From 15 to 820 cows in three generations

Close to 2,000 people attended the Teagasc farm walk last week on the farm of father and son team Tom and Simon Browne in Killeagh in southeast Cork.

Tom is married to Betty and is well known as one of Ireland’s largest dairy farmers. In 1945, his parents moved from west Cork to Killeagh with just 15 cows. When Tom took over the family farm in 1975, the Brownes were milking 200 cows.

Within six years, Tom and Betty had grown the herd to 300 cows (there were no milk quotas in place then) and at that stage they owned close to 300 acres and leased other land.

As April 2015 approaches and Irish farmers again have the opportunity to start or expand in milk, Tom had a strong warning message. He said: “I see a great future in dairy farming, but with opportunity comes risk. More cows doesn’t always mean more money. We learned some hard lessons in the 1980s when interest rates hit over 20%.

“My advice is to borrow over a long enough term, put a reserve cash fund aside as a safety net and budget for increased volatility. Careful planning is needed for successful business growth.”

Tom has experienced the ups and downs of business expansion first hand. The 820-cow farm today is a credit to his own farming skill and ambition, business focus, and to years of hard work by him and his family. However, the business encountered significant challenges in the past.

Tom actually got out of cows in 1981 as high interest rates hit farms hard across the country and he had just made significant investments in land, stock and infrastructure. He sold the cows and some land and farmed all tillage, which was quite profitable at the time.

Tom got back into dairying with 180 cows in 1989 when a group of farmers successfully won the right to milk quota again through the Mulder quota deal. By 1991, there were 300 cows being milked and the herd stayed close to this number for the next 10 years.

Tom maintained a substantial tillage enterprise during this time also and was farming more than 800 acres in total. Four major land purchases totalling 315 acres during the 1990s meant the Brownes owned over 600 acres by 2000. Tom bought land, consolidated any milk quota on his home block and put the land in tillage. He was also one of the largest sugar beet growers in Ireland in the past. This process has allowed cow numbers increase to 820 cows today.

Progress

Today the Brownes farm 486ha (1,200 acres) in total, of which 166ha is leased. Much of the leased land is located within two miles of the home farm and is used for silage or zero grazing if needed. There is 210ha available for grazing around the parlour which means stocking rate is an intensive 3.9 cows/ha.

Cows calve on the farm from January to May. There is no winter/liquid milk quota on the farm, but 100 empty and late-calving cows were milked through the winter last year to achieve greater days in milk.

Sixty hectares of maize is grown every year to help produce enough winter feed for all stock. Most of this is grown around nine miles away from the home yard, with the farthest maize ground being 25 miles away. As well as the 820 cows, the Brownes have 370 heifer calves, 395 in-calf heifers, and 27 stock bulls.

Overall farm stocking rate is 2.6 livestock units per hectare.

Expansion

Attendees on the day marvelled at the top-class infrastructure the Brownes have put in place for the 820-cow herd. The main farm roadways are 10m wide, so the large herd can easily get to and from paddocks to the milking parlour.

The farmyard isn’t visible from the road as it is built into the side of a sandstone hill. A 60-unit Dairymaster rotary parlour was installed in 2000 and was the first of its kind in Ireland. Up to that point, the Brownes were milking 320 cows through a 22-unit herringbone parlour (15 rows).

By 2007, cow numbers had risen to 428. A 500-cow cubicle shed was built in 2009 in preparation for future expansion, bringing total cubicle numbers to 800.

Like any farm that has expanded over the last 10 years, a huge amount of money has been invested in quota which was always in high demand in the Dairygold catchment area.

Scale

Meticulous attention to detail is needed when farming at this scale and this is a key strength of the Browne operation. The cost of any management mistake is magnified considerably when milking 820 cows; there is very little room for error.

Both Tom and Simon are very hands-on in the business and Tom’s nephew Michael Browne takes charge of the machinery. The Brownes harvest all their own silage and use very little contracting. There are four other full-time labour units working on the farm. Simon is a trained accountant and worked for three years with FDC before returning home to farm three years ago.

Specialised part-time labour is a strong feature of the farm. For example, specific people are employed to calve cows at night and rear all calves. An ABS technician is employed to carry out all heat detection and AI for the first six weeks of breeding.

For every litre of milk produced on the farm in 2013, six cent was spent on labour which includes a nominal wage for Tom and Simon. While this equates to a labour bill of close to €300,000, a one-person unit milking 100 cows and paying themselves a wage of €30,000 is also the equivalent of a 6 c/l labour cost.

Co-ordinating this labour team to work across the 820 cows and 1,200 acres is in itself a huge achievement. Mistakes could easily be made, but the overall impression from seeing the farm suggests the Brownes are well in control given the scale at which they operate.

Simon said a key staff communication strategy was a meeting at breakfast so that everyone knows what’s to be done and by who.

Record-keeping on such a large farm has the potential to be a nightmare. Over the years, the Brownes have learned that it’s best that one person takes full responsibility for treatment records etc. Stock are vaccinated for all the major diseases as any outbreak on a farm of this scale could have devastating results. An auto-fill footbath is used daily by the herd and regular hoof paring helps prevent lameness. Cow welfare is a major farm priority.

Up to two years ago, 700 cows were run as one herd with a smaller herd of lame, high SCC and other problem cows. Now the herd is split in three – a mature herd of 400 cows, a younger herd of 360 cows and 60 cows in the hospital herd. The Brownes like to keep this herd at around 60 cows so it’s one full rotation of the parlour.

System

The farm grazing platform is stocked very highly at 3.9 cows/ha and so must grow 70kgDM/ha/day to feed the herd from grass only. There is adequate feed space for every cow on the farm.

A high stocking rate means risking a large feed bill. After the difficult spring in 2013 and as very little winter feed is conserved on the grazing platform, the Brownes bought 50ha of maize grown on contract to boost winter fodder reserves. This cost about 3 c/l in total and 975kg of meal was fed per cow last year also which added 5.5 c/l to production costs. Like most farms, cost of production was well up in 2013 and averaged 30c/l (see Table 1). From this must come tax, debt repayments and other drawings.

Tom has a lot of reseeding done in the previous 10 years which is paying big dividends. Teagasc estimates that Tom utilised 10t of grass DM/ha in 2013, but as Tom admits himself, measurement and grass management needs to improve and Simon is showing a big interest here.

Cow performance in 2013 was 439kgMS sold per cow (5,744 litres at 4% fat and 3.4% protein). Tom expects to produce close to 500kgMS/cow in the future as the herd is very young currently (60% first and second lactation) and has a lot of milk in its genetics.

Fertility

Cows calve on the farm from early January to the end of May – 22 weeks in total. This year, 72% of the herd (591 cows) calved in January and February, 19% (160 cows) calved in March and 8% (63 cows) calved in April and May.

Simon identified the calving spread as one of the key areas to be improved in the future. He said: “We have been aggressively growing the herd over the last number of years and so did very little culling. Now that we have reached peak numbers, we will try to reduce the calving spread.”

Calving interval and six-week calving rate on the farm are 383 days and 61%, respectively, both slightly better than the national average. After 22 weeks of breeding in 2013, there was still 10.5% of the herd empty, which is too high and can be improved.

Herd EBI is €131 (€47 milk/ €64 fertility), again about average. Tom said he was sceptical of the EBI in its early years and was concerned about sacrificing milk yield for fertility gains.

Simon is much more convinced and believes by using the EBI and looking at the milk and fertility sub-indices, it’s possible to breed a more profitable cow. Six weeks of AI is carried out every year and the average EBI of the 2014 bull team is €211 but varies from €150 to €250.

Many visitors on the day asked “What is the next step for the Browne dairy business?”

Obviously they can generate a lot of stock quickly and so could look at setting up a second unit or intensifying the current business.

Simon wasn’t committing to anything in the near future, saying: “Intensifying this business further would probably be very small-margin work as the extra cows would be nearly completely fed on imported feed. With 820 cows, any improvement in efficiency can pay back hugely. While we have scale, the business has borrowed and invested a lot to get where we are today. We will consolidate for now.”

Tom’s concluding comment was to approach the quota removal opportunity with balanced caution.

He said: “Farmers are eternal optimists and are always holding out for that really good year where price, weather and performance all match up. I am 66 now and I’m still waiting for that year.

“There are many issues to consider when expanding – growing stock numbers is a serious financial challenge. Your home-bred heifers arrive into the parlour and because you didn’t buy them, you don’t think about all the costs associated with rearing them. They kill cashflow.

“Borrowing is the other key area – don’t try and pay back loans in the short term and put the business under extra pressure. If you have a good year, you can always pay back extra.

“Expansion is not for everyone, but if you have an efficient base, a good opportunity and the right skills, there is huge potential in Ireland. We probably lost a generation of good farmers in Ireland due to milk quota in the past and the future, for young people especially, is very bright.”