This Dairy Focus looks into the farm of Joe Healy, who stopped milking cows for 13 years to work in the steel industry until he made the decision to return to milking cows in 2020, where his Copperbeech Herd of 96 cows continues to improve.
Healy hosted the Irish Holstein Friesian Association (IHFA) Focus Farm Open Day on his farm in Athboy, Co. Meath, where there were six different farms systems and talks on display.
Healy is a Holstein Friesian enthusiast who is meticulous in everything he does, from grass growing, reseeding, milk quality, breeding and genetics.
Healy told attendees that his decision to return to farming has changed his life, as it has presented him with more time to spend with his family.
“I can now run down to the primary school to watch my daughter play a game of football,” he said.
Dairy Focus
His father, John, is still involved in the day-to-day running of the farm and was very welcoming of 70 heifers, 10 in calf heifers and a few second calvers that were bought in from various herds to start the Healys out in 2020.
Healy told attendees that he’s continuing to learn year-on-year when when it comes to cow type, but he admits that he now knows what the right cow for his farm is.
The journey started in 2019 when there were 70 heifers bought in, which they were all served to Aberdeen Angus, as Healy felt they had enough for doing without adding rearing heifers into the mix that year.
Healy was in the Better Farm Programme with Teagasc before returning to the cows, which helped him a lot in managing and utilising grass.
Healy installed a new cubicle shed and a14-unit Dairymaster milking parlour, which was necessary in order to increase his system to 96 cows.
Now, all replacements are bred with dam classification and production is vitally important to him when selecting his bull team.
The herd is 100% spring calving and the herd breed fraction is 85% Holstein and 15% Friesian.
Healy always looks for credible cow families when choosing his bulls. Dairy semen is used for the first service on cows that he wants breed replacements from and uses beef semen on repeats, as he wishes to breed 25 replacements each year.
Breeding
Speaking about his herd years ago, Healy said: “I suppose, after being in cows 13 years ago, we had issues with infertility, as my dad used to say ‘sometimes you’d have to nearly take a cow on a pilgrimage to get her in calf’.”
There is no issue with fertility on the farm anymore, as Healy has started using American Holstein genetics and stressed “there is no question that that’s the way I want to go with the herd”.
Healy told attendees that he “takes EBI (economic breeding index) with a pinch of salt”, as he tries to strike a balance between health traits, fertility and functional type.
Healy emphasised that milk yields are exceptional, and there is absolutely no problem with fertility, although the herd is highly influenced by American Holstein genetics.
Healy runs an 11-week breeding season with artificial insemination (AI), only with 24 days of Holstein Friesian sires, followed by beef.
When it comes to bull selection, Healy emphasised that “he prefers going for daughter proven bulls rather than genomics, and that the figures have to be justified”.
Healy had a 2% empty rate with only 3 cows being empty out of the 120 cows that were served on the farm and Healy was more than happy to put a lot of that success down to the Sensehub collars.
However, a lot of the success can also be put down to Healy’s consistency in feeding and as he described he is “giving the cows what they when they want it”.
Herd performance
Healy is milking 96 cows and achieved a calving interval of 363 days, which is an exceptional feet with the average parity of the herd being at 3.2.
The herd has an EBI of €202 with a milk sub-index of €64, a fertility sub-index of €92 and a health sub-index of €5.
Healy admits that he wants to see the average parity at four down the line in order to drive milk production even further, as his herd is still a young herd.
Despite the herd being quite young, Healy’s Copperbeech Herd achieved an average milk yield of 8,159kg of milk/cow.
The herd’s fat production was 332kgs (4.07%) and the protein production was 292kgs (3.58%), which added up to be a total solids production of 625kg.
The stocking rate on the farm is 2.1 livestock units (LU)/ha and the conformation average of the herd was recently scored at 83.5.
This milk production is achieved through thorough feeding as he fed 1.9t of concentrates/ cow last year and is set to feed over 2t/cow this year.
Healy also utilises a diet feeder in the winter/spring and will not hesitate to go buffer feeding cows with bale silage if grass is tight.
In terms of grass, Healy always aims to be going into covers of 1400 – 1600kg DM/ha. He admits that this was challenging to maintain this year.
Healy said he had very little opportunity to take out bales, as grass growth has proved to struggle this year.
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