Farming approximately 240ac of tillage and 300ac of grassland in Co. Longford, Philip Stewart and his family are running an impressive farming enterprise with a dairy calf-to-beef enterprise taking center stage.
As well as the busy farming schedule, Philip also runs a successful farming-focused YouTube channel where he is better known as ‘Farmer Phil‘.
He is also involved in his family’s agri-contracting business which carries out machinery work for farmers in the surrounding area.
Last week, Agriland detailed Philip’s cattle operation and today, we look at calf rearing on the internet sensation’s farm
Calf rearing on Farmer Phil’s farm
This year, the farm reared over 350 dairy-bred calves, compromising mainly Friesian and Jersey-cross bulls. However, a smaller amount of Speckle Park, Angus, Belgian Blue, Aubrac, Limousin and Hereford calves were purchased also.
Philip explained that all calves are purchased from nearby farmers who the Stewarts do agri-contracting work for.
Calves start arriving on the farm in mid-February at approximately 10-12 days old.
When the dairy farmer has a load (of approximately 20 calves) ready, the calves are collected.
Speaking to Agriland, Philip explained: “What we do is we go to a farm and we will take all the Friesian and Jersey bull calves but, along with them, we will take a few good ones also.
“We are bargain buyers. We don’t go in and pick the good ones and leave the small ones. We go in, drop the ramp and we take all. We always work off the policy ‘the cheaper we can get them, the better’.”
Feeding regime
Philip uses automatic calf feeders on the farm, which he says “are a huge time saver“. On arrival, a station of the robotic calf feeder is cordoned off for the 20-odd new arrivals.
After a few feeds, the calves come to the feeder themselves and are then let into the bigger group of calves in the shed. All calves receive their first vaccination one day after arrival.
Calves are fed milk replacer for a total of 64 days. They start on 4L of milk/day and go up to 7L of milk by day 12.
Calves are kept on 7L of milk for 20 days and then slowly come back down until fully weaned off.
Each calf on the farm receives approximately 320L of milk during the rearing stage.
Philip explained: “When they start coming off milk, we watch them. If they have the correct body condition we continue with the weaning process. If they don’t have the adequate condition, we keep them on milk replacer.”
Winter barley straw that is grown on the farm is used for bedding.
“As soon as we get a batch of 20 or 30 together to come off milk, we start our paddock-grazing programme for the summer.
“Our milk feeders, at their peak, would be putting out over 1,000L/day. We have to fill them with milk powder twice a day.”
Generally, there are 150 calves on each feeder.
When the weather improves, a door to the rear of the shed is opened and calves can run out to grass.
Philip explained: “Since we started letting calves out to grass while still on milk, we have never put a calf out to grass that has to come back in and go back on milk.
“It used to be an awful problem for us, we would have calves going great and wean them off milk and put them to grass and suddenly, they would start going backwards and have to go back on milk.
“Calves are given large areas of shed space as opposed to penning them on the farm.
“We feel they do better when they have a bigger shed with more space.
“We leave bales of straw throughout the shed to make what we call ‘Chicanes’ to break any drafts or wind coming through the shed.”
Currently, the calf shed is being used to store machinery.
There will be weanlings in the calf shed all winter. Before the calves arrive, the weanlings are moved out and the feeders go in then to prepare for the calves’ arrival.