Barry and his wife Liz operate a spring-calving dairy herd of 440 Jersey-cross cows outside Nenagh, Co Tipperary. Opening grass cover was 877 kilos DM/ha, and cows are out day and night since January 25. Currently cows are grazing some heavier ground and the opening cover is quite low. Cows are currently being fed 4kg of a 16% nut. As of 12 February, 56% of the herd have been calved and Barry is still on track to keep his mortality rates around 3%.
Grass cover on the farm is currently 877 kilos DM/ha.
Calving
With over 93% of the 440-cow herd due to calve within six weeks, calving facilities are something Barry wants to improve on. He plans to build a custom calf shed in the future and at the moment is using six straw-bedded pens for calving cows and pens for the calves.
Calves leave the cows after their second feed to go to individual pens. The plan is for the new calf shed to have big open pens for the cows to calve in.
Ground held up well on the farm and grazing began on 25 January.
Due to a tight calving pattern and limited space, Barry or a night calver walks around at night to move cows about to calve from the cubicles to the straw pens. With 440 cows to calve down, it’s all hands on deck on the farm for the few weeks. There are night duty staff on the farm for the month of February who are on farm for five or six nights a week. These are students from Gurteen.
There are also two other full-time staff, alongside Barry’s brother Brian. Part-time staff are taken on for two months who will do weekend shifts.
Breeding
The breeding season on Barry’s farm started on 1 May for the cows, with the heifers starting a couple of days before this on 29 May. The heifers were synchronised, which helps Barry achieve a tight calving pattern. It’s a 50-50 split between bulls and heifers so far, and Barry has ordered sexed semen to use next year.
Barry does not keep any stock bulls and all animals are instead served with AI The first three weeks, the cows were served with AI for dairy replacements.
Barry is keen to improve his calving facilities as he has a tight calving pattern.
The cows that were not used to breed replacements got Hereford straws for a week, before Barry switched to using Wagyu straws for another week.
There were some Gene Ireland bulls used for cleanup, with some Aubrac straws used before finishing up with Hereford. The breading season on Barry’s farm lasted for 10 weeks.
Fertiliser
To date, 90% of the farm has had 23 units of protected urea. Barry’s target is for 75% of the nitrogen (N) spread to be protected urea. However, it was hard to find last year.
About 13% of the milking platform got 2,700 gallons/ac. Another five loads were spread on an outblock to take some pressure off tanks there.
Barry is keen to improve biodiversity on his farm and has planted a holly hedge.
Storage is tight on the farm and Barry plans to add another ring for one of the overground tanks which has just arrived on farm. This will add approximately 90,000 gallons of storage.
Clover
Clover is incorporated into some of the swards on Barry’s farm and has allowed him to cut N where he can. Clover was incorporated into the swards over the past few years through both reseeding and oversowing.
Some of the fields are in their third season of clover and N was cut to these areas last June. They will get no artificial N this year. Clover is incorporated into approximately 26% of the farm to-date, which will get artificial fertiliser as normal for the first part of the year, along with the rest of the non-clover swards on the farm before being cut to half artificial fertiliser after this.
To date, 26% of the swards on Barry's farm have clover in them, which is something that he is keen to improve on.
Barry is conscious that clover needs to be improved in certain areas of the farm. Barry is off to a good start in this regard, as soil pH across the farm is at 6.4 and clover requires a high pH to do well.
The farm is doing pretty good for P, with 72.6% of soils at Index 4 for P. Potassium (K) levels are a little low, with almost 80% of soils at index 3 and 4 for P and K.
Some areas of the farm are a little low for K, but Barry has K fertiliser purchased that he had planned to put out in the autumn. This will instead be spread this spring.
Silage ground is managed a little differently and takes priority for slurry. It will get 3,000 gallons/ac, while the rest of the farm will get 2,000 gallons/ac.
Farmer: Barry and Liz Powell.Location: North
Tipperary.Farm size: 170ha.Enterprise: Spring-calving dairy herd.
Barry and his wife Liz operate a spring-calving dairy herd of 440 Jersey-cross cows outside Nenagh, Co Tipperary. Opening grass cover was 877 kilos DM/ha, and cows are out day and night since January 25. Currently cows are grazing some heavier ground and the opening cover is quite low. Cows are currently being fed 4kg of a 16% nut. As of 12 February, 56% of the herd have been calved and Barry is still on track to keep his mortality rates around 3%.
Grass cover on the farm is currently 877 kilos DM/ha.
Calving
With over 93% of the 440-cow herd due to calve within six weeks, calving facilities are something Barry wants to improve on. He plans to build a custom calf shed in the future and at the moment is using six straw-bedded pens for calving cows and pens for the calves.
Calves leave the cows after their second feed to go to individual pens. The plan is for the new calf shed to have big open pens for the cows to calve in.
Ground held up well on the farm and grazing began on 25 January.
Due to a tight calving pattern and limited space, Barry or a night calver walks around at night to move cows about to calve from the cubicles to the straw pens. With 440 cows to calve down, it’s all hands on deck on the farm for the few weeks. There are night duty staff on the farm for the month of February who are on farm for five or six nights a week. These are students from Gurteen.
There are also two other full-time staff, alongside Barry’s brother Brian. Part-time staff are taken on for two months who will do weekend shifts.
Breeding
The breeding season on Barry’s farm started on 1 May for the cows, with the heifers starting a couple of days before this on 29 May. The heifers were synchronised, which helps Barry achieve a tight calving pattern. It’s a 50-50 split between bulls and heifers so far, and Barry has ordered sexed semen to use next year.
Barry does not keep any stock bulls and all animals are instead served with AI The first three weeks, the cows were served with AI for dairy replacements.
Barry is keen to improve his calving facilities as he has a tight calving pattern.
The cows that were not used to breed replacements got Hereford straws for a week, before Barry switched to using Wagyu straws for another week.
There were some Gene Ireland bulls used for cleanup, with some Aubrac straws used before finishing up with Hereford. The breading season on Barry’s farm lasted for 10 weeks.
Fertiliser
To date, 90% of the farm has had 23 units of protected urea. Barry’s target is for 75% of the nitrogen (N) spread to be protected urea. However, it was hard to find last year.
About 13% of the milking platform got 2,700 gallons/ac. Another five loads were spread on an outblock to take some pressure off tanks there.
Barry is keen to improve biodiversity on his farm and has planted a holly hedge.
Storage is tight on the farm and Barry plans to add another ring for one of the overground tanks which has just arrived on farm. This will add approximately 90,000 gallons of storage.
Clover
Clover is incorporated into some of the swards on Barry’s farm and has allowed him to cut N where he can. Clover was incorporated into the swards over the past few years through both reseeding and oversowing.
Some of the fields are in their third season of clover and N was cut to these areas last June. They will get no artificial N this year. Clover is incorporated into approximately 26% of the farm to-date, which will get artificial fertiliser as normal for the first part of the year, along with the rest of the non-clover swards on the farm before being cut to half artificial fertiliser after this.
To date, 26% of the swards on Barry's farm have clover in them, which is something that he is keen to improve on.
Barry is conscious that clover needs to be improved in certain areas of the farm. Barry is off to a good start in this regard, as soil pH across the farm is at 6.4 and clover requires a high pH to do well.
The farm is doing pretty good for P, with 72.6% of soils at Index 4 for P. Potassium (K) levels are a little low, with almost 80% of soils at index 3 and 4 for P and K.
Some areas of the farm are a little low for K, but Barry has K fertiliser purchased that he had planned to put out in the autumn. This will instead be spread this spring.
Silage ground is managed a little differently and takes priority for slurry. It will get 3,000 gallons/ac, while the rest of the farm will get 2,000 gallons/ac.
Farmer: Barry and Liz Powell.Location: North
Tipperary.Farm size: 170ha.Enterprise: Spring-calving dairy herd. 
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