Michael Golden farms in Drumacoo, Ballaghaderreen, Co Roscommon, alongside his wife Martina and three daughters Emily, Laura and Aoife. Between owned and rented ground, the farm extends to 80 acres, with a herd of 24 suckler cows.

Cow type consists of Charolais- and Limousin-cross cows. Michael says: “We have always been fond of Charolais here – to us, they are the number one breed. We sell all our stock through the mart ring, so you have to produce what the finisher wants and the Charolais calf seems to tick most of the boxes for that.”

Michael Golden.

Calving is split evenly between spring and autumn, which provides Michael with more positives than negatives.

“It splits up the workload firstly, and makes better use of the sheds. It also gives you stock to sell at times of the year that you wouldn’t have otherwise.

“The breeding season is much easier with the autumn herd as they are housed, which makes artificial insemination a much simpler task. I also like to calve some of the heifers at between 28 and 30 months, so the split calving lets me do this without a problem.”

Spring calving starts in late January and is finished in early April, while the autumn herd starts calving in mid-September through to the end of November.

Depending on the weather, Michael aims to keep autumn cows out until the end of calving. Once they come in, the calves are on a straw-bedded creep area behind the cows on slats. The calves also have access to the field behind the shed by day throughout the winter period.

“It’s one of the best things I have started doing in recent years. It is amazing how much time they will spend out there grazing. Calves are heavier since we started doing it. If the weather is bad I won’t let them out, but the next day you open the shed door they will be running out to the field.”

A further benefit of this is that it helps break the cow-calf bond and can help to reduce the amount of time it takes a cow to come back in heat, which will aid the maintenance of a tight calving period.

Land quality

Turnout in spring is usually in April for the cows, with young stock getting out earlier if ground conditions allow. While Michael describes the ground as being of marginal quality, he is certainly making the most of it with good swards of grass growing across the farm. He has carried out some reseeding over the years to improve grass quality and uses temporary electric fencing to split fields into paddocks to make best use of it.

“I prefer to reseed in the spring if I can. We have done autumn reseeding in the past, but if the weather turns poor it can be hard to get it grazed or to get a post-emergence spray on it – the spring reseed gives you more opportunities.”

“We sell everything through the mart. I think for smaller farmers with stock to sell once or twice a year there is no point going to the factory.

“If you have good stock and present them well there will always be competition around the ring.

“We have five autumn bull weanlings that will be heading for Ballymote Mart for the first of the weanling sales on Friday 11 September. They are on good grass and a couple of kilos of meal at the moment.”

The heifers are wintered on the farm and those not needed for breeding head to Mohill Mart in spring. Spring-born weanlings will begin to be sold from the end of October onwards.

Schemes

Michael is in this year’s BEEP-S scheme and will introduce meal to spring calves in the coming weeks. He is also in BDGP, which he has changed his opinion on over the years.

“I think it has worked. Farmers are definitely more focused on maternal genetics for breeding stock and there are more bulls to choose from that will give you the traits that you are looking for. We are 100% AI here so I can match a bull to every cow. Keeping milk in the system is very important.”

Breeding

It is clear that the breeding and genetics side of things is of real interest to Michael. This year, he has used a lot of Scardaune Mark (CH4491) and Loyal (LM4184) Bova bulls, as well as Fiston (FSZ) and Salers bull Knottown Roy (SA4604) from Progressive Genetics – all of which are five-star on both the terminal and replacement indices.

Future plans

“It’s hard to plan for the future at the moment with so much uncertainty – today’s plan could have changed by tomorrow. I hope to keep going as we are currently. There won’t be any major change in cow numbers over the next few years. If I was to lose some of the rented ground I might have to cut back a small bit.

“The weather is the biggest problem for us here. We are definitely getting more extremes than we used to.

“The land simply isn’t able to cope with the amount of rain it is getting at times. If we get a wet autumn, it can leave the housing period very long, which is difficult for everyone.”