Driving more milk from good practice
Teagasc Aurivo Farm Profitability Programme participant, David Gannon is focusing of having the right cow and building soil fertility to increase milk production on his farm. John McCabe tells us more.
David Gannon tells us more about the farm below, sharing details of the journey in to milk production and the steps taken to achieve key targets.
David explained: "I milk 160-170 cows here with my wife Deirdre in between Loughrea and Athenry on a farm that is part owned and part leased and is split up by the road. My father Robbie and mother Mary are also involved in different capacities so it really is a family run farm."
On their route into dairy farming, David said: "We got into milk in 2018 when I came home from Medtronic to convert the farm from sucklers and calf-to-beef. I am delighted with the move. It allowed me to come home full-time farming.
"I love dairying and I try to keep a positive attitude towards it. My motto is that you can’t be venting in the house or in the community about how bad farming is and then expect people to want to choose farming as their career.
"It is intense at times but it is also very flexible in terms of family life and managing your own time – which is a huge positive of dairy farming. We have a few people helping us on a part-time basis. Another major positive of the industry is that we can offer local flexible employment and I really enjoy working with the lads too."
Focus areas
Through his involvement in the Aurivo/Teagasc Joint Programme and in an effort to sell more milk, David has focused on improving the herd and the soil.
Expanding on the improvements to the herd, David said: "We have started to move on cows that have proved themselves to be breaking even at best. There is no point in milking a cow that is only covering her costs.
"Due to being new enough into dairying, we had been holding on to all cows in our efforts to grow the herd. We are becoming stricter on what cows we milk.
"Grass and silage growth over the last two years have been hard earned due to the weather, so we need to make sure everything that is grown is going into an animal that will turn a profit. I picked the cows to cull from the C.O.W. profile on ICBF Herdplus using their milk records /calving date/expected calving date."
Heifer management
Another focus area for the Gannons is heifer management. On this, David said: "We are also focusing on improving the weights of our heifers from baby calf stage until they reach the parlour.
"Sometimes in the past, there would be heifers joining the milking herd that may not have reached their full potential due to missing target weights and I can definitely see that in the cows I have culled this year – some of them would have been behind target going to the bull as a heifer, as subsequently wouldn’t have matured into the good milking cow we need."
Soil fertility
Along with milking the right cow and focusing on heifer targets, another focus area for David is soil fertility, who explained:
"I have lime, 0:7:30 and 0:0:50 spread anywhere that needed it. I find the 0:0:50 (MOP/Potash) very simple. I spread one bag to the acre of it on the index 2 soils over the autumn. I’m happy to spend on soil fertility so that we get the full bang for our buck from Nitrogen next year, plus, we have clover on the farm and it should help it perform too."
Concluding comments
Summing up the focus areas, David said: "I’m not a fan of driving milk from meal or things that cost a lot, but I am a fan of driving more milk from good practice and that’s what I am going after. Better heifers weights, culling passenger cows and building the soil fertility."