Stanley Farm
Name: Dwayne, Raymond and Gilbert Stanley
Location: Brittas, Thurles, Co.Tipperary
Farm size: 123 ha- variable land quality
System: Suckler to steer finish
Details
The farm currently has 107 cows split between spring and autumn with all progeny taken to slaughter. A small amount of the stock are pedigree Herefords. The Farm is mainly of good quality land with about 80 acres of the land low lying along by the river. Output is low due to a low stocking rate and little has been done in the way of reseeding or addressing soil fertility issues. These are 2 main focuses of the Stanley’s in the programme. The Stanley’s plan to increase cows to 120 and continue the autumn/spring split. They plan to add a 120 calf diary beef enterprise to increase output on the farm. These calves will be 50% autumn born and 50% spring born to make use of sheds available. All stock will aim to be finished as 24 month steers and heifers. The farm will aim to generate a gross output of €2,500/ha gross output with variable costs kept at 50% of output.
Soil fertility, infrastructure and reseeding will be the first issues to be addressed on farm.
Driving grass production (pdf) - Today's Farm - January/February 2018
Mandatory Challenges
- Two tonne grass challenge - All farms to aim to increase by 2 Tonne/DM/ha
- Farm finance challenge - Gross margin target €1250/ha on average
- Farm safety challenge - Farms to introduce 2 positive changes annually
Optional Challenges
- Herd health challenge - Aim to reduce antibiotic input by 20% and develop herd health plan
- Soil fertility challenge - Aim for 70% of farm at index 3 P&K. Ph - aim for 6.1 (5.7 on peat soils)
- Labour/structures challenge - Labour use focus/ Drystock farm partnership focus