Expanding for the right reasons was the theme of the recent LIC monitor farm walk in Tipperary. The expansion story itself is straightforward; a 104-acre farm across the road from the Kirwan’s 66 acres came up for lease in 2015 and cow numbers increased from 70 to 195 over the past two years.
But the big message from this farm walk was that it’s not just about the cow numbers. There is a human story behind expansion. Joe was 52 years of age when he took on the lease. With eight children to be reared and brought through college, Joe worked off-farm for the past 11 years as the manager of Eurogene AI in Cahir.
The other big change that has taken place on the Kirwan farm is the change in cow type. Ten years ago, Joe and Kathleen had one of the highest-yielding herds in Tipperary with large Holstein Friesian cows milking close to 9,000 litres per year. Joe is a passionate stockman and takes great pride in his cows.
Change happened six years ago, before there was ever talk of expansion.
“I did the very thing I was telling farmers not to do, and that’s dabble using Kiwi Cross bulls. When those first few heifers came in milking I was kicking myself for not using the full cross and not doing more of it,” Joe said.
The first decision to go crossbreeding was driven by the desire to have a more easy care cow and increase the milk price by rapidly improving fat and protein percentages. “Everything looked rosy on the outside. We were producing lots of milk and you’d say that you couldn’t but be making money, but by the time everyone was paid there was nothing left for Joe,” Joe said.
In 2015, he got the opportunity to rent 104 acres across the road from the farm. It was always his dream to milk more cows but access to land and milk quota held him back. But with land and quota no longer an issue, he leased the farm and set about developing a 200-cow farm with Kathleen.
The goal is to milk 220 cows in a husband-and-wife team. The milking platform is now 63ha, with a further 10ha of land for silage. Heifers are contract-reared after two weeks of age.
“The first year we got the extra land we arsed around, cutting and selling extra silage and didn’t really increase cow numbers. We had no extra money by the end of the year and would have been better off if we didn’t take on the land. The second year was much better. We bought cows to bring us up to 130 and things went well but lifestyle suffered dramatically. I was still working off-farm and we were both wrecked from work,” Joe said.
This year, cow numbers are up to 195 and Joe has given up working with Eurogene so both himself and Kathleen are on the farm full-time as the farm now has scale.
“We have eight children so I needed to go working. The advice I would have for anybody is not to stay at home on a non-viable farm. You must make the farm a viable unit, either for a family member to come on board or to take a step back and employ a farm manager,” Joe said.
Performance
The herd is young, with one-third of the cows’ at first lactation and one-third second lactation. Around 66% of the herd is crossbred, but 50% are Jersey crossbred. Some of the purchased cows were Norwegian Red and other crossbreeds that were purchased in.
The target this year is to produce 408kg of milk solids per cow. Last year, the herd produced 421kg of milk solids per cow, but the herd is younger this year having increased from 130 to 195 cows. Meal feeding last year was 630kg/cow.
LIC consultant Bess Jowsey, who is based in Scotland but visits Joe’s farm once a month, says the main challenge on the farm is fertility. Seventy-two per cent of the cows calved in six weeks this year and the three-week submission rate was 76%, while the targets are 90% in both cases.
Bess says that achieving the six-week calving rate of 90% will be central to the farm returning more profit. The target is to produce milk for 18c/l (profit monitor costs).
The spread-out calving pattern is a direct result of a spread of breeding season. Pulling the bulls out early is something Joe has been struggling with as he is trying to increase cow numbers. Leaving the bulls in for longer will achieve this, but the calving pattern goes wrong. Joe took out the bulls last weekend.
“There were still cows calving here last May. I remember having cows up the crush for AI and still having some of the old cows in the calving shed waiting to calve. At the same time there were little Jersey crossbreds out the field producing 2kg of milk solids a day since 1 February. It hammered it home to me about the importance of compact calving,” Joe said.
The stocking rate on the milking platform is 3.1 cows/ha this year. With 220 cows next year, the stocking rate will increase to 3.5 cows/ha. The back calculation showed that grass eaten last year was 13.3t/ha. The target is to utilise 14.3tDM/ha. Joe is measuring grass once a week now.
Breeding
LIC manager for New Zealand Malcolm Ellis spoke about changes in the world market and how the demand for dairy products is changing, particularly fats. Malcolm used to run the breeding programme for LIC.
He said that 15 years ago, the dairy industry in New Zealand predicted that fat would be only worth 6.7% of what protein is worth today. He said that looking at the last GDT auction, butter was actually worth 181% of the value of protein.
While he says he thinks the current spike in butter won’t be sustained long-term, he does think that the payment differential for butter will be changed to reflect its current demand in the marketplace, predicting that butter and protein will be paid on a 1:1 basis.
“This has consequences for our breeding strategy. Too often, we as farmers live in the here and now and fail to look far enough ahead. With fat increasing in value, the relative EBI or BW of Jersey crossbred cows is going to increase,” Malcolm said.
He said that at the moment farmers are being underpaid for fat by milk processors as payment systems lag behind the market. Breeding policies reflect payment systems. His argument was that farmers should pre-empt changes in payment systems and start to focus on increasing fat percentage as much as protein percentage.
Joe’s breeding policy has been to use purebred Jersey sires on his Holstein Friesian cows and then use Kiwi Cross bulls on these animals. A good share of his stock is sired by the crossbred bull PSQ. This breeding policy was supported by Malcolm Ellis. He said that those on more challenging land or that have higher fixed costs should consider using a Kiwi Cross as the first cross as output will be higher from these 25% Jersey animals.
The LIC speakers on the day were less enthusiastic about the benefits of hybrid vigour than we heard about at the Moorepark Open Day. Using Kiwi Cross bulls reduces the hybrid vigour effect. The argument from LIC is that the ideal cow is a 50:50 Jersey:Holstein Friesian cross and using Kiwi Cross sires will maintain this.
The question I have is are we breeding cows or are we breeding a herd? The science tells us that crossbreeding with pure breeds maximises hybrid vigour. Using crossbreed sires reduces this and effectively creates a new breed so why bother?
While the Kiwi Cross sires do produce lovely animals, long term I think sticking with purebred sires is a better option. This means criss-crossing using a high EBI Holstein Friesian on a 50:50 Jersey cross and then using a high EBI Jersey sire on the 75% Holstein Friesian cow which will give a cow that is 63% Jersey. Continuing to cross breed like this will deliver animals that are roughly 60:40 in favour of one or other breed.
Over time, 50% of the AI straws used will be Jersey and 50% will be Holstein Friesian, so the same percentage of each breed will be used as in Kiwi Cross, but there will be an added gain from hybrid vigour. It should be up to the AI industry to provide the best sires within each breed.
Joe and Kathleen Kirwan took on a new lease in 2015 and increased herd size from 70 to 200 cows.Improvements need to be made in herd fertility to get six week calving rate from 72% to 90%.The target this year is to produce 408kg of milk solids per cow.LIC speakers were promoting the use of KiwiCross sires.
Expanding for the right reasons was the theme of the recent LIC monitor farm walk in Tipperary. The expansion story itself is straightforward; a 104-acre farm across the road from the Kirwan’s 66 acres came up for lease in 2015 and cow numbers increased from 70 to 195 over the past two years.
But the big message from this farm walk was that it’s not just about the cow numbers. There is a human story behind expansion. Joe was 52 years of age when he took on the lease. With eight children to be reared and brought through college, Joe worked off-farm for the past 11 years as the manager of Eurogene AI in Cahir.
The other big change that has taken place on the Kirwan farm is the change in cow type. Ten years ago, Joe and Kathleen had one of the highest-yielding herds in Tipperary with large Holstein Friesian cows milking close to 9,000 litres per year. Joe is a passionate stockman and takes great pride in his cows.
Change happened six years ago, before there was ever talk of expansion.
“I did the very thing I was telling farmers not to do, and that’s dabble using Kiwi Cross bulls. When those first few heifers came in milking I was kicking myself for not using the full cross and not doing more of it,” Joe said.
The first decision to go crossbreeding was driven by the desire to have a more easy care cow and increase the milk price by rapidly improving fat and protein percentages. “Everything looked rosy on the outside. We were producing lots of milk and you’d say that you couldn’t but be making money, but by the time everyone was paid there was nothing left for Joe,” Joe said.
In 2015, he got the opportunity to rent 104 acres across the road from the farm. It was always his dream to milk more cows but access to land and milk quota held him back. But with land and quota no longer an issue, he leased the farm and set about developing a 200-cow farm with Kathleen.
The goal is to milk 220 cows in a husband-and-wife team. The milking platform is now 63ha, with a further 10ha of land for silage. Heifers are contract-reared after two weeks of age.
“The first year we got the extra land we arsed around, cutting and selling extra silage and didn’t really increase cow numbers. We had no extra money by the end of the year and would have been better off if we didn’t take on the land. The second year was much better. We bought cows to bring us up to 130 and things went well but lifestyle suffered dramatically. I was still working off-farm and we were both wrecked from work,” Joe said.
This year, cow numbers are up to 195 and Joe has given up working with Eurogene so both himself and Kathleen are on the farm full-time as the farm now has scale.
“We have eight children so I needed to go working. The advice I would have for anybody is not to stay at home on a non-viable farm. You must make the farm a viable unit, either for a family member to come on board or to take a step back and employ a farm manager,” Joe said.
Performance
The herd is young, with one-third of the cows’ at first lactation and one-third second lactation. Around 66% of the herd is crossbred, but 50% are Jersey crossbred. Some of the purchased cows were Norwegian Red and other crossbreeds that were purchased in.
The target this year is to produce 408kg of milk solids per cow. Last year, the herd produced 421kg of milk solids per cow, but the herd is younger this year having increased from 130 to 195 cows. Meal feeding last year was 630kg/cow.
LIC consultant Bess Jowsey, who is based in Scotland but visits Joe’s farm once a month, says the main challenge on the farm is fertility. Seventy-two per cent of the cows calved in six weeks this year and the three-week submission rate was 76%, while the targets are 90% in both cases.
Bess says that achieving the six-week calving rate of 90% will be central to the farm returning more profit. The target is to produce milk for 18c/l (profit monitor costs).
The spread-out calving pattern is a direct result of a spread of breeding season. Pulling the bulls out early is something Joe has been struggling with as he is trying to increase cow numbers. Leaving the bulls in for longer will achieve this, but the calving pattern goes wrong. Joe took out the bulls last weekend.
“There were still cows calving here last May. I remember having cows up the crush for AI and still having some of the old cows in the calving shed waiting to calve. At the same time there were little Jersey crossbreds out the field producing 2kg of milk solids a day since 1 February. It hammered it home to me about the importance of compact calving,” Joe said.
The stocking rate on the milking platform is 3.1 cows/ha this year. With 220 cows next year, the stocking rate will increase to 3.5 cows/ha. The back calculation showed that grass eaten last year was 13.3t/ha. The target is to utilise 14.3tDM/ha. Joe is measuring grass once a week now.
Breeding
LIC manager for New Zealand Malcolm Ellis spoke about changes in the world market and how the demand for dairy products is changing, particularly fats. Malcolm used to run the breeding programme for LIC.
He said that 15 years ago, the dairy industry in New Zealand predicted that fat would be only worth 6.7% of what protein is worth today. He said that looking at the last GDT auction, butter was actually worth 181% of the value of protein.
While he says he thinks the current spike in butter won’t be sustained long-term, he does think that the payment differential for butter will be changed to reflect its current demand in the marketplace, predicting that butter and protein will be paid on a 1:1 basis.
“This has consequences for our breeding strategy. Too often, we as farmers live in the here and now and fail to look far enough ahead. With fat increasing in value, the relative EBI or BW of Jersey crossbred cows is going to increase,” Malcolm said.
He said that at the moment farmers are being underpaid for fat by milk processors as payment systems lag behind the market. Breeding policies reflect payment systems. His argument was that farmers should pre-empt changes in payment systems and start to focus on increasing fat percentage as much as protein percentage.
Joe’s breeding policy has been to use purebred Jersey sires on his Holstein Friesian cows and then use Kiwi Cross bulls on these animals. A good share of his stock is sired by the crossbred bull PSQ. This breeding policy was supported by Malcolm Ellis. He said that those on more challenging land or that have higher fixed costs should consider using a Kiwi Cross as the first cross as output will be higher from these 25% Jersey animals.
The LIC speakers on the day were less enthusiastic about the benefits of hybrid vigour than we heard about at the Moorepark Open Day. Using Kiwi Cross bulls reduces the hybrid vigour effect. The argument from LIC is that the ideal cow is a 50:50 Jersey:Holstein Friesian cross and using Kiwi Cross sires will maintain this.
The question I have is are we breeding cows or are we breeding a herd? The science tells us that crossbreeding with pure breeds maximises hybrid vigour. Using crossbreed sires reduces this and effectively creates a new breed so why bother?
While the Kiwi Cross sires do produce lovely animals, long term I think sticking with purebred sires is a better option. This means criss-crossing using a high EBI Holstein Friesian on a 50:50 Jersey cross and then using a high EBI Jersey sire on the 75% Holstein Friesian cow which will give a cow that is 63% Jersey. Continuing to cross breed like this will deliver animals that are roughly 60:40 in favour of one or other breed.
Over time, 50% of the AI straws used will be Jersey and 50% will be Holstein Friesian, so the same percentage of each breed will be used as in Kiwi Cross, but there will be an added gain from hybrid vigour. It should be up to the AI industry to provide the best sires within each breed.
Joe and Kathleen Kirwan took on a new lease in 2015 and increased herd size from 70 to 200 cows.Improvements need to be made in herd fertility to get six week calving rate from 72% to 90%.The target this year is to produce 408kg of milk solids per cow.LIC speakers were promoting the use of KiwiCross sires. 
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