Why these Meath brothers are banking on winter milk
Winter milking has always been a way of life for Meath brothers Pat and Thomas Smith who farm 270ac near Longwood.
But most young farmers don’t go down that route now, says Pat, because winter milk premiums aren’t good enough to justify it.
“We milk all year round and always have. My father made all the winter milk, that’s how it was back then, 50 years ago. Everyone I knew was winter milking.
“Spring calving really only in the last 40 years, I would say. The encroaching younger generations don’t seem to get into winter milking and that’s because the bonus we’re getting isn’t good enough. When you factor in the labor, power, and feeding required in a winter milking system, they just aren’t good enough.
“Winter milkers have huge food bills that spring milkers don’t. However, it’s a system we’ve always been used to here and I don’t see us changing from that.
“The main advantage of winter milk is that you have a milk check every 12 months of the year. The other big benefit I find is that it spreads your workload out over the year.
“In terms of profit, good farmers who calve in the spring make just as much money.”
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Pat in the milking parlor where they milk their herd of Holsteiner Friesians
The Smith brothers milk over 200 Holstein Friesian cows and have around 90 replacement heifers on the way. They split up the calving, calving about 100 in the spring and 100 in the fall.
They’re on the higher end of the exemption, Pat says, with a stocking density of 2.6, but if they have to go down in numbers, it will be the heifers that will go.
“We are heavily stocked. Nitrates will be the biggest problem for us. We will not expand and if we have to withdraw in numbers, we will pull the heifers, not the cows.”
Pat says he has always liked Holsteiner Friesians and that the breed has improved over the years.
“My father used to keep Shorthorns and Friesians, but we all keep Holstein Friesians and have been for over 40 years.
“You are a good, solid cow; Holsteiners are better today than they were 10-15 years ago, they are not as tall and leggy as they were then. EBI plays a good part in this.
“I use a lot of sexed semen in the winter because I want heifer substitutes.
“The sale of Friesian bulls is also becoming more difficult, they are more and more difficult to sell. Bulls from Aberdeen Angus and Hereford are always salable but that has not been the case with the Friesians especially lately.”
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Thomas Smith feeds the cows. The brothers use 50/50 corn and grass silage
Pat says he finds it easier to get the cows pregnant in the winter because they are at a good, consistent nutritional level that he can closely control.
“Also, spring weather is unpredictable, so they can be outdoors and indoors, and their diet isn’t as stable and consistent as when they’re all housed,” he says.
“We start calving in the first week of October and then the cows are in the barn until February.
“We don’t calve too many in December or January because they are too difficult to finish. We have an automatic feeder and I think that’s a big help when you’re milking all year round, it takes some pressure off and feeding calves is just part of the system.
“We’re letting everything out between February 1st and February 10th, depending on the weather.”
The importance of a good feeding regime and quality feeds should not be underestimated in a winter milking system, says Pat.
“We feed them once a day, in the morning, and we give them enough for the whole day. We feed in batches instead of feeding all the animals together. The spring calves get 4 kg of feed in the wagon and we fill it up as needed.
“We feed the fresh 7kg calves from the feed wagon – a 24-piece balancer from McAuley Feeds.
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Clare McLernon works full-time for the brothers
“We feed 50/50 corn silage and grass silage. We have been feeding corn silage for about 15 years – in combination with high-quality grass silage, this works well for a winter calving herd. It is ideal for high-yielding cows, it is a very good quality forage.
“We also feed 10kg of fodder beets – they are high in energy and the cows love them and they improve their intake. We don’t grow it, we source it from a local farmer. It comes in a 16ft trailer, washed but not chopped.
“Fodder beets only last four to five days if they are chopped before they start weeping and depreciating. We chop it in the wagon and think it’s great again in a winter milking system.
“Our silage quality is good, that has to be in a winter milking system. The entire silage floor has been reseeded in the last five to six years.
“We graze the ground well before winter so we don’t carry a blade of grass on it, then it’s a better base for good grass to grow in spring.
“We don’t graze in the spring and then we prune between May 5th and 10th, depending on the weather.
The brothers pride themselves on having low somatic cell counts, which they believe is down to a good drying routine and good hygiene.
Work isn’t a problem right now, says Pat, as they have one full-time employee and seasonal workers for busy periods.
“We have a girl with us full time, Clare, and she’s amazing. She and Thomas do most of the milking and I do the feeding. We also have another girl named Gemma who joins us one day a week. Then my daughter Aoife milks for us once every two weeks. And my wife Audrey is a great help behind the scenes.”
“Not enough cows are calved in autumn”
“Liquid suppliers calve in the fall because they have a contract and a specific delivery volume that needs to be met and so they split their calving profile.
“You need fresh cows in the fall to efficiently fill that contract. But what does a calving pattern actually dictate?
“Well, first of all, it dictates the milk profile and if we (Teagasc) look nationwide, liquid milk farms are not calving enough cows in the fall. People think it’s weird when I say that because a lot of noise is being made about us switching to spring calving. But I say for the vast majority of farms we should calve more cows in the fall.”
This is because cows that calve in October and November are the most efficient cows on any dairy farm during the winter period, Dunne says.
“What we don’t want is a bunch of old or late calves from a spring herd and a lot of our liquid milk contract being filled by those cows because they just aren’t as efficient at converting feed into milk. ”
The calving pattern on a farm also determines the amount of concentrates and the type of feed required – such as good quality silage, says Dunne. Having the right amount of young cattle coming in is also important for a good winter milking system, he adds.
“A big one is the need for young cattle on the farm. What we see on winter dairy farms is that heifers do not calve at two years of age. This is a big step forward because you can reduce the need for replacements on the farm if you calve heifers at two years of age and don’t calve heifers over 30 months old.
“With extended calving profiles, heifer calves come through at different stages and it is much more difficult in terms of the rearing process and calving at two years old.
“There is an extra workload when we split our calving profile and you need to be rewarded for that. All of this contributes to the profitability of the whole farm: your calving system really determines the whole housing system and the level of profitability that is achieved on the farm.”
A good, short calving interval is extremely important, he adds.
“Ultimately, when we expand it, we’re not getting the potential production out of our cow, whether that potential is 7,500 or 9,000 liters.
“If we increase the calving interval, that cow spends more days in a lazy period, so we lose that potential production. We need to target those 370-375 days to increase overall herd performance.
“The six-week calving period in the fall and spring… we then want to calve these cows compactly in a tight period.”
Holding on to cows is a snare for many farmers, Dunne says, although the goal is to have the majority of your herd fully grown.
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Pat, Clare and Tommy take a break
“Everyone has favorite cows, but out of 100 cows you can only have five favorite cows. One of the biggest inefficiencies is – and it’s very easy to do – holding on to cows for too long. We often see replacement rates of 20-22pc.
“The ones you want to keep, with low somatic cell counts…when they go from fall to spring, it’s not as big of a deal as when they go from spring to fall, because you’re going from a high…cost period to a low cost period, as opposed to a transition from a low-cost period to a high-cost period.
“Lactations per cow are also important going forward and that really needs to be driven by the percentage of cows in fourth and fifth lactation that we can keep in the herd, rather than being hyped up by keeping underperforming older cows .
“If we were to look at that number in isolation we could just hold on to the cows and we would get there, but we want a large portion of our herd in those fourth, fifth and sixth lactations. We don’t want a lot of cows in 9th, 10th and 11th lactation because they will cause us problems later.
“Cell count, lameness and fertility all play a major role.”
According to Dunne, early October is the right time to start calving for the vast majority of winter milking herds.
“Unless you’re very sick, you don’t have to calve cows in the first week of September,” he says.
“If you get your winter feed right and your genetics right, you can provide the same components as your spring counterparts.”
https://www.independent.ie/business/farming/dairy/dairy-farm-profiles/why-these-meath-brothers-are-banking-on-winter-milk-42230294.html Why these Meath brothers are banking on winter milk