Reviewing financials and preparing for breeding with Future Beef Farmer James Skehan
James Skehan farms part-time in O’Briensbridge, Co. Clare, with his wife Joanne, and his father Batt lends a hand. He works full-time off farm. Future Beef Programme Advisor to the farm Aisling Molloy provides an update on James’ farm in this article.
James has 23 spring-calving suckler cows, with an excellent breeding performance of 1.03 calves/cow/year and a 356 day calving interval. While he was selling all the weanlings, in the future the plan is to keep the weanlings, house them for one winter and then graze for the following year. They will be sold off grass around September.
Financial
James, a participant in the Future Beef Programme, completed his eProfit monitor for 2022 and has been analysing the results. The most important figure from a management perspective is the output per livestock unit, which was 330kg/LU. This is a good improvement from 2021, when the figure was 318kg/LU. Every management practice on the farm affects the output per livestock unit including: health; mortality; performance at grass and housing; genetics; cow and bull fertility; and calving spread. The target for James’ farm is >350kg/LU in a suckling system. In a non-suckling system the target is 500kg/LU.
The stocking rate on the farm is 1.68LU/ha. The farm is growing enough grass to match this stocking rate, although improvements in soil fertility by spreading lime to increase the soil pH and spreading 18-6-12 to build soil indexes will increase this over time. However, James is working full time off farm and is happy with the number of stock and workload on the farm. There is potential to increase the suckler herd to 30 cows, so that he won’t have to buy in store cattle for grazing, but increasing stocking rate is not a priority for the farm. Any extra grass grown through improvements in soil fertility will act to reduce James’ chemical fertiliser bill instead of producing excess grass as silage on the farm.
The gross output figure is calculated from cattle sales minus cattle purchases and add/subtract any changes to the inventory. James had a gross output figure of €1181/ha, which is the main ‘money in the pot’ to cover his variable and fixed costs. As with most drystock farms, the three biggest expenses for the year were:
- Purchased concentrate (€260/ha);
- Fertiliser (€266/ha);
- Contractor (€298/ha);
In total, the total variable costs (€1142/ha) were 97% of the gross output figure. The target for this is less than 50%. Based on these results, James has three main aims for the year.
1. Sow a PRG/red clover crop on the farm
The silage ground in Clonboy has adequate soil fertility (pH 6.7, index 3 for P, index 2 for K) to sow a crop of red clover. James spread FYM on the block last autumn to help raise the K indexes and will be prioritising this field for muriate of potash (50% K) this year to rise it to an index 3. James will sow this crop to help reduce his chemical fertiliser bill by applying no chemical nitrogen to the crop. It will also help to improve his ration bill by producing better quality silage for his young stock over the winter period.
2. Managing rumen fluke on the farm
Unfortunately James’ farm has a heavy burden of rumen fluke, which has affected weanlings and store cattle significantly over the last two years. In conjunction with his local vet, James will put a plan together for identifying high risk periods for rumen fluke and treating cattle accordingly to help prevent any weight loss.
3. Farm plan
This year, James will be putting a farm plan together for his farm. This will help to plan out a system that works for him with his off-farm job, that suits the housing facilities and grass growing potential on the farm, and that will generate a sustainable income into the future. His past experience, knowledge of the farm and data recorded from silage sample results, soil sample results, grass measurements on the farm and eProfit monitor information gives him reliable information to plan from.
Breeding
13 cows are calved on the farm to date out of 23 cows. One cow that was scanned in calf has turned up empty and Jams suspects that another one may also not be in calf, so that leaves him with 8-9 cows left to calve from now until late April.
Breeding will start on May 1st and finish on July 3rd for approximately nine weeks to help tighten the calving spread on the farm and to calve cows to match grass growth. James will be breeding four heifers to AI this year, including two of his home bred ones (#518 and #522). He will record heats as he sees them over the coming weeks to ensure that the heifers are cycling, and to help predict the dates for insemination. Tail paint will be used as a heat detection aid. James wants to breed potential replacement heifers from these maiden heifers, but is conscious of calving difficulty. He has chosen the bull SA4604 (Knottown Roy) as he is €245 on the Replacement Index and has a daughter milk figure of 8.2kg, with a daughter calving interval of -6.15 days. Most importantly, the heifer calving difficulty is 5.3% at 98% reliability.
For more infomration on James' grassland management, click here. James is a participant in the Future Beef Programme and the programme provides a monthly newsletter with technical advice and farmer updates, to subscribe to the Future Beef newsletter, click here.