Source: www.teagasc.ie
Introduction
I come from near Mitchelstown, Co Cork and have been farming full time for the past 7 years. Our home farm is operated as a family unit with my parents and brother Conor.
I completed my Teagasc Certificate in Farming in 1998 having attended Rockwell Agr. College and Reaseheath College in Chesire in England (Dip Dairy Herd Management 1997) and did my placement on Michael Downings farm near Cork city.
When I stayed at home our farm was well developed with 80 cows milking 1250 gals per cow. We had a substantial beef enterprise of 30 suckler cows and all cattle were finished to heavy weights.
The home farm is fragmented into 4 blocks.
We became a monitor farm under the Dairygold/Teagasc joint programme in 2000, this set us a focus of improving milk protein and analysing our costs and margins in an structured manner.
Dairying was the business we wanted to be in and I personally wanted to utilise my training and harness our strengths by expanding the dairy enterprise.
Development
Private leasing of quota’s had effectively finished in 1999 and we had to look at other options. Partnerships were out for us because of size and age restrictions, not because we couldn’t get along.
It became clear that I would have to set up an independent dairy unit on one of our holdings to utilise the skills, talent and labour resources that we had.
How would we go about this?
Having spoke with Billy Kelleher our Monitor Farms advisor and Paddy Crowley our Teagasc advisor along with Noel Coughlan of Dairygold we had the basics of a plan to get started.
I needed the following to get started to qualify for an allocation of milk under the new entrant restructuring scheme:
- a herd No.
- a lease on land.
- an existing quota
- a milking premises
Cows
A disused milking parlour was already in place on one of our outfarms and this plus some land on that farm could be used to set up a lease and establish a herd.
Getting some quota in my name would prove to be the most difficult part of the development. The obvious route would have been to lease a small amount of the home quota as a starter, but this would rule the home farm out of temporary leasing and restructuring allocations.
Leasing of quotas under the original Early Retirement Scheme was still allowed and our opportunity arose when I followed up a press advertisement in April 2002 for such a quota. I leased 15,000 gallons on 22 acres, eleven miles from my new dairy unit for 5 years.
The facilities on the out farm were as follows.
- Milking parlour for 8 units.
- 45 cubicles
- meal bin
- silage and slurry pit
- paddocks, roadways and water supply.
The costs of getting all facilities in place were
| i) |
Installing second hand machine |
€8,870 |
| ii) |
Electricial wiring of the facilty |
€1,800 |
| iii) |
Milk tank |
€4,500 |
|
Total |
€15,170 |
All we were now short of was cows. These were bought at two dispersal sales and I was up and running by mid June 2002.
Table 1 below shows my cow numbers and production over the the first 3 years.
Table 1: Cow no’s and milk supply 2002—2004
|
2002 |
2003 |
2004 |
| Cow No’s. |
24 |
33 |
35 |
| Gallons Produced |
27,000 |
37,000 |
42,000 |
| Gallons Purchased |
12,000 |
10,000 |
5,000 |
Financing
Two loans were taken out to purchase cows and to pay for the restructured milk. The milk loan is at a good rate of 3.9% while the cow loan is expensive at 7.8%.
Operations and Management
My main aim at present is to fill my milk quota as cheaply as possible with my limited number of cows.
I milk my herd of 35 cows on the outside farm 4 miles from our main yard, the round trip takes 1–1.5 hours twice a day. I try and keep the system as simple as possible by allocating grass every 24 hors, spreading fertiliser once per week and minimising topping. I still have adequate time each day to participate in the work on the home farm on the dairy herd and beef enterprises with Conor and my father Michael.
The land I am farming consists of both dry and wet land and is located about 450 feet above sea level. I achieved 255 days at grass in 2003 and my target is to reach 280 this year. Grazing starts on February 10th. And is targeted to run until Nov 1st.
The herd is yielding well at 1200 gallons/cow at 3.72% fat and 3.35% protein, but meal feeding is coming in at about 500KGs per cow which is above target. I will have some of my own replacements next year and will review yield lactation length and meal feeding in the light of what quota I will get in 2005.
Costs and Margins
My cost targets on establishment were 7 cent/litre for variable and fixed costs and 14 cent/litre of a net margin i.e. 50% retention of output.
At present variable costs are running at 7.5 c/litre and fixed costs are nearly 8.0 cent/litre due to high rentals and interest payments and production is not high enough to dilute out these costs.
Breeding
I use DIY AI and my breeding goals are to have medium yielding cows with good solids and fertility. Bulls used in 2004 were RMB, RUU, LLO, AHD, IRL,
Herd EBI is 24.
The Future
I will continue to look at every opportunity for expansion which will yield a return for my time and management input, eg partnerships, management arrangements,
I will stick with black and white cows, whether these will be well selected Holsteins or New Zealand Friesian I am not fully decided.
I will supply Dairygold and hopefully receive quota at a similar rate to the last few years.
I will examine the structures and facilities on the farm to gear it up for a larger herd, which will be needed in future. The use of low cost facilities like earthen bank tanks and reed beds appeal to me as money saved on concrete could be better spent elsewhere.
Summary
I experienced some difficulties along the way in developing this milk production unit, some of which were due to the fragmented nature of our home farm. The twice daily trip to the new milking facility adds 128 miles per week to the clock + all other trips to our outside farms comes to over 350 miles per week. Seasonal tasks such as calving, breeding etc all add up to extra travel and calving in particular at 5 miles from our house can be difficult. Milk price and margin will need to be good to reward my efforts and those of all farmers in the years ahead.
To finish, I would like to thank my parents for partial funding, my brother Conor for the relief milking. Billy Kelleher and Paddy Crowley for their advice as monitor farmers and especially Billy for landing me with the opportunity to tell my story here today.
|