In Tipperary, it is more common for dairy farms to be bought and converted to stud farms than it is for stud farms to be bought and converted to dairy farms. But this is exactly what Padraig and Ena Collins did when they expanded the farm in 2013.

The Collins’s farm on the Tipperary side of the Tipperary/Kilkenny border near Callan. The original 170ac farm was bought in 1979 when they moved from their small farm in west Cork. But it wasn’t all plain-sailing. In between buying the new farm at Callan and selling the home farm in Cork, the “credit squeeze” occurred.

The difference was extraordinary

In much the same way as in the recent recession, the banks stopped lending. This meant that they had to sell the land at a much lower price than they planned and they had a lot of extra debt on the new farm.

Desire to grow

The decision to move to Tipperary was driven by a desire to grow the business. They were milking 45 cows in Cork. Competition for land was intense and land prices were high so to grow the farm was going to be slow and costly.

But in Tipperary, farms were bigger and land was cheaper. The farm they bought, Harleypark, was an old estate that had three owners since the original family sold it. None of the owners had it for more than a decade.

“Looking back now, the first few years were very tough. We moved the herd up from Cork before calving started in 1980. We lost 30% of the calves to salmonella that spring – our cows weren’t vaccinated as we never had a salmonella problem in Cork.

“We had been growing lots of crops in rotation in Cork, so our grass was all fairly new. The old permanent pastures in the new farm didn’t grow nearly as well and milk yield was much lower than we predicted,” Padraig says.

Devastating blow

The family was still negotiating with the banks when Padraig’s mother died in 1983.

This was a devastating blow but Padraig said it served to give them more resolve to succeed. With 170 acres around the yard in Callan, the plan was to stock it with dairy cows. The introduction of quotas in 1984, based on 1981 milk supply, was another big blow and it meant that cattle and other stock would now be part of the system.

Over the next decade, the family worked hard to pay down debt. At one stage, Padraig says they had 12 groups of cattle on the farm and had land rented for cattle and milk quota.

The focus on the farm switched in the late 1990s. Padraig hooked up with Leonie Foster and Bryony Fitzgerald who were working in Ireland as farm consultants. He started to record income and costs and monitor grass growth and utilisation.

“The first time I looked at my costs properly I used the back of the AI breeding charts. I realised I had 68 different suppliers of inputs. The first step was to question if we needed things more and then to limit the number of suppliers that we had,” Padraig says.

Focus farm

They became a focus farm for the discussion group with Bryony Fitzgerald in 2000. This involved an in-depth look at the overall farm. It was decided then to reduce beef stock numbers, reduce the amount of land being rented or leased and focus more on reducing costs.

“The difference was extraordinary.

"The savings and gains were made by no meal feeding, less fertiliser, less contracting, fewer labour costs, fewer parlour expenses as cows were dry from 1 November to 1 February, extended grazing and purchase of large areas of aftergrass for a very low cost.

"Even though a low stocking rate is difficult to manage from a grass quality and milk production point of view, our focus was on supplying our quota at least cost,” Padraig says.

At this stage, they were milking approximately 120 cows. In 2002, Padraig went on a study trip to New Zealand and came back buzzing. He did the Wealth Creation Course in 2004. Around this time, Ena gave up her off-farm job in 2002 and came back to farm full-time and bring up the three children. Ena did the Wealth Creation Course in 2005.

They are building 414 topless cubicles, a silage slab, slurry store and will build a 60-point rotary parlour next year.

An opportunity to buy 153 acres next door to the farm came up in 2006. Padraig and Ena played around with different scenarios involving selling off parts of it but Celtic Tiger prices meant it was out of reach.

The land was bought by a syndicate that converted it to a stud farm. The farm was subsequently bought by Padraig and Ena in 2013 at a lower price. In 2014, 115 acres was leased next to the milking platform.

Today, the Collins’s are farming 181ha. There are 169ha on the milking platform and 131ha of these are owned.

They milked 308 cows this year and they have 375 animals in calf for next year. They started back feeding meal in 2015 after 15 years where no meal was fed. They will feed 400kg per cow this year.

They are drying off the last of the cows this week and average milk solids sold to Callan Co-Op for the year will be 420kg/cow. This is about 20kg ahead of target.

About 40% of the herd are Jersey crossbred. Padraig uses a mix of Holstein Friesian, Kiwi cross and purebred Jersey bulls. The average EBI is high at €122. The empty rate this year was 11% after 10.5 weeks of breeding. Padraig and Ena want a break between calving and the start of breeding so a compact calving is essential.

The Collins’s are currently in the middle of major building work. They are building 414 topless cubicles, a silage slab, slurry store and will build a 60-point rotary parlour next year. Cows and youngstock have been out-wintered for years on beet, kale and deferred grazing.

As stocking rate has increased the land available for out-wintering has decreased.

This is the first time in 20 years that youngstock are in a yard for winter. Heifers were always in calf to Jersey and used to calve outside on their own.

Pressure

Milking is a big pressure point. It is taking a long time to get through milking in the 20-unit parlour. The herd was split in two for most of 2017 which Padraig says made a big difference to the cows but increased the workload a lot.

An increasing amount of the work, including milking is done by contractors.

Other than that, Padraig, Ena and their son Mark – who is in second year of the dairy business course at UCD – provide the labour. For the last few years, they have been getting foreign students to help out.

These students stay for a few months, help out on the farm and get to learn English. Part of the reason for the investment in housing and milking facilities is to simplify the system, reduce hours spent milking and feeding and to make the farm a more attractive place to work. Thirty-eight years after making the move to Tipperary, the family is living the dairy dream.

  • Padraig, Ena and Mark Collins are guest speakers at the upcoming Positive Farmers Conference at the Radisson Blu Hotel, Little Island, Cork, on 10 and 11 January.
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