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Ballyhaise College Farm Enterprises

Ballyhaise College Farm Enterprises

Ballyhaise College is located 8km north of Cavan town. It is situated on an estate of 220 hectares of grass and woodlands. The college farm comprises od a dairy herd, suckler cow herd, sheep flock and 50 hectares of diverse woodlands. The college has joint courses with DkIT

The College Farm

Dairy Enterprise

The dairy unit at Ballyhaise College is used as both a practical learning facility for students and a research farm. The herd is a 120 cow spring calving herd with moderate feed inputs of 850kg of meal per cow. The cows are calved compactly in spring where calving starts in the first week of February and 80% of the herd is calved by the 20th of March, with all cows calved by the end of April.

The current research programme is investigating the potential profitability of dairy systems for farms in the northern half of the country. The purpose of the research project is to identify the main factors affecting profitability of dairy farms within the region namely, grass production and utilisation, milk production and herd fertility.

Facilities include a modern 12 unit herringbone milking parlour with automatic drafting, slatted houses, cubicle house and calving and isolation boxes. A computerised management programme is used to facilitate record keeping. Read more about the dairy enterprise here

Beef enterprise

The Suckler Herd consists of 40 continental cross cows and their replacements.  All the progeny are reared to beef. The Suckler Herd is 100% Spring Calving. The herd calves during the period February to April (12 weeks). The national target for the calving season i.e. all cows calving down, is three months for every Suckler farm.  We aim to calve down 80% of the cows in the first 6 weeks of the calving season.  

There is also a Dairy calf to beef enterprise on the farm finishing approximately 25 beef cross heifers and steers from the Colleges dairy herd.

Read more about the beef enterprise here

Sheep flock

The Ballyhaise College sheep farm consists of 24Ha of permanent grass land. The farm is situated in three separate blocks located within half a kilometre of each other.  Flock numbers currently stand at 285 ewes and this includes ewes, hoggets’ and ewe lambs.  The current stocking rate for the ewe flock is close to 12 ewes per Ha.

The early lambing flock consists of approximately 80 ewes which lamb down in early January. The majority of the ewes are in the mid-season lambing flock which lamb in March. 

The sheep unit is equipped with excellent facilities including various types of housing and handling facilities. Read more about the sheep enterprise here

Forestry in Ballyhaise College

There are 46.4 ha of forestry in Ballyhaise College, broken down into 38 plots. Average plot size is 1.1 ha. There are 14.8 ha of Coniferous High Forest (CHF); 15.1 ha of Broadleaf High Forest (BHF); 13.4 ha of Mixed High Forest (MHF); 0.8 ha Agro Forestry and 2.3 ha of Biodiversity. T

The woodlands which are used for the practical training of students who participate in the Level 5 and 6 Forestry courses and in DkIT joint courses. Read more about the forestry enterprise here.

Visit the Ballyhaise College section of our website here