief milker comes in most evenings. The only disadvantage of pre-mowing is that it takes a bit of time, but I think it is time well spent,” he said.

Colin does not measure grass, but walks paddocks once a week, or twice a week during peak growing season. He pointed out that it is important to walk through paddocks and not look over fences from roadways when assessing covers.

Reseeds

“We don’t have a figure in mind for the amount of ground to be reseeded each year. If we see a paddock with the yield dropping, then we will reseed it. If you look after swards well, they will last a long time. Some grass here could be 20 years old,” he said.

Surplus grass on the grazing platform is mowed and a neighbouring contractor makes bales. Good grass growth this year meant that bales were being made every 10 days or so.

Colin also maintained that mowing every rotation allows swards to stay in good condition and means docks and other weeds do not get the chance to seed. There is a limited need for spraying on the grazing platform.

New Zealand Friesian semen is used in the herd. When compared to British Friesian, New Zealand bred cows milk better off good-quality grass and are less likely to put it on their back, said Colin. Average cow body weight is around 550kg and he gets between five and six lactations out of cows on average. Priority traits that he selects for when choosing bulls are fertility, longevity and milk solids.

Colin said that if milk prices improved he would not be tempted to feed more concentrates as not all of his cows would respond to increased feeding due to their genetics.

“Higher-yielding herds had better margins when milk was over 30p/l but the system here survives at both good milk prices and bad prices,” he said.

Cows are tail-painted weekly for heat detection and a contractor is used to AI cows once a day for eight weeks before an Angus bull is used to sweep up. The bull is also used on heifers on an out-farm. All Angus calves and Friesian bull calves are taken from three days old by a neighbouring farmer. Average age at first calving age is just under 24 months.

Silage

Although a spring-calving herd, there is a strong onus on making good-quality clamp silage. Silage is made on a farm two miles from the farmyard. Both first and second cut this year has an ME of 11.5MJ/kg DM and D value of 72. First cut has 45% dry matter, pH 4.7 and crude protein 13.1% and second cut has 39.1% dry matter, pH 3.9 and crude protein 11.1%. Third-cut silage was cut around two weeks prior to last week’s visit.

Colin does not have a diet feeder and feeds milking cows with a shear grab when housed. A grab of whole-crop silage is put up each side of the feeding passage and first-cut grass silage put on top.

Dry cows receive no concentrates and get minerals on top of silage twice a day from at least six weeks before calving.

If grass growth is behind target, additional concentrate is sometimes fed to slow down the rotation. The alternative is to offer baled silage made from surplus grass as a buffer feed.

At grass, heifer calves get 1kg of concentrates each day but in their second year they receive grass only. The calves and heifers graze across 12-acres of an out-farm in a leader follower system.

Fertiliser and slurry policy

On the grazing platform, a bag of CAN per acre is sown after each rotation with every other rotation including fertiliser with added trace elements.

Watery slurry is applied from September and Colin highlighted that the pre-mowing leaves a clean sward for a good response to slurry. He continues to mow grass ahead of cows later in the season until ground conditions get too wet.

For first cut, slurry is spread up to mid-March at 2,500 gallons/acre with 2.5 bags/acre of zero phosphorous fertiliser then applied. Second cut gets three bags per acre of a compound fertiliser with added sulphur, while third cut receives 2.5 bags per acre of compound fertiliser.

The aim is to get cows out to grass by mid-March. Key to this is having good infrastructure around the grazing platform. A wide yard leads to cow tracks around paddocks.

All dirty water from the farm yard runs into a tank which is piped to reed beds at the bottom of the farm. The reed beds were constructed in 1999 and consist of four ponds which cover 2.5 acres in total. Water is retained in the beds for 70 days.

Time off and farm diversification

Colin highlighted the importance of taking time away from the farm to visitors last week. He pointed to a sand paddock in his yard for jumping horses and said that there is an important balance between work and leisure that some farmers do not always get right.

In the winter time, Colin goes hunting twice a week and once calving and most of breeding is over he goes hill walking every other Saturday. He also tries to pre-mow two days of grass for cows on a Saturday to free up more time on a Sunday.

“From the start of November, all cows go on once-a-day milking. This can reduce yields by 1 to 1.5 litres but protein and butterfat can rise to over 4% and 5% respectively. Some cows may have issues with cell count but it frees up time in the winter and reduces labour requirement. Cows are then dried off according to age and current yield so we never dry everything off at once,” Colin said.

He has no plans to increase the herd size even though the farm is stocked fairly lightly at 2.2 cows/ha. This is because it would require investment in housing and also because he has no successor coming behind him to take over.

In 2012, a 100kW wind turbine was connected on the farm to supply electricity and provide additional income.