As has been well-documented over the past month, this year's Teagasc/Irish Farmers Journal BETTER Farm Beef Challenge autumn walks series set out an agenda of four walks across the country covering fodder, finance and herd health.

On Thursday, the final walk of the series took place in Co Louth on Martin O'Hare’s 60ha-suckler and tillage farm.

At the first stand on the day, Martin, along with his local Teagasc B&T adviser Hugh Rooney and Teagasc BETTER Farm adviser Tommy Cox, opened up proceedings by introducing Martin’s system and his targets for the programme.

The farm system comprises of under 16-month bull beef, 20-month heifer beef and keeping replacement heifers.

Martin is also operating a split-calving herd of around 90 cows, with approximately two-thirds calving in the spring and the remaining third calving in the autumn.

On that approach, Martin said: “I find split calving breaks up the work load a bit, especially in a year where the autumn is dry it leave calving very straight forward”

Fodder

On the topic of fodder, Hugh Rooney went through Martins fodder budget.

Martin also explained that the drought had a severe impact on grass, as well as silage stocks in the yard.

“We started feeding silage on 20 June due to drought here. Around 2t/day was fed with the diet feeder in paddocks for over 60 days. It was very difficult time here.”

Asked how he would try to counteract future difficulties with grass or silage supplies, Martin said: “I think it’s hard to prepare for those scenarios, but from now on I will have to constantly work towards making as much silage as possible to have a back-up in the yard.”

Tommy Cox reiterated this point saying: “We are playing with fire to some extent with the high-stocking rates on the BETTER farms. For this reason, we need a buffer farms.”

Finance

Kevin Connolly addressed the audience on finance. As farmers walked over to him from the herd health stand, he joked that “unfortunately unlike the last stand on health, there is no vaccination for cashflow difficulties on a farm”.

Furthermore, he went on to say that “there’s been a lot of farm transactions over the past few months with straw and fodder with neighbours. Don’t forget about this. When the pressure comes on, it tends to be the letters and bills we respond to and forget about the quiet ones".

He also warned farmers that “one of the biggest bills facing farmers this year, particularly if they had a good year last year, is the tax bill so try and get a handle on that".

Herd health

Local vet Gerry O’Dowd spoke in particular about IBR in the herd and the current IBR eradication pilot programme that is being trialled on all of the BETTER farms. He told farmers that “IBR is a herpes virus - it’s the same as a cold sore in humans. If you get stress, an underlying cold sore will come out.

"The same happens if an animal gets stressed, IBR can break out.”

His further advice was that every farm is different when it comes to tackling IBR so specific plans need to be tailored to each individual farm.

See this week’s Irish Farmers Journal for a selection of highlights from the four BETTER Farm Beef Challenge autumn walks