Since joining the BETTER farm programme in 2012, Patrick Drohan has made massive progress on his farm, increasing cow numbers from 37 in 2011 to 60 this year.

The largest increase in cow numbers came about in 2012/13, when additional cows were purchased with the aim of increasing farm output. Last year, Patrick calved down 50 cows and is hoping to go to 65 cows next year.

He farms 46ha in two blocks on the edge of Kilmacthomas, Co Waterford. The farm is very dry in nature and, because of this, the herd is 100% spring-calving.

In the last few years, all efforts have been made to tighten the calving spread and to ensure calving coincides with high grass growth.

A fertile herd

While increasing cow numbers in recent years, he has not lost sight of the need to have a fertile herd that calves compactly.

On the topic of culling, Patrick’s message is clear: “There is no sentiment attached. If they do not go back in calf, they are culled.”

This is a focus that is benefiting the herd. The calving interval last year on the farm was 369 days and the herd produced 0.95 calves per cow per year. Mortality was an issue in 2012/13, when more cows were bought in prior to calving, but in the past few years, mortality has not been an issue. Mortality at birth in 2015 was 3.6%.

“Calving this year has gone very well so far. There have only been two calves that needed a pull and the jack was not used on either. Hopefully, the luck will continue for the last few cows that have to calve.”

Having a tight calving interval on the farm has allowed him to achieve better weight gains with calves and cattle, as they are at grass for longer, and all store cattle are now similar weights at sale.

Calving to grass

Because Patrick operates a suckler-to-store enterprise, he can afford to calve a week or two behind suckler-to-weanling producers.

The main issue that Patrick has faced in recent years is housing constraints. With higher cow numbers, there is significantly more pressure, especially during calving.

For that reason, Patrick tried to calve as many as early as possible last year and get the oldest calves out to grass to relieve pressure on housing.

The weather this spring was much worse than previous years, but Patrick had moved calving back by about a week this spring. He started calving on 13 January and, so far, has 52 out of 61 cows calved.

There are currently about 40 cows with January- and February-born calves at grass.

The remainder are still in the shed and are being fed 69DMD baled silage ad lib with no supplementation.

Last year, there was significant pressure on grass in the first rotation, which had an impact on the second rotation.

In 2015, cows started calving from 1 January onwards. This year, it was moved two weeks so they started calving from 13 January onwards. This may be brought forward another week for the coming year to have cows starting to calve from 21 January 2017.

The current focus is on tidying up the late calvers. Patrick’s aim is to have all cows calved by mid-April next year. This will mean culling the latest-calving cows or trying to pull their calving dates forward a week or two.

Balancing grass demand

The current challenge on the farm is balancing grass demand and supply.

Figure 2 shows the grass wedge for the farm. Although the wedge looks like he is on target, the fields with heavier grass covers are on an out-farm, which store cattle were only turned out to in the past few days.

Grass supply on the home farm is a little tighter than the graph shows. Slurry has been spread on silage ground at 2,500gals/acre. Fertiliser has been applied at about 27 units N/acre on grazed ground.

Because grass growth has been very slow, Patrick has decided to keep the remainder of the cows and calves indoors until grass growth improves.

The average farm cover is currently 653kg DM/ha and the cows and calves are currently grazing swards of 1,400kg DM/ha (9cm).

Reseeded sward useful

The main group of cows is currently grazing a field which was reseeded last autumn. The grass mix used included 2.5kg Abergain (late tretaploid), 2kg Kintyre (late tetraploid), 4kg Aberchoice (late diploid), 2.5kg Tyrella (late diploid) and 0.5kg Cloverblend. It was seeded in August and fertilised with three bags of 10:10:20/acre.

It was last grazed in October prior to closing for the winter. The field grew well over the winter and is currently being grazed with a pre-grazing yield of about 1,500kg DM/ha (10cm to 12cm).

Because this sward will respond very well to fertiliser, the current aim is to apply nitrogen to it once it is grazed, so that it will rejoin the grazing rotation quickly, allowing older swards a little more time to grow before being grazed for the second time.

Weight for age driven by grass and milk

Table 1 shows the weight gain for last year’s calves. In August, the bull calves weighed 289kg on average, while the heifers weighed 248kg at the same point.

The bulls and heifers were housed in late November and then weighed again on 7 December. At that stage, the bulls weighed 380kg and the heifers weighed 350kg.

The bulls gained 0.67kg/day over the winter on ad-lib 69DMD silage and 2kg of concentrates, while the heifers gained 0.7kg/day on the same feeding level.

The bulls weighed 429kg on 18 February and the heifers weighed 399kg on average at the same point. Supplementation ceased for four weeks prior to turn-out and both bunches went back to grass late last week. The target is to have heifers weighing 500kg to 520kg at sale in the autumn and for the bullocks to weigh 550kg to 600kg at sale.

Stars aplenty

There are two bulls on the farm. One is a Simmental that is five stars on the replacement index. He has a replacement value of €121 and is out of TSO. He is three stars on the terminal index.

In the past few years, Patrick has placed a lot of emphasis on milk in the cows. He currently has 38 out of 55 cows that have four or five stars.

The current group of 28 heifers scores very highly also. Twenty-three are five stars and the remaining five are four stars on the replacement index.