Lauren Kinsella reckons he can keep up his total milk solids if he reduces his herd from 132 cows to 100 – slashing his costs and freeing up time.
Lauren Kinsella and his father Laurence intend to cut their herd by a quarter this year, while supplying the same tonnage of milk solids – giving themselves less work to do.
The Kinsellas milked 132 cows last year on their farm at Carrig More, just outside Muine Bheag in Co Carlow, producing almost 53t of milk solids.
But newly married Lauren (32) reckons that cutting numbers would improve economic efficiency and work-life balance, so he is looking to reduce the amount of land he leases.
“I think 100 is the sweet spot and that’s where there’s going to be more profit in the long term,” he says.
“Sometimes less is more. The way we are looking at it is, we milked on average 132 cows last year at 400kg milk solids. It’s grand, but it’s not where the best lads are, up at 500-550kg.
“When we had a lower stocking rate, we were doing 480-500kg. 132 animals at 400kg of milk solids – granted there’s probably too many heifers in it – it was just shy of 53t of milk solids in the year. But if you do 500-520kg with 100 cows then you’re there or thereabouts the same, which is 52t.
“When we were getting bank loans, because we were new entrants, we were prospecting figures and debt per cow… I’m not saying anyone put a gun to our heads, but the consensus was that the more cows you have, the less debt per cow and you’re on forecasted milk solids.
“Forecasted figures are grand but when they’re not doing it, it’s a different story.”
Lauren hopes that lower cow numbers will enable him to spent more time with his wife Tara and ease the pressure on his father, as well as opening up time for other projects around the farm.
“My father is getting his pension at the end of this week,” he says. “He has been working hard since he was 15, and he’s looking to get an easier time so it’s not fair to be asking him to do things.
“I’m newly married, so I have to have time for all that too. I like working but you can’t be a slave to the place.
“I’m all for working but it’s about the amount of hours you put in to get through as much work as possible and not be wearing yourself out.
“Time is everything in the future. There’s an old farmhouse on the farm that I’d love to be able to tackle.
Lauren says he and Laurence are “trying to make the system that little bit easier for if anyone came in for relief milking”.
“They would be in and out and everything is just running smoother,” he says. “In the past three or four years, we’ve got the cow collars and the calf feeder and stuff like that . I’m very much interested in incorporating technology. It has been a great investment in our farm.”
The Kinsella have also taken steps to make their farm more environmentally friendly
“We are sowing red and white clover, we’re using protected urea. I’d love to look into solar panels as well – that’ll be the next step,” Lauren says.
Lauren and Laurence have been milking in partnership for a decade.
“My father was very open to the partnership,” Lauren says. “I was only 22 but he brought me in straight away and never said no to dairying or anything. He never stood in my way so I’m very lucky that he gave me that chance.
“We only own 60ac, and we have 60ac of forestry as well. The land rented across the road is about 50ac so our milking platform is just over 100ac.
“We are farming almost 280ac altogether and we lease a good bit of land. We’re not in derogation so that’s why we are leasing so much, and a lot of it’s segmented and further away, for silage and young stock.
“Being out of derogation so long, I wouldn’t like the idea of going into it, because it’s unknown waters. It could land you in trouble if it was gone in the morning.”
Lauren studied Agriculture in Waterford (SETU) and graduated in 2014 before moving onto a graduate programme with Keenans of Borris for 18 months.
“That brought me to the middle of 2015 when I bought my first heifer calves. I had wanted to get into milking cows and that was the long-term plan for farming at home, and 2015 was when my father and I went into partnership.
“We were suckler farmers until 2017 – we used to keep 30-40 cows. We sold high-quality weanlings for export or into the marts.
“2015 was a very hard year to source calves, with quotas only being lifted and every dairy farmer in the country was trying to hold on to their heifer calves.
“We ended up getting a lot from Kilkenny, Tipperary and a few locally. There was a lot of money spent to get into dairying and it’s still being spent, but you can plan better and you do have a bit more money from it.
“I wouldn’t be saying to anyone to get into it for the money, because there is a bit of work with it, which we enjoy. I did a bit of relief milking before I got into my own cows so I knew what I was facing.
“The price of milk is nearly 60 c/L at the minute, when you take everything into account.”
The Kinsellas milked 50 heifers in their first year milking and each year have bought around 20 heifer calves to grow the herd.
“We grew from 50 to 70 and then from 70 to 85, then we jumped to 100. A bit of land came up for lease across the road from us and then went to 130 and kept a good few replacements,” Lauren says.
The Kinsellas have generally retained their bull calves and sold them at a year old, but are now considering their options.
Lauren recently hosted a Teagasc Spring Pasture morning, with the farm having an average cover of 830kg of DM/ha and 10pc grazed with cows out by day.
The cows have a grazing allocation of 6-7kg DM/cow/day, and 7pc of the farm has got slurry and after grazing will follow with 2,500 gallons on grazed paddocks.
In early February, 13.05L/cow/day was produced at 0.55kg MS/cow or 25.1kg MS/ha for the year to date.
“We generally have dry enough ground that we can get out early but it’s probably not the thing to do because for the last three years we have about 95pc calved within six weeks and it’s too much pressure on the grass before it comes,” Lauren says.
“I definitely will have to look at the back-end too, to close it a bit better. The biggest thing for us is we get crippled here with droughts, so the fringes of the year are more reliable. We have an overall stocking rate of 1.8 cows/ha. The milking platform was 3.3 cows last year but it’s going to 2.75 this year.
“Anything we don’t like or looks at us a bit sideways, there’s 10 cows there to be corrected to 100.
“We have 19 replacements coming in this year whereas normally we would have 40. That was another thing with our stocking rate and not growing enough grass – we were losing our first calvers.
“It’s not from a lack of meal, it’s just they were under too much pressure in the system that we had and we could be losing 30pc of our first calvers as a result.
“It’s very frustrating with dear stocking, and they’re not even making money for you and losing them out the gate at the end of the year.
“I was looking at last year and we were probably making the mistake of not giving enough energy to the cows and we were getting proteins of 3.2pc. We were out in bad conditions and the power wasn’t in the grass with all of the wet weather. It never bloody stopped raining!
“We try to cut our silage early in the middle of May, and if it’s tight because of a drought anything going for a second cut can be brought in and fed as grass. I’m hoping now with a reduced stocking rate I won’t have to do as much of that craic.
“Zero grazing is great but it’s a job that you have to do early in the morning, and you also have to keep doing it. If you have anyone working for you or if you’re going off, yes you can have a contractor, but you need to closely control the feed coming in.
“We usually feed 2kg in the parlour, 1kg in the morning and evening, and then 5kg in the diet feeder. Normally we wouldn’t feed any more than 4kg in the parlour because you’re going through a lot of meal and there can be waste too. It’s easier to pull it out of the diet feeder to get more grass through it.”
You can now read the most important #news on #eDairyNews #Whatsapp channels!!!
You may be interested in
Legal notice about Intellectual Property in digital contents. All information contained in these pages that is NOT owned by eDairy News and is NOT considered “public domain” by legal regulations, are registered trademarks of their respective owners and recognized by our company as such. The publication on the eDairy News website is made for the purpose of gathering information, respecting the rules contained in the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works; in Law 11.723 and other applicable rules. Any claim arising from the information contained in the eDairy News website shall be subject to the jurisdiction of the Ordinary Courts of the First Judicial District of the Province of Córdoba, Argentina, with seat in the City of Córdoba, excluding any other jurisdiction, including the Federal.
Related
notes
BUY & SELL DAIRY PRODUCTOS IN
Latest News
Featured
Join to
Most Read
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
News by State
World
eDairy News Spanish
eDairy News PORTUGUESE
