2024 Autumn Dairy Visit to Castlederg

The 2024 Grassland Society’s autumn meeting took place on Tuesday 22nd October at the farm of Howard and Jessica Pollock, Grahamstown Road, Castlederg, Co Tyrone when over 100 members and fellow grassland enthusiasts attended.

UGS members and friends enjoyed very pleasant Autumn sunshine with many of the dairy herd making the most of late season grazing on the farm.

The farm extends to 270 acres which is all down to grass maintaining the 170 cow dairy herd and up to 100 followers. The farm is located North East of Castlederg in West Tyrone rising from 250 to 525’ above sea level and typically seeing almost 50” of rainfall annually.

The main objectives on this progressive farm are to:

• enhance feeding efficiency to improve milk yield and milk quality
• improve the health status of the herd
• optimise the farming system to maximise profitability
• maintain a good work – life balance

The main farming enterprise is dairying which commenced in 1977 with the herd gradually expanded as numbers grew and available acreage increased. Today the herd comprises around 170 crossbred cows with a three-way crossbreeding programme in place comprising Holstein x Fleckvieh x Norwegian Red genetics.

The cows now run in two distinct calving blocks: Autumn Calving (October & November) and Spring (February & March). Cows are AI’d for the first 4-5 weeks of each breeding season with sexed semen used on selected cows whilst the rest are AI’d with beef semen. A beef bull then sweeps up for the last 3-4 weeks of the breeding season.

The current Conception rate for the dairy herd is 52% with a Calving Interval of 380 days. Replacement heifers were previously mated with beef bulls however the addition of a new heifer house will allow heifers to be AI’d in the future. The current farm Replacement Rate is 22%.

Annual milk production is 7,300 litres per cow with Milk from Forage of 3,189 litres and 1.85 tonnes of concentrates fed per cow leaving a current Margin Over Concentrates of £1,956 per cow. The most recent milk components for the herd are 4.1% Butterfat and 3.38% Protein with 546 kgs Milk Solids produced per cow and an average Somatic Cell Count of 359 ‘000/ml.

The milking cows are turned out as early as possible – usually mid March – with strip electric wire used to allocate a grazing area and 66% of land close enough to the farmyard to be grazed by the milking herd thanks to an extensive network of roads / cow tracks – over 700m of new cow laneways constructed over the past four years with plans for another 300m this winter. Target pre-grazing grass covers are 3,000-3,300kg DM / hectare with on/off grazing practiced when necessary.

A three cut silage system is in operation with first cut (100 acres) taken in mid-May followed by a second cut in mid-July (150 acres) followed by a third cut in early September with the acreage cut depending on grass growth and grazing demand.

Silage ground normally gets 3,000 gallons of slurry in mid February with subsequent cuts receiving around 2,000 gallons/acre. First cut receives 65 kg N/acre in early March with subsequent cuts getting just over 40 kg N/ acre. Last year the first cut silage had a Dry Matter 21%;  Crude Protein 12.9%; D-value 72 and  ME of 11.6MJ/Kg with similar figures achieved in subsequent cuts.

Maize silage is also purchased fresh and ensiled with additive applied to all cuts and silos sealed with both clear and black covers.

Soils are tested regularly and lime applied to fields as required. Soil pH is generally around 6 across the farm.

Autumn calvers are fed 1st cut silage, 4kg of blend and 0.5kgs straw plus minerals with spring calvers currently getting 1st cut silage, 1kg blend and 0.5kg straw at night when housed. Cows are on a rising plane of nutrition for the first 40 days in milk with feeding rate increased gradually up to 9kg/day.

At the conclusion of the visit a vote of thanks to Howard and Jessica Pollock was ably proposed by UGS President Elect Michael Graham before visitors enjoyed an excellent BBQ prepared by Simply Irresistible which allowed time for further discussion and the opportunity to reflect on a very enjoyable and informative visit.