New Ross, Co Wexford
John Watchorn is farming between Adamstown and New Ross in south Wexford. John operates a calf-to-beef system. He buys mostly Friesian bulls and rears them to finishing either as 18- to 19-month-old bull beef or 24-month-old bullocks.
He usually buys a mix of bull calves and weanlings. When the judges visited the farm in early September, he had 130 bullocks and 40 bulls on the farm.
John has made a huge effort to make the farm more efficient over the last number of years. He has done this by focusing on grassland management. The farm is well laid out with paddocks and temporary fences used to subdivide paddocks, allowing for 50 or 60 different divisions across the farm.
He calls rotational grazing a “miracle”, saying it has drastically improved animal performance and grass growth. The stocking rate on the farm is 2.45 livestock units/ha. Grass growth over the past three years (2015 to 2017) has averaged 12.8t/ha and John has walked the farm an average of 31 times a year.
Bryan Doocey, AIB; Shirley and John Watchorn, Niall Ryan, Department of Agriculture; John Maher, Teagasc; PJ O'Connor, Grassland Agro and Aidan Brennan, Irish Farmers Journal.
John’s aim is to run a profitable and easy-to-run farm. After a farm accident a few years ago, he set the farm up to be more labour-efficient and safer. Cattle being fed meal outside are fed using plastic inserts in round feeders. John can tip the meal into these from the front bucket of the tractor, meaning he doesn’t have to walk out among the cattle which is much safer.
The bulls are fed meal ad-lib for the last 70 to 100 days. They are housed and fed this in the shed along with straw. The bulls were brought into the shed in late summer and would be all finished by the time the bullocks need to be housed in early November, meaning two groups of stock go through the shed each year.
Asked why he buys dairy Friesian bulls and not beef breeds, he says the dairy animals are easier to manage and leave more profit than the beef breeds.
“My grandfather used to buy cattle at fairs. My father bought cattle at marts and I buy cattle at marts. The skill is not to know when to raise your finger, the skill is knowing when to drop your finger,” John says.
John reseeds 10% of the farm every year using varieties at the top of the Pasture Profit Index. Over the last few years, he has used a lot of Abergain, Aberchoice and Aston Energy. He also sowed 10 acres of fodder rape this year in response to the fodder crisis. The Redstart was sown on 27 July and was very advanced by the time the judges visited. The field is near the yard and John was planning to give cattle access to the field and the shed.
Soil fertility is good and improving. All the land is over pH of six and, while phosphorus is low, potassium levels are reasonably good. John spreads 1.5 bags/acre of 18:6:12 in spring and autumn.
Neil Boland, Enniscrone, Co Sligo.
Enniscrone, Co Sligo
Neil Boland is a contract-rearer from Sligo. The full-time farmer has moved away from sucklers and beef cattle to rearing dairy heifers for dairy farmers from the east. Neil has more than 300 animals on the 130ac farm. Of these, about half are zero to one-year-olds, while the other half are one- to two-year-old dairy heifers.
The farm is fragmented with eight separate blocks and Neil has animals on each block. His preference is to keep both groups of stock on each farm and practice a leader-follower system. Animals are moved between farms when necessary by a haulier.
Performance on this farm is excellent, both in terms of animals and grassland. Average grass growth over the past three years (2015 to 2017) has been 13t/ha and Neil measures on average 25 times per year. He weighs the stock every month and when the judges visited in early September both the grass and the stock looked excellent.
Neil’s arrangement with the owners of the stock are that they come at four weeks of age in early March. Neil rears the calves on milk replacer and meal and they are turned out to grass once weaned. These young calves then graze in front of the older heifers all summer. They are housed in late October or early November depending on grass growth, grazing conditions and average farm cover. Neil uses an autumn rotation planner to help him manage grass in the autumn.
The weanling heifers are fed silage and meal over the winter and are turned out in early March. This is the key to his system as the same slatted sheds where the weanlings are housed are power-washed out and turned into calf sheds. Neil beds the pens with straw and uses secondhand crowd-control barriers to keep the calves in the pens.
Having enough grass for the weanlings in spring is essential. Most of his land is relatively free-draining, but he has invested in drainage and grazing infrastructure to make early spring grazing possible. He has 25 reels for the spring.
“I hate seeing damage done to fields so I will move the heifers twice a day if necessary. I think smaller groups work best so I have a good few groups of stock going from the start. It’s a busy time but worth it as early grass is a great feed and the heifers thrive well. That said, this spring was very challenging because the weather was so bad,” Neil says.
If they need to be fed at grass he will feed them meal or silage on the roadway to prevent damage to fields. The 25 reels are used for splitting paddocks and back-fencing to reduce damage. The second round of grazing usually begins in early April. One-third of the farm gets slurry in early spring, one-third gets slurry and the other third has a heavy cover of grass so it gets slurry or fertiliser after grazing.
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New Ross, Co Wexford
John Watchorn is farming between Adamstown and New Ross in south Wexford. John operates a calf-to-beef system. He buys mostly Friesian bulls and rears them to finishing either as 18- to 19-month-old bull beef or 24-month-old bullocks.
He usually buys a mix of bull calves and weanlings. When the judges visited the farm in early September, he had 130 bullocks and 40 bulls on the farm.
John has made a huge effort to make the farm more efficient over the last number of years. He has done this by focusing on grassland management. The farm is well laid out with paddocks and temporary fences used to subdivide paddocks, allowing for 50 or 60 different divisions across the farm.
He calls rotational grazing a “miracle”, saying it has drastically improved animal performance and grass growth. The stocking rate on the farm is 2.45 livestock units/ha. Grass growth over the past three years (2015 to 2017) has averaged 12.8t/ha and John has walked the farm an average of 31 times a year.
Bryan Doocey, AIB; Shirley and John Watchorn, Niall Ryan, Department of Agriculture; John Maher, Teagasc; PJ O'Connor, Grassland Agro and Aidan Brennan, Irish Farmers Journal.
John’s aim is to run a profitable and easy-to-run farm. After a farm accident a few years ago, he set the farm up to be more labour-efficient and safer. Cattle being fed meal outside are fed using plastic inserts in round feeders. John can tip the meal into these from the front bucket of the tractor, meaning he doesn’t have to walk out among the cattle which is much safer.
The bulls are fed meal ad-lib for the last 70 to 100 days. They are housed and fed this in the shed along with straw. The bulls were brought into the shed in late summer and would be all finished by the time the bullocks need to be housed in early November, meaning two groups of stock go through the shed each year.
Asked why he buys dairy Friesian bulls and not beef breeds, he says the dairy animals are easier to manage and leave more profit than the beef breeds.
“My grandfather used to buy cattle at fairs. My father bought cattle at marts and I buy cattle at marts. The skill is not to know when to raise your finger, the skill is knowing when to drop your finger,” John says.
John reseeds 10% of the farm every year using varieties at the top of the Pasture Profit Index. Over the last few years, he has used a lot of Abergain, Aberchoice and Aston Energy. He also sowed 10 acres of fodder rape this year in response to the fodder crisis. The Redstart was sown on 27 July and was very advanced by the time the judges visited. The field is near the yard and John was planning to give cattle access to the field and the shed.
Soil fertility is good and improving. All the land is over pH of six and, while phosphorus is low, potassium levels are reasonably good. John spreads 1.5 bags/acre of 18:6:12 in spring and autumn.
Neil Boland, Enniscrone, Co Sligo.
Enniscrone, Co Sligo
Neil Boland is a contract-rearer from Sligo. The full-time farmer has moved away from sucklers and beef cattle to rearing dairy heifers for dairy farmers from the east. Neil has more than 300 animals on the 130ac farm. Of these, about half are zero to one-year-olds, while the other half are one- to two-year-old dairy heifers.
The farm is fragmented with eight separate blocks and Neil has animals on each block. His preference is to keep both groups of stock on each farm and practice a leader-follower system. Animals are moved between farms when necessary by a haulier.
Performance on this farm is excellent, both in terms of animals and grassland. Average grass growth over the past three years (2015 to 2017) has been 13t/ha and Neil measures on average 25 times per year. He weighs the stock every month and when the judges visited in early September both the grass and the stock looked excellent.
Neil’s arrangement with the owners of the stock are that they come at four weeks of age in early March. Neil rears the calves on milk replacer and meal and they are turned out to grass once weaned. These young calves then graze in front of the older heifers all summer. They are housed in late October or early November depending on grass growth, grazing conditions and average farm cover. Neil uses an autumn rotation planner to help him manage grass in the autumn.
The weanling heifers are fed silage and meal over the winter and are turned out in early March. This is the key to his system as the same slatted sheds where the weanlings are housed are power-washed out and turned into calf sheds. Neil beds the pens with straw and uses secondhand crowd-control barriers to keep the calves in the pens.
Having enough grass for the weanlings in spring is essential. Most of his land is relatively free-draining, but he has invested in drainage and grazing infrastructure to make early spring grazing possible. He has 25 reels for the spring.
“I hate seeing damage done to fields so I will move the heifers twice a day if necessary. I think smaller groups work best so I have a good few groups of stock going from the start. It’s a busy time but worth it as early grass is a great feed and the heifers thrive well. That said, this spring was very challenging because the weather was so bad,” Neil says.
If they need to be fed at grass he will feed them meal or silage on the roadway to prevent damage to fields. The 25 reels are used for splitting paddocks and back-fencing to reduce damage. The second round of grazing usually begins in early April. One-third of the farm gets slurry in early spring, one-third gets slurry and the other third has a heavy cover of grass so it gets slurry or fertiliser after grazing.
Read more
Sheep finalists in Grassland Farmer of the Year
First batch of 2017-born steers drafted in Newford Farm
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