Last August, Owen Brodie had only 43% of his winter feed requirements in the yard. The reasons are obvious – the bad spring of 2018 ate into reserves and the dry summer meant the 2018 harvest was back on normal. Plus, the overall stocking rate on the farm in 2018 was high at 3.1 cows/ha. In a nutshell, 16tDM/ha was grown in 2017, but only 12t/ha was grown in 2018.
Owen is farming at Ryefield, near Virginia in Co Cavan. He is milking 200 spring-calving cows in a simple grass-based system. For the last number of years, he has been buying in about 20% of his winter feed. Meal feeding levels are usually around 500kg/cow, but last year this doubled to 1t/cow.
To make up the winter feed deficit that he had in August, Owen bought 250t of silage. But he also made full use of the excellent grass growth in autumn and over winter and he will now have silage left over. A Lakeland Dairies/Grass10 farm walk was held on the Brodie farm last Thursday.
Owen Brodie’s cows grazing happily last week.
Cows were out grazing last autumn until 21 November, which is about one week later than normal. The farm was closed at a cover of 588kg/ha and the opening cover was 1,050kg/ha, giving an over-winter growth rate of about 8kg/ha/day.
“After the horrendous spring in 2018, I decided to delay calving by a week this year. The planned start of calving was 3 February in 2018 but it was put back to 10 February this year. In hindsight, it probably wasn’t the best decision to make given how good February was this year. The plan is to start breeding the heifers on the last Monday in April this year and breed the cows on the first Monday in May,” Owen says.
Overall stocking rate will also be reduced in 2019. Owen recently purchased an 18ha out-farm, which he will use for making silage.
“The figures never added up for me to lease land to grow silage, but strangely enough they did add up for me to buy land. Luckily enough, I got to buy 18ha recently. The extra land will mean I won’t have to export slurry and it will take the pressure off the home farm to make more surplus silage.”
All heifers are contract-reared. They leave the farm as calves in April and return on the point of calving in January two years later. The fact that the heifers are not being wintered on the farm in their second year reduces the amount of silage that Owen needs to have on the farm. If the heifers came back in October or November, a lot more feed would be required for them. There is a potential 40% saving in silage if cull cows are sold early and in-calf heifers return late, presuming 20% of the herd is replaced every year.
Last year, the high-EBI herd (€145) produced 450kg of milk solids per cow (1,395kgMS/ha). The year before, they produced 436kgMS/cow. Most of the cows are Jersey crossbred and Owen is a big fan as health, fertility and production have all increased since he went crossbreeding. Ten years ago, when the herd was black and white, production was 320kgMS/cow.
There was a debate about his future breeding strategy considering the pressure on the dairy bull calf. The general consensus was that the value of all male calves has fallen, whether Jersey cross or Holstein Friesian, and the differential between the two has narrowed.
The priority for all farmers should be to minimise the number of dairy replacements and breed the rest to beef sires to produce a calf that will leave a sufficient margin for the beef farmer or exporter.
Owen had 70% of the cows calved in four weeks and is on track to have about 80% calved in six weeks.
A few years ago, Owen was achieving 90% calved in six weeks.
The first grazed paddock on the Brodie farm.
Last year, while pregnancy-scanning cows during the breeding season, he took dung samples from pregnant cows and cows that were not yet in-calf. Those that had not yet conceived had very high levels of rumen fluke and Owen believes this was affecting their performance and fertility. All cows are now treated for rumen fluke twice during the dry period.
Grazing
Cows went out on 5 February and 18ha or 31% of the farm was grazed in February. Last Thursday, Owen had 43% of the farm grazed. A lot of the land around Virginia is good and dry and Owen’s farm is no different. Most of the land is free-draining but he has some heavier land also. The cows were out grazing on the day of the walk and weren’t leaving a mark, despite a lot of rain after falling beforehand.
“We use on-off grazing a lot. On wet days, the cows mightn’t go out until 11am or 12pm and would come back in for milking at 4pm. We fiddle around with the time that they’ll go back to grass after milking. If it’s dry, they’ll go back straight away but we sometimes hold them in the yard for a few hours and then leave them out. We haven’t had to feed silage to milk cows so far. Sometimes the cows lie in the cubicle shed and other times we just leave them in the yard,” Owen says.
The average farm cover is currently 850kg/ha and growth rate last week was 18kg/day. Owen started off grazing light covers as the cows went through these faster and they recover faster also.
The first-grazed paddock has a cover back on it now of 600kg, giving a growth rate of about 20kg/day since grazing. Owen says it’s easier to get a good clean-out when grazing lighter covers but that it’s a balance between that and preventing displaced abomasums. He has had two cases of this so far this season.
Owen Brodie, Ryefield, Virginia, Co Cavan.
The planned start of the second rotation is 5 April, but this is flexible. Owen says it is all about how much grass grows between now and the end of March and he will speed up or slow down based on this. To slow down, he will feed 5kg or 6kg of meal, if necessary, or decide to keep cows in on silage on wet nights.
Teagasc adviser James Dunne said that feeding some silage was better at slowing cows down than feeding just meal.
Owen says he doesn’t want to go below an average farm cover of 400kg/ha. He says he has gone lower than this in the past and has learned from his mistake. He will walk the farm regularly over the next few weeks.
“The last thing I want to do is end up having to take out paddocks for silage in early April because this means I’ll have lost money. It cost money to put the grass there and taking out paddocks for silage means that other paddocks are probably gone stemmy. If there’s a risk of this happening I’ll reduce meal to 1kg or 2kg/day,” Owen says.
Cows are currently milking 19l at 5.02% fat and 3.81% protein, which is 1.73kgMS/cow and they are being fed 3kg of meal.
Read more
Greenfield farm update: protein takes a dip
Watch: spring calf health series - how to test colostrum
Last August, Owen Brodie had only 43% of his winter feed requirements in the yard. The reasons are obvious – the bad spring of 2018 ate into reserves and the dry summer meant the 2018 harvest was back on normal. Plus, the overall stocking rate on the farm in 2018 was high at 3.1 cows/ha. In a nutshell, 16tDM/ha was grown in 2017, but only 12t/ha was grown in 2018.
Owen is farming at Ryefield, near Virginia in Co Cavan. He is milking 200 spring-calving cows in a simple grass-based system. For the last number of years, he has been buying in about 20% of his winter feed. Meal feeding levels are usually around 500kg/cow, but last year this doubled to 1t/cow.
To make up the winter feed deficit that he had in August, Owen bought 250t of silage. But he also made full use of the excellent grass growth in autumn and over winter and he will now have silage left over. A Lakeland Dairies/Grass10 farm walk was held on the Brodie farm last Thursday.
Owen Brodie’s cows grazing happily last week.
Cows were out grazing last autumn until 21 November, which is about one week later than normal. The farm was closed at a cover of 588kg/ha and the opening cover was 1,050kg/ha, giving an over-winter growth rate of about 8kg/ha/day.
“After the horrendous spring in 2018, I decided to delay calving by a week this year. The planned start of calving was 3 February in 2018 but it was put back to 10 February this year. In hindsight, it probably wasn’t the best decision to make given how good February was this year. The plan is to start breeding the heifers on the last Monday in April this year and breed the cows on the first Monday in May,” Owen says.
Overall stocking rate will also be reduced in 2019. Owen recently purchased an 18ha out-farm, which he will use for making silage.
“The figures never added up for me to lease land to grow silage, but strangely enough they did add up for me to buy land. Luckily enough, I got to buy 18ha recently. The extra land will mean I won’t have to export slurry and it will take the pressure off the home farm to make more surplus silage.”
All heifers are contract-reared. They leave the farm as calves in April and return on the point of calving in January two years later. The fact that the heifers are not being wintered on the farm in their second year reduces the amount of silage that Owen needs to have on the farm. If the heifers came back in October or November, a lot more feed would be required for them. There is a potential 40% saving in silage if cull cows are sold early and in-calf heifers return late, presuming 20% of the herd is replaced every year.
Last year, the high-EBI herd (€145) produced 450kg of milk solids per cow (1,395kgMS/ha). The year before, they produced 436kgMS/cow. Most of the cows are Jersey crossbred and Owen is a big fan as health, fertility and production have all increased since he went crossbreeding. Ten years ago, when the herd was black and white, production was 320kgMS/cow.
There was a debate about his future breeding strategy considering the pressure on the dairy bull calf. The general consensus was that the value of all male calves has fallen, whether Jersey cross or Holstein Friesian, and the differential between the two has narrowed.
The priority for all farmers should be to minimise the number of dairy replacements and breed the rest to beef sires to produce a calf that will leave a sufficient margin for the beef farmer or exporter.
Owen had 70% of the cows calved in four weeks and is on track to have about 80% calved in six weeks.
A few years ago, Owen was achieving 90% calved in six weeks.
The first grazed paddock on the Brodie farm.
Last year, while pregnancy-scanning cows during the breeding season, he took dung samples from pregnant cows and cows that were not yet in-calf. Those that had not yet conceived had very high levels of rumen fluke and Owen believes this was affecting their performance and fertility. All cows are now treated for rumen fluke twice during the dry period.
Grazing
Cows went out on 5 February and 18ha or 31% of the farm was grazed in February. Last Thursday, Owen had 43% of the farm grazed. A lot of the land around Virginia is good and dry and Owen’s farm is no different. Most of the land is free-draining but he has some heavier land also. The cows were out grazing on the day of the walk and weren’t leaving a mark, despite a lot of rain after falling beforehand.
“We use on-off grazing a lot. On wet days, the cows mightn’t go out until 11am or 12pm and would come back in for milking at 4pm. We fiddle around with the time that they’ll go back to grass after milking. If it’s dry, they’ll go back straight away but we sometimes hold them in the yard for a few hours and then leave them out. We haven’t had to feed silage to milk cows so far. Sometimes the cows lie in the cubicle shed and other times we just leave them in the yard,” Owen says.
The average farm cover is currently 850kg/ha and growth rate last week was 18kg/day. Owen started off grazing light covers as the cows went through these faster and they recover faster also.
The first-grazed paddock has a cover back on it now of 600kg, giving a growth rate of about 20kg/day since grazing. Owen says it’s easier to get a good clean-out when grazing lighter covers but that it’s a balance between that and preventing displaced abomasums. He has had two cases of this so far this season.
Owen Brodie, Ryefield, Virginia, Co Cavan.
The planned start of the second rotation is 5 April, but this is flexible. Owen says it is all about how much grass grows between now and the end of March and he will speed up or slow down based on this. To slow down, he will feed 5kg or 6kg of meal, if necessary, or decide to keep cows in on silage on wet nights.
Teagasc adviser James Dunne said that feeding some silage was better at slowing cows down than feeding just meal.
Owen says he doesn’t want to go below an average farm cover of 400kg/ha. He says he has gone lower than this in the past and has learned from his mistake. He will walk the farm regularly over the next few weeks.
“The last thing I want to do is end up having to take out paddocks for silage in early April because this means I’ll have lost money. It cost money to put the grass there and taking out paddocks for silage means that other paddocks are probably gone stemmy. If there’s a risk of this happening I’ll reduce meal to 1kg or 2kg/day,” Owen says.
Cows are currently milking 19l at 5.02% fat and 3.81% protein, which is 1.73kgMS/cow and they are being fed 3kg of meal.
Read more
Greenfield farm update: protein takes a dip
Watch: spring calf health series - how to test colostrum
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