BETTER farm: highs and lows of 2018

While the weather dominated much of the farming headlines for all of the wrong reasons this year, there was a cohort of farmers situated on heavier ground in the north and west of the country who will remember 2018 very fondly. Last week, as we looked back at the annual growth figures for 2018, two farmers on heavy ground in the north of the country, Joe Healy and Garreth McCormack, grew an extra 6.6t and 4.3t DM/ha, respectively. Slightly further north, Wesley Browne in Monaghan has 1,300 bales in the yard this winter, 400 more than any other year. Moving west, Tommy Holmes had another excellent grass-growing year, pushing out 14.7t DM/ha while in Sligo it was all systems go for Glen McDermott with one big reseeding job completed early in the year and another kicking off in the autumn, both to great success.

The bumper summer for these parts is well and truly epitomised by the performance of the Grieves in Donegal. In 2017, the Grieves cut their second cut of silage on 15 September. This year, second cut was made on 1 July and they went for third cut. As a result, on 1 August, an unprecedented 113% of fodder requirements were safely in the yard.

Upon commencement of the current phase of the BETTER farm programme in 2017 there were only eight bull beef producers. Now, less than two years later, there are 15 farmers operating this system. Included are five conversions from weanling systems – the Flahertys, the Grieves, Garreth McCormack, Padraig O’Connor and Philip Keville and two conversions from store systems – Nigel O’Kane and Sean Hayes. For the group of 15, the average price received at slaughter for beef bulls was €4.15/kg from September 2017 to August 2018. Farms selling the majority of bulls under 16 months received between €4.10/kg and €4.37/kg. Where bulls were sold mainly over 16 months, the price range was less, at €3.90/kg to €4.10/kg.

Drilling down deeper into the performance showed that the seven newcomers are easily holding their own with the experienced bull operations. Sean Hayes in Clare got on exceptionally well with 36 bulls averaging 423kg and U-2+ at 15.8 months. Likewise, Garreth McCormack had an average weight of 424 and grading of U+2+ at 16 months. Elsewhere, the Flahertys in Kerry had an average carcase weight of 372kg and U-3- and Philip Keville’s bulls clocked in at 368kg.

A large group farmers certainly felt the pinch in the middle of the summer as drought conditions caused grass growth to grind to a halt. In the first week of July, the issue was almost at its peak with Martin O’Hare in Louth. “We had 67 cows together in the one block and these were being fed 2.5t of silage daily under the electric fence using the diet feeder,” he said. A decision was also made to graze the second-cut silage ground. “It was turning to pure stem so we came to the conclusion that it was a waste of time letting it grow any longer.”

At the same time, a similar situation was unfolding with Ricky Milligan in Kildare. Average farm cover was 393kg DM/ha and the growth rate was as low as 14kg DM/ha/day. “We made 50 bales of poorer quality hay off some poorer ground earlier in the summer. I earmarked this as a buffer feed to stretch out the paddocks for the cows,” he explained. In Carlow, Tom Bolger was forced to purchase 200t of maize in an effort to guarantee fodder supplies for the winter, remarking that “land looked more like the Sahara desert” in the last week of July. For the southern counties, the big worry was making fooder. The four-week fodder budget series that featured in the Irish Farmers Journal showed that on 15 August, six out of seven farms in the south were facing a fodder deficit. Thankfully, the good back-end alleviated most of this concern, but it didn’t come without a cost. For example, Cork farmer John McSweeney was forced to sell stock. “Thirty-one dairy calves reared this spring and just under 30 of last year’s Angus calves were sold live. Thankfully, a market opened up for them and I sent them off,” he said. Similarly, the Stanleys in Tipperary had to buy in bales, all of which were consumed during the drought.

The poor spring weather conditions certainly had an effect on herd health on a small number of programme farms. For Shane Gleeson in Limerick, calving began on 6 January and he had 42 due in total. As Storm Emma and the Beast from the East gripped the country in March, dreaded cryptosporidium set in. “On the Thursday of the really bad snow, we had a case of scour in a young calf. Ten more followed after that and I lost five to it (crypto) in total,” Shane said at the time. Infected calves were treated with Halocur, 20ml daily for one week, and 10ml daily to all new calves as a preventative. Eventually, extra colostrum and turning calves out – hail, rain or shine – was the difference. Credit to Shane, he said: “I don’t mind sharing the details of my bad experience because if I can help others to prevent or overcome an outbreak of crypto, it’s worth telling.”

Another farm that wasn’t shy about telling its story was the Flaherty operation in Kerry. “The fields to which cows and calves would have gone were nearly flooded,” said James Flaherty. “With so many young calves in the yard and the dairy calves also having to be housed, we quickly realised overcrowding and ventilation was an issue.”

Pneumonia took hold and, with ventilation inadequate, it created a perfect storm which 14 calves and two cows fell victim to. “I saw the vet more times in six weeks than I had in three years before that,” he said.

The loss of these 16 animals is estimated to have cost €13,200, while an extra €4,000 was spent on veterinary expenses.