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Nigel O’Kane represents Galway in the BETTER farm programme. A full-time plumber with his own business, he runs his 25ha suckler and sheep farm just outside Claregalway.
Nigel O’Kane represents Galway in the BETTER farm programme. A full-time plumber with his own business, he runs his 25ha suckler and sheep farm just outside Claregalway.
The majority of the farm is in one block around the home yard, all of which is free-draining, with 80% of the land being at optimum levels for soil Ph and 60% of the land is at optimum levels for P and K.
Nigel’s cow type would be mainly Charolais cross. However, in the last couple of years Limousin and Simmental have been introduced to boost maternal traits.
He brings all stock to slaughter. Bulls are finished at under 16 months and any heifers that are not selected for breeding are slaughtered before they reach 24 months of age. He also buys in 25 dairy cross calves each year and rears them to 20-month-old stores.
Calving
Calving went extremely well again this year, with no losses at birth.
Nigel said: “There were no real difficulties with calving this spring. The majority of my cows calved themselves. I monitor them very closely during calving season.
“The only difficult calvings were two dairy cross heifers, both of which needed some assistance at calving. Nigel has an impressive calving record on the farm. The calving statistic for 2018 is 0% mortality at birth and there are currently 1.04 calves per cow at grass.”
Breeding
One hundred per cent of all breeding stock has been submitted for AI. All cows were finished calving by the first week of April and the breeding season commenced on 1 May.
Nigel used a vasectomised bull as a method of heat detection and it has worked very well. All cows and heifers have been submitted for AI and conception rate to first service is 85%.
All cows and heifers will be scanned in August and any cows that are not in-calf will be culled and any empty heifers will be finished for slaughter under 24 months.
Nigel likes to keep a tight calving spread. The average calving interval on the farm is an impressive 364 days. AI sires that have been used for the 2018 breeding season include Voimo (VMO), Castleview Gazelle (ZAG), Lisnacrann Fifty cent (SI2469) and Moondharrig Knell (LM4217).
Silage
First-cut silage was taken on 26 May. Nigel was happy with the yield at 10 bales per acre. Fertiliser was spread on 12 April. Silage fields received 90 units of nitrogen per acre and one and a half bags of 0-7-30. Prior to that, 3,000 gallons per acre of slurry was spread.
Nigel will aim for a second cut from all first-cut silage fields as he will need to bulk up silage supplies for next winter.
Grass growth
Growth is very good on the farm at present. A growth rate of 113kg/DM/ha was recorded last week.
“Grazing paddocks had really started to dry up last week and this was beginning to affect growth rate. However, rain over the weekend helped things get back on track. Covers are starting to get a little heavy but I plan to take out surplus paddocks in the coming week,” Nigel said.
All pasture ground got slurry and urea early in the spring. The soil is quite high in P and K and did not require any further fertiliser application since then but it will require a top up around the middle of this month.
Calf to store
Each year, a number of calves are bought to try to increase the farm’s overall output. Dairy-cross calves are bought in at approximately three weeks of age and fed on milk replacer along with concentrates and hay.
Once the calves are eating a sufficient amount of concentrates, they are weaned from the milk replacer and let out to quality grass. They are kept for one winter then sold off the farm as stores at 20 months.
Nigel does not usually feed these on for slaughter as he finds them difficult to finish at a young age. His target weight for sale is between 470-500kg.
Home-bred stock
Nigel usually finishes all his home-bred bulls at under 16 months and heifers under 24 months. However, this year he was unable to successfully do this with his under-16-month bulls. Due to the exceptionally hard spring, Nigel didn’t get cattle out on time and silage supplies ran out, leaving him with no other choice but to sell some stock.
He sold all his under-16-month bulls at the beginning of March. They were an average weight of 420kg and sold for an average price of €1,050.
Nigel O’kane in numbers
0. 0% mortality at birth on the farm this year.
190. 190 Bales yield from the first cut of silage from 19 acres.
100. 100% of breeding stock have been submitted for AI
113. The number of Kg/ DM/ ha of grass growing on the farm in last week.
364. Average calving interval on the farm
Adviser comment
John Greaney
Nigel’s 2017 gross margin was €881/ha, an increase of €200/ha from the previous year. I have no doubt Nigel can surpass the €1,250/ha gross margin target if he continues to make small changes and push his stocking rate that little bit further. The farm is very much run in sync with Nigel’s off-farm job, coupled with having a young family. His keen interest in breeding prior to joining the programme has definitely contributed to hitting all KPIs on the calving report.
Farmers at this week’s Teagasc national sheep conferences were told that thin ewes are a continual drain on productivity and increase the risk of disease establishing.
"The strength of the breeding programme in Ireland has delivered great progress for dairy farmers." - Mike Magan, Dairy farmer, Killashee, Co Longford.
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