Farming sucklers alongside tillage outside Ballybrittas, Co Laois, the focus of Andrew Mulhare’s farm is to maintain a simple system that works well alongside off-farm employment. Andrew works part-time with a local agri-consultant.

At the moment, Andrew is in the middle of his calving season. The suckler herd is all autumn-calving, as it gives Andrew the chance to AI them when they are housed. This saves him having to bring them in from the fields when he is working off-farm.

A tight calving interval is in place on the farm, which Andrew believes leaves him with a few more cull cows, but he still finds a tight calving group is better suited to his system. The herd fluctuates from 35 to 40 cows.

All cows are artificially inseminated from approximately 22 November to 22 January, and Andrew uses vasectomised bulls to aid heat detection.

All bulls are slaughtered at 16 months, while the heifers are kept as replacements or fattened.

In terms of breeds, Andrew uses mostly Simmental straws as he finds the breed to be easier calving with a hardy calf that gets up and suckles quickly.

Some of the yearlings on the farm.

He also adds that in terms of replacements, they are a quiet cow, with plenty of milk.

Tillage

Andrew runs a tillage enterprise alongside his suckler herd. The system is straightforward.

Spring and winter barley are grown, with the spring barley going for malting. Andrew keeps all of his own straw, and this year he chopped some straw. He adds that he is open to ways to cut back on fertiliser use and save on costs.

Sustainability goals

Andrew is currently measuring grass using the three-fist method: one fist is estimated to be 500kg DM/ha, two fists are 1,000kg DM/ha and three fists are 1,500kg DM/ha. This is a simple yet effective way for Andrew to gauge what covers his cows are going in to.

Improving his grassland management is something that Andrew is keen to improve on, as it will enable him to cut back on his fertiliser use.

Andrew also plans to put up owl boxes as well as plant hedgerows. He will also be carrying out the underpants test to determine his soil health.

This is a popular test worldwide to determine soil health.

It involves farmers burying a pair of cotton underpants and leaving them buried for two months before digging them up to see how much of them is left.

Cotton is a carbon source which will be eaten by bugs and microbes if they are present in the soil. Healthy soil will result in the underpants being eaten by the microbes.

It is recommended that farmers try out the test on different areas for their farm, for example on grazing and silage ground.

Steps taken so far

Since joining the Footprint Farmers programme, Andrew says he has became more aware of what he is doing on his farm, and the ways he can improve is sustainability.

He is planning to reseed an area of his farm this year, and will use the results of the clover scoring and soil testing to determine which fields should be a priority.

Both clover scoring and soil testing was carried out on the farm as part of the Footprint Farmers programme.

Silage testing was also carried out, and he has used these results to identify some silage ground that should be reseeded first.

All bulls are slaughtered at 16 months, while the heifers are kept as replacements or fattened.

Andrew’s slurry was also tested as part of the programme and this has helped him to identify which fertilisers he needs to follow up with, as well as allowing him to pinpoint where he can cut back on artificial fertiliser use and save some money.