Kevin Feeney farms just outside of Ballinrobe in Co Mayo on 24ha of fragmented land. The farm runs a flock of 80 ewes as well as buying in about 50 calves to bring through to beef every year. The purchasing of calves is generally split, with half of the calves purchased in autumn and the remainder in the spring.

“Going back historically we would have always have had dairy stock on the farm. Back in the 1980s we had 10 dairy cows and along with everything else on the farm they were able to support the family,” Kevin said.

“We got out of dairy in 2000 and got into 20 suckler cows. We kept these going until 2015 and then we sold them off. The main reasons for getting out of the sucklers was the fragmented land and the changing climate.

“The weather has been getting more and more unpredictable so it made getting cows out to grass in the spring more challenging and if it came wet and you had to bring cows back in it was difficult if they were on land that is away from the shed.”

Before making the jump from sucklers, Kevin experimented with eight or nine dairy-bred calves to see how they would fit into the system.

“I could never stand land being poached. It takes too much time and money to get it right and with sucklers, especially in the shoulders of the year, land could get damaged. With calves you can get them out early, keep them out and they will do very little damage. I find them very easy stock to handle.”

Fragmented land

The 24ha farm is split into six different blocks. While the blocks are predominantly within 1km in either direction from the home yard, it does create difficulty when moving stock between blocks. Kevin places a big focus on ensuring he has good-quality grass available to stock, with nearly half of the farm reseeded in the past 10 years.

“The ewes and the calves can work very well together. We lamb down ewes from mid-February on and aim to sell 1.8 lambs/ewe after scanning two lambs/ewe. We currently have 110 lambs sold with a further 45 to go which will be drafted as they come fit. We would generally have the majority of lambs gone by the end of June.”

Combining a sheep flock and a dairy calf to beef system has worked very well so far on this farm as it helps to balance grass supply and demand.

“As we sell off lambs the grass demand from the sheep side decreases while at the same time the demand from the calves is always growing as the year progresses. Having different groups of stock can work well for a fragmented farm. It means I can put yearlings on one block and leave them there for the summer while ewes can be on another block.”

Increasing the number of paddocks on the farm is an ongoing process for Kevin: “We have installed a lot of paddocks on the farm but still have more to do, predominantly the farm would be split into 2ac paddocks while we would have 0.5ac paddocks for calves. The difference that split paddocks can make when it comes to grass growth is huge. It gives grass a chance to recover if you are only grazing for three or four days.”

Balancing grass at this time of year is no easy task. With supplies getting tight on the farm 10 days ago, the explosion of growth since means that grass can quickly get away from stock. This is where walking the farm regularly can pay dividends.

Walking the farm earlier in the week and measuring grass helped to identify paddocks with covers of 1,800kg DM/ha that will be targeted for grazing immediately as the land would not be suitable for silage so there was no option to skip it in the rotation.

Like many farms in environmental schemes, Kevin has 10 acres of land designated under the curlew measure through GLAS. This must be managed in an extensive way, with strip grazing or rotational grazing now permitted. Additionally, no chemical fertiliser can be spread, and it cannot be topped until 15 July. While this land can be difficult to manage, the environmental payments are vital to the income of the farm.

Improving quality

The farm has a mix of yearling bullocks and heifers with the aim to finish the heifers at grass with some meal supplementation, eliminating the need for them to be housed in the autumn. Bullocks will be housed for six to eight weeks and finished before Christmas. In previous years cattle have killed out at 270kg to 280kg.

“What I really want to do on the dairy beef side of things is to try and improve the quality of the animal that I am sending to the factory by using a better-quality calf. If I can improve the grading it could lead to a more profitable system,” Kevin said.

He has yet to bring any of the autumn-born calves through to slaughter but he sees them as a good way of improving cashflow.

“The way I look at the autumn calves is that by the time you come to March or April of the first grazing season, they have a much bigger demand for grass and they are able to utilise it. If you are finishing these heifers at around 19-20 months in June, for example, you will hopefully be finishing cattle when prices are higher. It also means you have cashflow coming at different times of the year,” Kevin said.

The plan is to move to all heifer beef and finish 50 cattle/year so that all yearling stock could be kept in one group for ease of management.

Family bonus

“Like any fragmented farm where you are working off farm it would not be possible if I didn’t have good help from my family. My father Kieran and my wife Carmel along with our daughter Chloe and her boyfriend Eoin Walsh are a massive help throughout the year,” Kevin said. Additionally Kevin is also part of the South Mayo Lamb Producers group which gives the farmers involved in the group increased selling power for stock and buying power for certain inputs. He, as part of a 30-farmer group, is also part of the Ballinrobe Beef group which acts as a purchasing group for meal for the beef enterprises run on these farms.