The top 10% of Ireland's most profitable farms are feeding an additional 2kg of grass/cow/day when compared to the bottom 10%.

This is according to Dr. Joe Patton, head of dairy knowledge transfer with Teagasc, who recently spoke at a Carbery farm walk in conjunction with Lisavaird co-op and Teagasc.

Dr. Patton highlighted how two farms can be feeding the same amount of concentrates, but still be separated by grass utilised.

In fact, when looking at the top 10% of farms, they are feeding 1,245kg/meal to the herd, while the bottom 10% are feeding 1,260kg of meal, a mere 15kg difference.

Despite this, the top 10% are producing 522kg of milk solids (MS), while the bottom 10% are producing 431kg/MS.

There are plenty of variables that could affect the 91kg difference in solids, but Dr. Patton noted that it is not a response to concentrates that the top farms are getting, but rather a response to grass production and intake.

Grass utilisation

The top 10% of farms were stocked at 2.41 livestock units (LU)/ha, with 4.1t of dry matter (DM) per cow available and 9.8t/DM eaten per hectare.

Meanwhile, the bottom 10% were stocked at 1.95LU/ha with 3.4t/DM per cow available and 6.4t/DM eaten per hectare.

Dr. Patton noted that even though the top 10% of farms grew more grass, they did not respond by adding more cows.

He said: "They got their extra grass utilised by getting more into the cows they had."

He said if you can graze a field at 10.8t/ha with a stocking rate of 2.7 or 3.1, the chances are the 2.7LU/ha will "leave a few quid extra".

Grass is ultimately the limiting factor, but Dr. Patton noted how concentrates were on a steady rise until recently, and ultimately displacing grass in the diet.

In 2021, the average concentrates fed per kilo of milk solids produced was 2.59kg.

Then a number of factors changed.

There was uncertainty around derogation, rising fertiliser prices, a high milk price year, and other factors, which Dr. Patton feels led to farmers 'losing sight' of the ratio between concentrates fed and milk produced.

Concentrates fed per kilo of milk solids produced increased to 2.75kg in 2022, then to 2.88kg in 2023, before peaking at 3.17kg in 2024.

With a good year for grass growth in 2025, it fell back to 2.79kg but Dr. Patton feels farmers should be targeting sub-2kg.

Despite the increase in concentrates over those years, milk solids did not increase, sitting at 452kg in 2021, then dropping back to 446kg in 2022; 425kg in 2023; 429kg in 2024; and increasing back to 455kg in 2025.

Dr. Patton said: "We have to get out of our minds to think that it is a trade off between - ok we're feeding more but we're producing more.

"We're not producing more; what we were doing on an average level was feeding more to replace the grass we stopped growing".

James Daunt, dairy adviser with Teagasc, noted that the right cow that can turn that extra grass into high solids, while maintaining good fertility, is still needed.

However, he added that bringing in external feeds will end up affecting margins/ha rather than improving production.

He felt this should push farms to drive on with grass production and ultimately improve their profitability.