Achieving grazing targets throughout the grazing year was highlighted by Limerick dairy farmer Michael Carroll at the Teagasc National Dairy Conference.
Carroll was the joint winner of the Nutrient Management Category of the Sustainable Grassland Farmer of the Year in 2023.
The theme of the day was “robust dairy farming for future challenges” and Carroll showed us how his system is set up to overcome the challenges dairy faces and to have a profitable system.
Carroll has a total land area of 100ha with a milking platform of 55ha with a soil type that he describes as “a very mixed soil”, but for the most part it is a well drained loam.
Carroll is currently farming in partnership with his father Martin and has one full-time worker, Ollie O’Brien, helping throughout the year.
The Carrolls are milking 145 cows with an average herd EBI of €227, and the farm has 50 weanling heifers coming through along with 30 heifers that are due this spring.
The herd starts calving on January 20 where the cows are then milked once-a-day for six weeks post-calving to make life easier around calving without impacting milk quality drastically.
Performance
In 2023, Carroll’s cows achieved 500kg/ milk solids (MS) per cow at 4.73% fat and 3.74% protein feeding 630kg of meal/cow.
In 2024, due to poorer than usual grass growth and poorer quality grass available, Carroll has fed 800kg of meal/cow to date and on average his cows have produced 485kg/MS/cow with 4.75% fat and 3.78% protein.
Last year, Carroll’s farm grew 13.8t of grass and the cows got through the same paddocks 9.5 times, while Carroll walked and measured the grass on the farm 35 times.
The cows were going into paddocks with an average pre-grazing yield of 1,462kg of dry matter (DM)/ha, which Carroll said that the target is always a pre-grazing yield of 1,400kg DM/ha.
Carrol tries to reseed 10% of the farm every year and admits that he has bought ground in 2021 that is low in phosphorus (P) and potassium (K) that needs extra attention.
25% of the farm is good on clover content and for the most part, the farm is mostly in index 3 and 4 for P and K and above a pH of 6.2.
In 2024, Carroll spread 176kg/nitrogen (N)/ha of which 152kg was chemical N along with 21kg of P/ha, 96kg of K/ha and 33kg of sulphur/ha.
Grazing targets
The key driver of profit for Carroll’s system is keeping the cost of feed down, as he looked at it in a cent per kg/DM basis where grass costs him 10c/kg DM, silage costs 20c/kg DM and meal costs 30c/kg DM.
On this note, he said: “I try to keep cows at grass for as many days as I can” as he has had the cows out from late January to mid-November this year, which gave him 290 days at grass.
Carroll set out a list of targets that helps him achieve these days at grass as the first target set out by having an opening farm cover 1,000kg DM/ha in late January.
The next target in early April is to have an average farm cover (AFC) of 650kg DM/ha to start off the second rotation, while making sure to have three paddocks at 1,100kg DM/ha and walk the farm every five days and to apply fertiliser and slurry.
Carroll puts this target in April and starting the second rotation by April 10 as one of the most important targets for the year and he told attendees that he “wouldn’t be fixated on cover/cow but the most important thing is to get out and walk the farm”.
The next target for Carroll is in late April is to “match growth with the herd’s demand by potentially feeding more meal to drive on cow performance”, as Carroll said if he “can get an extra 1c/L early on for solids production, it’s huge for the rest of the year”.
Carroll’s mid-season target is to walk the farm every five days to ensure a health looking grass wedge and to identify any surpluses or deficits in growth to quickly act and fix the problems.
The target for September 1 is to have an AFC of 750-800kg DM/ha and to have an AFC of 750-800kg DM/ha by December 1 to ensure that 1,000kg DM/ha opening farm cover for spring.
2025
Carroll is looking forward to spring 2025 where he has already set out a plan for himself and his cows to get grazing off to a flying start.
The plan is as follows;
- Late January, 10 cows calved and grazing commences;
- Have good infrastructure in place from roadways and spur roadways to different grazing techniques;
- Set up hour splits, 11:00a.m to 1:00p.m as they are milked once-a-day;
- Have them entering the first paddock at 700-800kg DM/ha;
- Feed 2.5kg of meal, grass and high quality silage;
- Planned to be out grazing day and night by February 14;
- Have 30% of the farm grazed by March 1;
- Let the weather conditions determine the paddock choice;
- Walk the farm regularly.
Carroll is achieving nearly 300 days at grass each year as he is well prepared and will get the cows out grazing even if it is just for a few hours of the day.
Carroll told attendees that “if you get a gap in the weather, let them out as if you are looking for few weeks of drying, you will be waiting a while” and he urges farmers to measure grass as he said “walk more, graze more, earn more”.