Proinnsias Creedon

Farm Update September/October 2023 | Farm Update July/August 2023 | Farm Update May/June 2023 | Farm Update March/April 2023 | Farm Update January/February 2023

Proinnsias farms with his wife Máire and sons Ciarán, Aodhán and Diarmuid. The farm is located in Barrathanaknock, Clondrohid, Macroom, Co. Cork.

He is farming 33.31Ha of variable land with a good bit of rough grazing ground. There is a lot of heavy soil in the farm with some reclaimed over the past few years. The farm is in one block and is situated roughly 720ft above sea level and gets an average rainfall of 55-60 inches per year.

Stocking rate is 141kg N/Ha. 70-80 heifers are purchased annually at around 12-18 months and all of them are taken on to slaughter, finishing most at 22-24 months. More recently they have purchased approx. 30 dairy-cross calves aged 3-4 weeks and will take these through to slaughter, also at around 22-24 months of age.

They are part of the Macroom Grass 10 Discussion Group and have been one of the two host farms for them for a couple of years. All covers are recorded on PastureBase and are measuring grass on the farm using a Plate Meter. There are 42 paddocks on the farm with usually 3-4 groups grazing. Proinnsias is currently stocked at 2.47LU/Ha. This year the cattle are running in batches of roughly 24 so as to move through paddocks faster and have the cattle going into fresh grass every 3 days.

Currently some protected urea is used on the farm and the plan is to increase it's use. There is clover in a few swards and in future reseeding of the drier parts of the farm the plan would be to include more clover. At present all slurry is put out by contractor using the traditional splash plate but this will change going forward to low emmission slurry methods.

His Teagasc Advisor is Anthony Dineen.

Breeding Performance

No. of cows:
Cow replacement index:
Heifer replacement index:
Calves per cow per year:

Proinnsias's Plan

His plan for the future is to improve the farm through growing and utilising better quality grass. Growing better quality grass will mean improving the soil fertility on his farm through further soil sampling and targeted lime spreading, slurry and fertiliser usage. The plan is to maintain the current stocking rate however we are considering increasing calf purchases and reducing spring purchased store cattle.