The future direction of the beef market, customer demands for beef and optimising herd health will feature at a Kepak-run farm walk next week.

Brian and Noelle O’Keeffe’s dairy and beef farm in Glanworth, Co Cork will be open to the public next Wednesday 13 August as part of a sustainability farm walk event organised by Kepak.

Noelle works off-farm as an accountant and Brian runs a predominantly one-man show with the help of students from Moorepark who come in for milking.

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Farming 120ac of owned land and 190ac of rented land, Brian said that that the situation for grass currently is not great.

“I’m feeding silage for the last six weeks, you see we’re on limestone land here and it burns up very quick. This happened in 2018 as well. But that year we had cows out until Christmas, we thought that all the fertiliser we spread that year was gone to waste but it stayed in the ground, luckily,” he said

Milking 116 cows, Brian rears all his calves to beef. This system, Brian said, allows for a constant flow of money into the bank account.

Finances

“We dry off in November and you wouldn’t have a good milk cheque again until April. There was very little here before I started, and everything we’ve done to improve the place has been able to happen because of the cattle. I’d kill 25 or 30 cattle in January and another lot in February. It means you could have €20,000 there to go do something with it,” he said.

Taking over the farm from his late father in 2009, Brian continued the family tradition of milking cows. However, the thoroughbred horses that his father John bred didn’t continue under Brian’s watch – Brian has a grá for cows, cattle and machinery, and horses don’t make the cut.

The routine currently consists of Brian having to get up at 5am to put in silage and have cows in for an hour before milking.

“It just makes very hard work of it for the summer. This time of year all you should have to do with those cows is milk them and leave them in and out,” he said.

Despite it being a very dry summer in Glanworth, Brian’s spring-calving cows are milking very well. “They’re still doing around 22 litres, I’m happy enough with that and milk solids are good – the last collection they were at 4.54% fat and 3.61% protein. They’re also getting 6kg of nuts which is a lot for this time of the year,” he said. Having worked for a contractor before, Brian never did AI and just used stock bulls. This system continues to work for him and he has Friesian, Angus and Hereford stock bulls currently.

“I’d be selective with what cows I breed to the Friesian. I try to breed a robust sort of cow, my cows would be a Holstein-British Friesian mix.”

Not all the beef cattle on Brian’s farm are finished for the factory, some he sells as stores in the mart.

“I finish all the dairy-bred beef heifers and I might finish maybe 10 or 15 bullocks as well with it, but I’d sell all remaining bullocks at 16 or 18 months through the marts. I even sold cattle recently,” he said.

The event next Wednesday will focus on practical steps farmers can take to improve farm efficiency, meet evolving customer demands, and build resilient beef businesses.

Topics will include market insights, animal health, genetics, and sustainability supports. The event runs from 6pm to 9pm.