Charles Clarke, farming near Bailieborough in Cavan, captured another 50 bales from the grazing platform last week, pushing the total bales taken off the platform to just short of 300 this year.

No bales have been fed back as yet. Charles was keen to skip the paddocks in the first week of August to capitalise on silage stocks while growth rate is still high in the area. Good ground conditions have also prevented any damage from machinery or cows so far this year.

Bill Brown, farming near Millisle, Co Down, also just skipped 25 acres of the grazing block and used a contractor’s forage wagon to get it into a pit. At the time of cutting in early August, the cover ranged from 1,650-2,100kg DM/ha (6in to 10in long).

He said: “My demand has dropped in August, with cows being dried off every week on the farm. Normally we would let this grass roll into my third cut, but I want to maintain grass quality on the grazing block for freshly calved cows for as long as possible this year.”

David Brady, farming near Stradone in Cavan, said the last two months have been challenging, with persistent rain holding progress on land improvement work and reseeding.

Similar to the other project farms, grass growth has continued strong into August with average growth on the farm over the past three weeks just over 55kg/ha. About 10ha of the platform has now been drained and reseeded over the past two years – half of this was completed earlier this year.

Effectively 26% of the total grazing block which originally was either too wet to graze or produced very little grass is now producing grass. With this extra grass in the system, David has been slowing down on fertiliser usage, and still taking bales out of the grazing block to manage farm cover.

He said: “I could carry more cows on the grazing block, but needed to get the reseeding completed before I could consider this option. I have more replacement heifers in the system to calve down next year so if margins improve I have the option to increase herd size slightly using my own heifers. With a considerable cost associated with improvement work, increasing cows would help get a return on the investment.”

Grass quality on two project farms is still measuring very good (Table 1).

Heifer rearing

Heifer rearing is a key focus for all project farms, with farmers using weigh scales to monitor heifer performance and a detailed cost monitoring of each heifer-rearing enterprise on the project farms. This Dairylink page has highlighted the significant cost and the variation in heifer-rearing cost between project farms, with cost ranging from £700 to £1,400 per heifer (€1,615).

All the project farms have been achieving 24-month calving targets for the replacements, with a average calving age for the group of 25 months. However, we have a significant difference in cost of getting the heifer to this stage. Most of the additional heifer cost on high-cost project farms is coming from forage, contractor and concentrates. While it is important to monitor the individual cost of rearing replacements, all project farmers are focused on the actual number of replacements required.

The total cost, or number of replacements brought into the herd, has the most influence on replacement cost on a dairy farm. A 100-cow herd with a replacement rate of 18% requires 18 heifers at £1,000 each which is £18,000.

Alternatively, the same herd with a 26% replacement rate requires an additional £8,000 for replacements.

Some project farmers have been considering purchasing heifers, either in-calf or heifers which have not been served yet. Sourcing the heifers can be difficult. However, it is important to get stock which will improve the baseline for your existing herd in terms of fertility, milk solids and longevity.

Some project farmers are trying to improve milk solids to insulate the business from low milk prices, while others need more replacements for expansion.

Whatever the reason, stock should always be purchased with good background information on the herd they are coming from and the genetic background of the stock.