Farming 240ac alongside his father and uncle in Knockcroghery, Co. Roscommon, Diarmuid Murry runs an efficient beef operation in tandem with a dairy enterprise.
Last week, Diarmuid hosted the the Macra na Feirme Young Farmer Development Group (YFDG) Walk and Talk event on a block of land situated close to the home farm.
As this block of land is not adjoining the grazing platform used for the dairy herd, Diarmuid uses this area to make silage and as a grazing block to rear all youngstock on the farm.
On the farm’s beef enterprise, all male calves and heifers – bred of beef artificial insemination (AI) – are reared and brought to beef at approximately 17-20 months of age.
Generally, all cattle are finished out on grass but some years – depending on ground conditions and grass availability – cattle are housed for finishing.
Calving of the 130-cow dairy herd takes place in February and Diarmuid outlined that they “try to ensure the calving season is as compact as possible”.
He noted that Angus is the primary beef sire used on the farm and while there is no issue with calving difficulty, Diarmuid is always cautious to pick short-gestation bulls.
Diarmuid places a huge emphasis on monitoring costs in his beef enterprise in order to retain a profit margin from the system and noted that calves born later in the spring are harder to finish before the second winter, and therefore incur a higher cost to bring to beef in the long term.
“It costs a lot of money to keep cattle for a second winter,” Diarmuid emphasised.
On average, steers are finished at 19 months old and last year, the Friesian steers averaged a 300kg carcass weight.
The Angus bullocks had an average carcass weight of 270kg and the Angus heifers had an average carcass weight of 250kg.
Diarmuid noted that Angus heifers are the first of the beef stock to come fit at 16-17 months of age.
He added that while the Angus cattle have a lower carcass weight, they tend to come in to the same money as the Friesian steers with a much lower cost of production as a result of less concentrates needed.
Generally, 85 cattle are brought to beef every year; there are approximately 35 replacement heifers kept and the rest of the heifers are sold at marts as dairy stock.
The system
All calves are fed whole milk for 12 weeks and are then moved out to grass and fed 1kg of concentrates per day until housing in October.
Calves are fed good-quality silage and 1.5kg of concentrates/day for the winter housing period.
Yearlings are then let out to grass on March 17 – plus or minus a week – and get no meal on grass for the second summer until the end of July.
At the beginning of August, beef cattle are then reintroduced to concentrates and are built up to 5kg/day for finishing.
Diarmuid plans to improve his focus on grass utilization in the future and aims to turn cattle out earlier in the spring.
He also plans to improve his grazing infrastructure and plans to install more drinkers to reduce the days on each paddock from six days, to three days per paddock.