FARMER FOCUS: Optimistic future for NI dairy
For the first time in a long while here in Northern Ireland the dairy sector is looking fairly optimistic going forward into the winter months. With a good strong milk price and falling concentrate prices, margins are slowly starting to rise.
This all looks good in theory, but realistically we have had an awful 18 months, both with bad weather and inputs soaring to all-time highs. Hopefully milk prices will stay steady for the next few months to make up for the tough time the industry has just come through – peaks and troughs are no use to anyone.
The good dry weather has allowed 15ha to be reseeded with perennial ryegrass. We normally rotate land with a few crops of maize, followed by wheat and then back into grass again. Our fourth and final cut of silage has been completed, which really helped top up forage supplies for over the winter. Normally our fourth cut can be quite poor, but this year it yielded somewhere between 15-17t/ha. All of the winter barley (10ha) and some of the winter wheat has now been planted. This now just leaves a small area of wheat to plant once the maize has been harvested, which should be very soon.
In my last article I made the massive mistake of saying: “At the minute we are running at about 50/50 bulls and heifers” since we have kicked off calving. This figure has now dropped to about a 30/70 (heifers/bulls) split, with well over 100 calved now. Maybe this is acceptable on some units, but with the herd expanding, bringing large numbers of heifers into the system is the only way to do this successfully.
The more farmers I talk to, the more common this problem with AI semen seems to be, especially with the “hot shot” must-have bulls of the moment.
Thomas Steele milks 450 Holstein Friesian cows on a 263ha farm in Co Down, Northern Ireland. He was 2012 Farmers Weekly Dairy Farmer of the Year
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