Despite farming on predominantly heavy land in the midlands, Frank and Des Beirne have managed to tighten the calving spread significantly on the farm, along with increasing their gross margin to €624/ha from €318/ha in 2011. They are hoping to reach a gross margin of €1,180/ha this year.

Before joining the Teagasc/Irish Farmers Journal BETTER farm programme, Frank and Des had already embarked on a process of increasing cow numbers and farm output after Des decided to start farming full-time with his father.

Initially, the Beirnes had 60 suckler cows, but expanded to 90 after calving down a group of bought-in heifers.

The farm extends to 85ha, 48ha of which is owned. Last year, the farm area increased to 92ha with the addition of more rented land. All land farmed is located within 10km of the main farmyard.

Herd makeup

The 95-cow herd is split into an autumn-calving and spring-calving herd, (70% spring and 30% autumn). The herd is a mixture of Charolais, Simmental and Limousin cross cows, with a clear focus on breeding from the milkier cows in the herd. There is also a small pedigree Charolais herd on the farm.

Maternal star-rated heifers have also been purchased for the commercial herd and Charolais replacements from the dairy herd have been sourced to increase the milk in the herd in previous years. The majority of the cows are bred to high-quality terminal Charolais stock bulls.

Breeding

As all spring farm walks are centred on breeding, the breeding gains and goals on the Beirne farm will take centre stage on the day.

Cow type on the farm is functional – cows are fertile, productive and have calves that achieve good weight for age.

Figure 1 shows the calving spread on the farm. Calving in autumn begins in August and ceases in October, a clearly defined 12-week interval. The spring herd starts calving in January and finishes in April. Last year, two cows calved in May, which will not happen this year.

Des said that the condensing of the calving periods has reduced the demand for labour on the farm considerably over the last few years. He said that they were previously calving cows in almost every month of the year and during busy periods, cows calving may not have received the attention they required.

Grassland production

The cows are grazed in three groups during the breeding season. The farm is divided into paddocks and grass is measured weekly. Bulls are grazed in groups of 14 to 16 and paddocks are set up to be grazed in two days and two nights.

Reseeding is carried out regularly, allowing the stocking rate on the farm to increase annually. Young swards are more productive and there has been an increase in grass growth of 6.5t/ha since 2011.

In 2011, the farm grew 7t DM/ha on average, while in 2014, there was 13.5t DM/ha grown. Des said that the main aim of this finishing system is to maximise grass in the diet and ultimately performance from grass.

In 2014, 19 finishing bulls weighing 372kg were turned out on 10 March. They were housed on 28 May at an average of 500kg, gaining 1.62kg/day from grass.

Output and margin

The finishing system on the farm centres on bringing bulls to beef at 16 to 20 months of age at a target average carcase weight of 400kg.

Heifers that are not retained as replacements are brought to beef at 20 to 24 months with a target carcase weight of 320kg to 330kg.

Over the past few years, there has been a clear focus on improving the stocking rate and output on the farm.

Reseeding and substantial investments in fertilizer application on the farm has allowed them to carry a higher stocking rate.

In 2013 the stocking rate peaked at 2.05LU/ha, as did output. However, the addition of more rented land in 2014 watered down the stocking rate and output/ha considerably. Despite this, the gross margin on the farm increased to €624/ha.

The gross margin in 2013 was poor at €261/ha. The main reason for this was a 45% increase in variable costs brought about by a bad spring, coupled with a fodder shortage.

To avoid such an occurrence happening again, surplus silage was made in 2013, which is in the yard as a buffer.

Fifty additional stock have been purchased, predominantly bulls, which were sourced during the winter period.

With the additional stock, the farm output is projected to be 1,030kg/ha and the gross margin for 2015 is expected to be over €1,100/ha.