Patrick Dollard is farming in partnership with his mother Margaret with the help of his wife Tina and three children.

The farm system involves buying in and rearing 180 calves from three weeks-of-age through to finish.

Weanlings are often purchased in also and are brought to finish with a target average slaughter age for all cattle on the farm of 21 months.

The farm is involved in ABP Food Group's Advantage Beef Programme, which offers farmers advice, supports and incentives to improve the economic and environmental sustainability of their beef systems.

The majority of the cattle on the farm are slaughtered before their second winter with a target carcass weight of approximately 325kg.

Approximately 66% of cattle are slaughtered before the second winter and the remaining 33% of the cattle on the farm are finished out of the shed the following January or February after the second winter.

Sustainability

A recent post on the Teagasc website on the award-winning farm noted: "The Dollards have made significant progress in adopting technologies to reduce emissions making them worthy winner of the Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions category of the Teagasc FBD Environmental Sustainability Awards 2025."

Some of the areas the farm has impressive performance in include soil fertility with over 90% of soils at optimum phosphorus (P) levels and 100% of soils have optimum pH.

The Dollards have potassium (K)-fixing soils, which makes it difficult to build fertility, so they have gone with a little-and-often approach with K and replace what they take off.

Organic manure is spread early in the year and targeted at the fields which require it.

A lot of emphasis has been placed on incorporating clover into grassland on the farm with over 60% of the farm now having clover in the sward.

The combination of soil fertility, optimised use of organic manures and the use of clover has allowed this farm to reduce chemical N use by 20% in the last few years, according to Teagasc.

Grassland management

Good grazing infrastructure on the farm allows for good grassland management.

Grass is measured weekly during the main grazing season. The farm grass yield in 2024 was 11.2t DM /Ha.

Over 80% of the silage made on this farm is from surplus bales, keeping grass quality good and resulting in very good quality silage. 

Achieving a reduced age at finishing is being achieved on this farm through:

Buying good calves that have genetically superior Commercial Beef Values (CBVs) and good health status;
Good grassland management;
3A good herd health plan. 

Over 80% of the nitrogen (N) applied on this farm is applied as protected urea, and the remainder applied as 10-10-20 and 18-6-12. 

Commenting on the farm, Patrick said: “We are a heavily stocked farm, I think we're a very sustainable farm, and at the same time we're profitable.”

The farm plans to use more protected urea in the future, further reduce age of finish, and add solar panels to farm sheds.