Ten per cent of the 180 cows on Owen Ashton’s farm at Castlelyons in east Cork were calved when the Irish Farmers Journal visited the current Young Farmer of the Year earlier this week.
Owen has had 10 cows out grazing a paddock all winter and between that and what the freshly calved cows have grazed, he now has 10% of the farm grazed.
There is a much higher proportion grazed at this stage than normal, but Owen is happy to keep going as ground conditions are perfect and it’s a great opportunity to get some of the slightly wetter or steeper paddocks grazed now.
Owen is managing the farm on behalf of Kevin and Margaret Twomey, who are leasing the 58ha farm just outside Castlelyons.
It’s good-quality land – free-draining and gently sloping towards the Bride river with some steeper paddocks near the road.
Owen has been working with the Twomeys for the last eight years and over that time the relationship has evolved and Owen has been able to introduce his own cows into the business.
Almost all paddocks have either got slurry or 23 units/acre of urea this spring.
Owen owns 150 of the 180 cows on the Castlelyons farm, for which he gets a lease payment per cow.
He also gets to retain all of the heifer and bull calves, which he intends to sell at three weeks of age.
Owen also leases out a further 20 cows to a farmer in Tipperary, so he owns a total of 170 cows.
From a non-farming background, Owen has positioned himself to be in a place where he has lots of career options available to him.
His long-term plan is to lease his own farm but he is content to wait for the right opportunity.
A new roof was constructed over the cubicle shed last year. The calving area is at the far end of this shed.
Owen and his fiancée, Laura, have recently had their first baby, Lorgan, so the next move will be a considered one.
He bought his first in-calf heifers in 2016 and was able to grow the herd within the Twomey business by retaining heifers and using lease income to pay for contract rearing fees.
Farming
Owen reckons about 13% of the herd will have calved by the due date of 3 February. There are 180 cows on the farm currently, but 10 or 15 additional cows will be brought on to the farm in March or April, taking the stocking rate to 3.3 cows/ha. Most of the silage will come from an outfarm, with only surplus bales taken from the milking block.
Nearly all of the farm has been reseeded over the last few years and the target is to grow 14t DM/ha from around 220kg N/ha in 2022.
Magnesium flakes and dry cow minerals are mixed with meal and fed to the cows closest to calving.
At this stage, 30% of the farm has got 2,500 gallons/acre of slurry from a dribble bar. The rest of the farm has received 23 units/acre of urea with the exception of two paddocks, which will just get slurry after grazing. The 30% of the farm grazed by the end of February will get slurry and an additional 10 units/acre of urea in March, while the remaining 70% will get 30 units/acre of urea in March.
“About 10% to 15% of the farm has good clover contents but everywhere will get treated the same until the end of May and then we’ll really cut back the fertiliser on the clover paddocks. The rest of the paddocks will get between 15 and 20 units/acre at each round during the summer,” Owen says.
Freshly calved cows are out day and night on 24-hour breaks. No damage is being done, even though they are grazing light covers. Owen says he’s taking advantage of the good weather to get some of the trickier paddocks grazed.
Pre-grazing yield is around 1,000kg/ha. Almost 80% of the herd is due to calve by the end of February, so demand for grass and area being grazed per day is going to ramp up significantly in the coming weeks.
Ideally, Owen says he would like to have 35% grazed by the end of February, 60% by mid-March and the remainder by 10 April. With a high stocking rate, his demand is 60kg/ha by early April with no feed in the diet, so he says he needs to budget to stretch the start of the second rotation to 10 April, as opposed to the first days of April.
The spring grass budget was completed on PastureBase with 4kg of meal in the diet for February and March.
Over the course of the season, Owen expects to feed around 750kg of meal. There is no silage in the feed budget for spring, but inevitably cows will be indoors for periods.
Even when cows are on/off grazing, Owen says he likes to feed some silage to keep cows content. He’ll lock them away from silage for a few hours before going back out to grass.
Performance is good, with the herd expected to sell at least 470kg MS/cow in 2022 while using whole milk to feed calves.
Calves are taken away from the cows soon after calving and placed in a straw-bedded cattle trailer next to the calving shed. The calf is tagged and fed 4l of colostrum.
This trailer is then towed across the road to the calf shed once or twice a day, depending on calving rate and the newborn calves are grouped in pens.
Calving cameras were installed this year, which Owen says has been a godsend.
Because he lives 20 minutes away from the farm, he’s able to use the cameras to check cows at night, waking up at 2am and again at 4am to check the camera.
If there’s a cow in bother he will drive to the farm. He drives back every night at 9pm to do checks and starts each morning at around 6.30am, but this will be earlier at the end of February when the farm gets busier.
Newborn calves are kept in the cattle trailer before being moved to the calf shed.
Owen puts a lot of emphasis on herd health. Cows are in very good body condition score and milk fever prevention is a key priority.
Dry cows close to calving get an additional 60g of magnesium flakes, along with 150g of dry cow minerals per day.
Young calves are grouped in pens of 10 to 15 and fed twice a day for the first few weeks.
Half of the required amount of magnesium flakes per day are put into the water, while the other half are mixed with the dry cow mineral and some course ration and spread over the silage. This ensures that all cows close to calving get their required amount of minerals. A mobile teat sprayer is used to teat spray when the cows are lined up eating the meal and minerals.
Another cow calves on the woodchip.
In terms of labour, Owen has a local student helping out every weekend and is looking for someone to do a few hours per day during the week. For the next three or four weeks a contractor will come to do the feeding.
The plan is to sell all calves at three weeks of age. The cows are a mix of Jersey crossbred and Holstein Friesian and are all in calf to either Holstein Friesian or beef bulls. Sexed semen Jersey was used on the heifers.
Last year, the Holstein Friesian bull calves were making €60 to €70 per head for the export trade.
Owen Ashton is managing a 180-cow dairy farm at Castlelyons.Just over 10% of the herd is calved and 10% of the farm has been grazed to date as some dry cows were out over the winter. Cows are calving on woodchip and calves are bedded on straw bedding.
Ten per cent of the 180 cows on Owen Ashton’s farm at Castlelyons in east Cork were calved when the Irish Farmers Journal visited the current Young Farmer of the Year earlier this week.
Owen has had 10 cows out grazing a paddock all winter and between that and what the freshly calved cows have grazed, he now has 10% of the farm grazed.
There is a much higher proportion grazed at this stage than normal, but Owen is happy to keep going as ground conditions are perfect and it’s a great opportunity to get some of the slightly wetter or steeper paddocks grazed now.
Owen is managing the farm on behalf of Kevin and Margaret Twomey, who are leasing the 58ha farm just outside Castlelyons.
It’s good-quality land – free-draining and gently sloping towards the Bride river with some steeper paddocks near the road.
Owen has been working with the Twomeys for the last eight years and over that time the relationship has evolved and Owen has been able to introduce his own cows into the business.
Almost all paddocks have either got slurry or 23 units/acre of urea this spring.
Owen owns 150 of the 180 cows on the Castlelyons farm, for which he gets a lease payment per cow.
He also gets to retain all of the heifer and bull calves, which he intends to sell at three weeks of age.
Owen also leases out a further 20 cows to a farmer in Tipperary, so he owns a total of 170 cows.
From a non-farming background, Owen has positioned himself to be in a place where he has lots of career options available to him.
His long-term plan is to lease his own farm but he is content to wait for the right opportunity.
A new roof was constructed over the cubicle shed last year. The calving area is at the far end of this shed.
Owen and his fiancée, Laura, have recently had their first baby, Lorgan, so the next move will be a considered one.
He bought his first in-calf heifers in 2016 and was able to grow the herd within the Twomey business by retaining heifers and using lease income to pay for contract rearing fees.
Farming
Owen reckons about 13% of the herd will have calved by the due date of 3 February. There are 180 cows on the farm currently, but 10 or 15 additional cows will be brought on to the farm in March or April, taking the stocking rate to 3.3 cows/ha. Most of the silage will come from an outfarm, with only surplus bales taken from the milking block.
Nearly all of the farm has been reseeded over the last few years and the target is to grow 14t DM/ha from around 220kg N/ha in 2022.
Magnesium flakes and dry cow minerals are mixed with meal and fed to the cows closest to calving.
At this stage, 30% of the farm has got 2,500 gallons/acre of slurry from a dribble bar. The rest of the farm has received 23 units/acre of urea with the exception of two paddocks, which will just get slurry after grazing. The 30% of the farm grazed by the end of February will get slurry and an additional 10 units/acre of urea in March, while the remaining 70% will get 30 units/acre of urea in March.
“About 10% to 15% of the farm has good clover contents but everywhere will get treated the same until the end of May and then we’ll really cut back the fertiliser on the clover paddocks. The rest of the paddocks will get between 15 and 20 units/acre at each round during the summer,” Owen says.
Freshly calved cows are out day and night on 24-hour breaks. No damage is being done, even though they are grazing light covers. Owen says he’s taking advantage of the good weather to get some of the trickier paddocks grazed.
Pre-grazing yield is around 1,000kg/ha. Almost 80% of the herd is due to calve by the end of February, so demand for grass and area being grazed per day is going to ramp up significantly in the coming weeks.
Ideally, Owen says he would like to have 35% grazed by the end of February, 60% by mid-March and the remainder by 10 April. With a high stocking rate, his demand is 60kg/ha by early April with no feed in the diet, so he says he needs to budget to stretch the start of the second rotation to 10 April, as opposed to the first days of April.
The spring grass budget was completed on PastureBase with 4kg of meal in the diet for February and March.
Over the course of the season, Owen expects to feed around 750kg of meal. There is no silage in the feed budget for spring, but inevitably cows will be indoors for periods.
Even when cows are on/off grazing, Owen says he likes to feed some silage to keep cows content. He’ll lock them away from silage for a few hours before going back out to grass.
Performance is good, with the herd expected to sell at least 470kg MS/cow in 2022 while using whole milk to feed calves.
Calves are taken away from the cows soon after calving and placed in a straw-bedded cattle trailer next to the calving shed. The calf is tagged and fed 4l of colostrum.
This trailer is then towed across the road to the calf shed once or twice a day, depending on calving rate and the newborn calves are grouped in pens.
Calving cameras were installed this year, which Owen says has been a godsend.
Because he lives 20 minutes away from the farm, he’s able to use the cameras to check cows at night, waking up at 2am and again at 4am to check the camera.
If there’s a cow in bother he will drive to the farm. He drives back every night at 9pm to do checks and starts each morning at around 6.30am, but this will be earlier at the end of February when the farm gets busier.
Newborn calves are kept in the cattle trailer before being moved to the calf shed.
Owen puts a lot of emphasis on herd health. Cows are in very good body condition score and milk fever prevention is a key priority.
Dry cows close to calving get an additional 60g of magnesium flakes, along with 150g of dry cow minerals per day.
Young calves are grouped in pens of 10 to 15 and fed twice a day for the first few weeks.
Half of the required amount of magnesium flakes per day are put into the water, while the other half are mixed with the dry cow mineral and some course ration and spread over the silage. This ensures that all cows close to calving get their required amount of minerals. A mobile teat sprayer is used to teat spray when the cows are lined up eating the meal and minerals.
Another cow calves on the woodchip.
In terms of labour, Owen has a local student helping out every weekend and is looking for someone to do a few hours per day during the week. For the next three or four weeks a contractor will come to do the feeding.
The plan is to sell all calves at three weeks of age. The cows are a mix of Jersey crossbred and Holstein Friesian and are all in calf to either Holstein Friesian or beef bulls. Sexed semen Jersey was used on the heifers.
Last year, the Holstein Friesian bull calves were making €60 to €70 per head for the export trade.
Owen Ashton is managing a 180-cow dairy farm at Castlelyons.Just over 10% of the herd is calved and 10% of the farm has been grazed to date as some dry cows were out over the winter. Cows are calving on woodchip and calves are bedded on straw bedding. 
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