Going to farm walks and reading the agricultural press, you could sometimes be forgiven for thinking that all farms in Ireland were greater than 120 cows in size. Yet, the average herd size is in the mid-70s. While this is predicted to grow to 104 by 2025, the question is, what will become of the 70- to 80-cow farm – will it continue to be a viable unit?

The increase in average herd size is nothing new. Average herd size has been increasing in Ireland since the turn of the last century. Even during the quota era, herd size increased from 23 in 1984 to 64 in 2015, primarily due to farmers exiting milk production. But since quotas have been removed, the increase in herd size has been accelerated. Since 2013, the number of farmers milking more than 100 cows has increased by 15% per year.

After a tough spring, many farmers are questioning the expansion strategy. The main issues seem to be the extra workload with more cows and the shortage of labour. Some are asking if less is actually more. Does milking 80 cows offer a better lifestyle than milking 100 or more cows?

Patrick Crotty is farming on the most westerly point of Co Clare. His is the last dairy farm before Loop Head lighthouse. The next stop is America. With his wife Shona, father Martin and son Conor, the family is milking 70 cows on a 37.5ha land block of shallow, but mostly free-draining soil.

Last year, the herd produced 430kg of milk solids from around 700kg of meal. When I visited last week, the cows were out grazing a paddock near the cliffs. They were milking 27.5 litres at 3.40% protein and 4.0% butterfat and eating 4kg of meal in the parlour. Patrick was waiting for the weather to settle a bit before dropping the meal back a bit further.

Patrick Crotty, Kilbaha, Co Clare.

Facilities are top-notch, with a cubicle shed for nearly all of the cows built in 2008, a 10-unit milking parlour built in 2013, a new bulk tank installed last year and a relatively new tractor in the yard. It’s the same out the fields – there is an excellent network of roadways connecting all the fields together, with multiple access points and water troughs. It’s a model farm in a beautiful location.

The cows are all black and white, with a good bit of British Friesian influence. The EBI of the herd is €75. Patrick’s breeding policy is to go with high EBI bulls to lift solids and fertility. He started AI on 26 April and does a mix of DIY AI and technician service through Munster AI. He stayed away from Jersey crossbreeding as he didn’t think the crossbred cow offered any real benefits to him.

“I don’t think there would be much advantage to me of crossbreeding. I’m happy with the cows I have. While I don’t want them to get any bigger, I do like a medium-sized cow,” Patrick says.

The Crottys supply milk to Kerry Group, with the milk lorries coming across from Listowel on the ferry crossing the Shannon Estuary. Last year, Patrick represented Kerry Group in the Kerrygold/NDC milk quality awards. An open day is being held on the farm on 17 May. The average SCC last year was 111,000 cells/ml.

Flexible

Patrick walks the farm weekly but does not routinely measure grass or use the grass wedge to make decisions. He does not make any pit silage, only round bales because they are more flexible. Despite bad weather last week, the cows were cleaning out paddocks well. There were four fields last year that were never topped or grazed. After second-cut silage, he closes up the ground for a third cut, but instead of cutting it he grazes it in October and wades through grass for a few weeks, extending the round length and the grazing season.

Shona is at home full-time and along with Martin is a big help around the farm, while Conor (12) helps out after school. After that, Patrick gets relief milkers occasionally and gets contractors to do most of the slurry and all the silage, including drawing bales back to the yard.

“We usually finish up a little after 6pm in the evenings. The way I see it, if I was working for someone else that’s when I’d be finishing so it should be no different when working for myself.”

Looking out at the horizon, expansion is not a likely prospect for the Crotty family. With the sea on two sides and neighbours on the other, it doesn’t look like milking 100 cows or more is a likely in the near future. But neither is it desired. Patrick seems quite happy with the number of cows he has – it is giving him and the family the lifestyle that they want.

Soil fertility is mixed. Most of the farm is on target for pH. Patrick is going to spread a few lorry loads of lime this year to the fields that are low. About 60% of the farm is low for phosphorus and about 40% of the farm is low for potash. Over the course of the year, he will spread about five bags of 18:6:12 on the fields that are low in P and K.

“I think 18:6:12 is the best fertiliser for building up P and K. It was said to me before that if land could buy fertiliser it would buy 18:6:12. I spread urea in spring and Richland during the summer, I rarely ever spread CAN before May,” Patrick says.

Future-proofing

As Patrick Crotty demonstrates, a good living can be made from a mid-sized herd. But will inflation eat into profitability over time, or will technical efficiencies surpass it? We know that milk prices are not keeping pace with inflation and that’s why so many farmers have had to grow their businesses.

What efficiencies should Patrick target? Selling more milk solids is an obvious one, but this must be achieved through better grassland management and fertility, both of which are already good. Is there scope to reduce costs? Probably some, but you can’t do this indefinitely. Inflation is a killer for farmers, irrespective of scale. It increases input costs and the cost of living – a double whammy. If we take inflation at 2%, milk solids per cow in Patrick’s herd needs to increase by almost 9kg/cow per year to counteract it, which for a mature herd is hard to achieve.

Larger herds and expansion is not for everyone, but to maintain a family income, smaller herds can never stop improving technical performance.