Farm Layout

Total farm size including roads, yard and pond is 144 acres. 129 acres of this is in grass and a further 20 acres is planted with whole crop wheat. The cows can access 118 acres of the farm.

There are 25 permanent paddocks all 2 acres in size. Cows have access to silage ground after subsequent silage cuts.

There are 100 Pedigree Holstein / Friesian cows and 115 followers. Stocking rate is 2.8 CE/ha.

Herd Performance

Silage Analysis

Housing

First of all the group had a look at the housing facilities on Moor Farm. During housing cows are batched and fed a total mixed ration. High yielders are topped up in the parlour. The ration is dispensed into bunkers such as can be seen here.

16 of the best cows are housed in a straw court. Rodney said the high yielders performed better on straw. The main problem with this is the amount of manure generated and how dispose of it. The problem is further compounded by the fact that the manure is piled up in the third cut silo and had to be disposed of before August. A range of soloutions where discussed. Brian McCracken suggested that the manure be sold. Jay Warden and James Brown suggested that the manure could be spread on the grazing ground with very little adverse effect on grazing. Jay pointed out that manure was spread during the grazing season in organic systems.

The group then went out to have a look at the paddocks. The cows had been grazing for 3 days. The 2 acre paddocks were divided into two grazings. The cows were kept out for about 3 - 4 hours. A back fence was used. The cows grazed down from 2,300 kgDM/ha to 1,560 kgDM/ha. With 85 cows currently milking this means the dry matter intake of grazed grass was about 3.5 kgDM/ha. Rodney told the group that since turning out they were feeding a tonne less of silage every day.

No urea was applied in the spring time. Instead after the group visit to Michael Murphy's farm in West Meath, Rodney decided to spread 1 bag of urea to the paddocks in late November / early December. In the week running up to the visit the farm had seen growth rates as high as 30 kgDM/ha/day which is remarkable for February. The average farm cover on the 17th February was around 2000 - 2100 kgDM/ha.

Period
Ending

Area
(ha)

Growth
kgDM/ha/d

Supply
kg DM

Milking
Cows

Grass DMI
kgDM/cow

Demand
kg DM

Change
in cover

Average Cover
kgDM/ha

Benefit
pounds stg

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

2050

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

Total Benefit:

£1730