Tullamore Farm open day – the main questions

Is one man really going to be able to look after 120 cows and 150 ewes?

The farm is modelled around one labour unit. However, there will be periods during the year that will require extra labour. Examples of this would be around calving and lambing and we saw this spring that extra help was needed around this time.

There is currently €5,000 in the budget for casual labour and this will be spent in spring and also for weekend cover and holiday cover for the farm manager. Having good facilities and fencing is extremely important to minimise labour input and this is why a lot of effort has been put into upgrading these areas on the farm. The farm will contract out as much work as possible, so all silage, fencing, baling, etc is contracted out to free up the farm manager’s time. Silage fertiliser was also spread by a contractor and paddocks were spread by a contactor during busy periods.

What beef price has been factored in to the project plans?

We have used €4.00/kg as a base figure for our projections. It’s hard to predict beef price but a figure had to be used and €4.00/kg was chosen. If beef price increases or decreases by 10% or €0.40/kg, it will mean a €14,000 shift in our figures. At €4.00/kg, the farm is just about able to meet its land rental, labour and bank interest commitments.

Why was all the capital expenditure incurred at the beginning of the project?

Costs like land rental, labour and bank interest are being incurred from day one of the project so the clock is ticking and it makes sense to get the farm up to its full production potential as soon as possible. This is why we have concentrated on areas such as roadways, water system, drainage and reseeding in year one. Stocking rate will increase next year and it’s important that the farm is able to grow the grass to sustain this. If fencing was not completed at the beginning of the project, it would mean that a lot of extra labour would be required moving stock and it would rule out things like AI usage.

What type of reseeding was carried out? What varieties were used and what sprays did it get?

We have used two different ways of reseeding so far – the conventional plough, power-harrow and one-pass and a min-till machine to reseed. We have been happy with both. The min-till machine was used on nine acres on 20 April and suffered with the very dry conditions but has turned out well. All reseeds were sprayed off with glyphosate prior to reseeding and got a post-emergence spray after reseeding. Legumex DB was used to protect the clover in the swards.

Is the stocking rate too high at 2.7 LU/ha?

Stocking rate is relevant to the amount of grass that you can grow and we aim to grow 14t of grass on this farm when it is fully up to its production potential. Yes, the stocking rate is high but the fact that the bulls are not grazed for the second grazing season means that the grassland stocking rate won’t be as high as this. The farm needs to run this stocking rate to cover its costs including land rental, labour and interest charges. If we find that after five years the stocking rate is too high, we will make changes to the system and explain to farmers why it didn’t work or why it did work.

Why was kale sown?

Kale was sown on 10 June this year on 10 acres of land on the out-farm in Cloonagh. This will hopefully be able to winter 40 April-calving cows which will graze the kale from 1 November until 1 March. Maris Kestrel was sown at the rate of 2.5kg/acre and it received four bags of 10:10:20/acre at sowing time and three bags of CAN/acre on 10 July. Bales of silage have been placed in the field as a fibre source when feeding. An electric fence will be used during grazing of the kale and will be moved on a daily basis.

Why is the farm choosing to purchase replacements?

The chosen farm system is to produce under-16-month bulls and replacement heifers for sale at 15 months of age on an annual basis. Choosing a Limousin X Friesian cow gives a great foundation to breed replacements from and guarantees milk, a key profit trait in suckler cows. When bred with high-replacement-index bulls, these cows will produce an excellent Simmental or Limousin breeding heifer.

Selling the heifers at 15 months as breeding heifers rather than selling them at 20 months as finished animals means that more cows can be carried on the farm and in turn output and sales can be higher. Teagasc research has also demonstrated that this type of cow is the most profitable in a suckler-finish system.

Why did you choose AI and how was it managed?

There were 125 breeding animals on the farm this spring and that was too many for three young bulls to serve in a short breeding season. We artificially inseminated cows and heifers for three weeks to take the pressure off the bulls. We had a number of issues with bulls going lame and getting hurt during the breeding season and we have talked about having a backup bull for next year’s breeding season if working stock bulls get injured. AI did require extra labour but the fencing and facilities helped and there are 51 cows in calf to AI bulls for spring 2018.

How did you pick the bulls used?

We tried to source highly reliable high-replacement-index bulls in AI that were over €100 on the terminal index and over €150 on the replacement index. Calving difficulty was set at a maximum of 7.5%. The index was used as a tool in selecting stock bulls and bulls were all assessed for good feet, legs, conformation, etc.

Why did you go for a Mule-type ewe?

If it was a question of going for very high output, we would have chosen a Belclare or Llyen-type ewe, but we are trying to get the best balance between output and labour requirements. This type of ewe will hopefully give us medium to high prolificacy while reducing labour inputs around lambing time and will also give us the option of outdoor lambing in future years. For the moment we will operate an all-in, all-out policy, slaughtering all lambs and purchasing replacements each year.