Farming at the foothills of the Sugarloaf Mountain in Co. Wicklow is Eoin O’Toole, a beef and tillage farmer who also runs an agri-contracting business.
He farms 60ac of owned land, 50 of which is on the home block, and rents approximately 500ac of land – all within a 10km radius of the Sugarloaf.
The contracting business involves baled silage; tillage; hedge cutting; reseeding; slurry; dung-spreading; and other related services.
Eoin runs a fleet of Massey Ferguson tractors and bought a Deutz combine this year.
Commenting on the amount of land he is renting, Eoin said: “Yes, it’s a lot of dead money but I’ve only 50ac at home here so I either had to get big or get out.”
His beef enterprise involves buying in male calves at one-month to six-weeks old.
“I rear 100 the calves every year on the automatic calf feeder and bring them on to beef or forward stores. This year I also bought in a few weanlings also,” Eoin continued.
“I like the robotic calf feeder, I reckon it has been a great investment.”
However, rearing calves “is not all plain sailing, it can be problematic at times”, said Eoin.
“The good thing about the calf feeder is it will show you straight away which calves didn’t drink and when a calf doesn’t drink, it’s the first indication there’s something wrong with it.
“I vaccinate all calves against pneumonia on arrival but there can be other issues with calves that you have to be really watching out for.”
He explained: “We try to buy good, hardy calves and then rear them on milk for six weeks on an automatic calf feeder. We then get them onto 1-1.5kg of meal/day and get them out to grass as early as we can.
“I like to buy early calves born in the first three months of the year, and I always look for a few good continental cross calves out of good British Friesian cross cows.
“You need to see the cows and see their shape before you buy the calves.”
Eoin added that along with his annual consignment of calves, he bought 10 Friesian bulls this year “to see how they go”.
“It’s all about what they make at the end of the day,” he added.
All calves are supplemented with concentrates for the duration of their first season on grass.
Eoin explained that he feeds the calves a mixture of his own grain and a balancer ration which he buys in.
The calves are generally housed in October and are fed a mixed ration using a diet feeder for the duration of the winter.
The calves (now yearlings) go back out to grass in February or March – weather permitting – and are fed solely on grass for the second summer.
Cattle are housed as bullocks for the second winter where they are fed total mixed ration (TMR) using a diet feeder, and are finished in the shed during their second winter.
Cattle that do not meet the factory-required specification by the end of the second winter are sold as forward stores in the springtime.
“Last year, the average age of the steers at finishing was 22 months, but it varies from year to year,” Eoin explained.
Commenting on selling the forward stores at the mart, Eoin explained: “If you’re lucky enough and get a good burst of grass in say mid to late-April, they can come into as much money as the factory cattle do.”
‘Beef price was so bad for so long’
Giving his outlook on the cattle trade, Eoin reflected on the past few years saying: “Beef price was so bad for so long and you really would not make a living out of the beef enterprise. You would need something else along with it.”
He noted that his system of beef production “will leave money at current factory prices and above” but said this was not the case two years ago.
He said: “Two years ago I had 40 bulls in the shed weighing 850kg each and I couldn’t give them away.”
“They went overweight and I sold them at €3.20 for Rs and €3.30 for Us.”
“I was taking €1,350 for cattle over 800kg and at that stage I was thinking of getting out and ploughing up my own bit of land here and going all tillage, but I like the cattle and I’m set up here for feeding cattle.”
Commenting on the harvest, Eoin said: “It was a very, very good harvest this year. Probably the best ever. Winter wheat averaged 4t and spring barley averaged 3t, so I was very happy.
“Barley at the moment is making €280/t and three years ago we were getting €150/t, I would have never thought that grain would hit the price it is.”
Concluding, Eoin expressed confidence in his enterprise for the future.
“Our plan for the future is to keep at it. Once the prices are good, it makes it a lot easier too.”