Herd size has trebled since 2010

THE Rathard Holsteins herd has trebled in size since 2010 to 150 cows today, and Peter and Paula Hynes aim to get to 200 by 2018. The difficulty of maintaining herd performance during expansion is widely acknowledged. Despite this, production per cow on the Hynes’ farm has gone from 240kg milk solids to 420kg, while the breeding season has reduced from 31 weeks to 12, leaving the herd in the top 5pc of Dairygold suppliers.

Some of this is down to breeding, with Peter moving from zero AI to 100pc AI on heifers and securing a valuable Keystone contract with NCBC, which ensures all heifers are genotyped for free. The strike rate for first service was 75.34pc so there are few repeats.

While the Corkman is meticulous at keeping records, he even has a system to keep an eye on how good a job the stock bull is doing.

“All the cows are bred to polled Hereford AI for the second half of the breeding season. The stock bull is non-polled Hereford so that we can tell which is which,” Peter explains.

Hereford calves were averaging €65/hd more than their Angus equivalents.

The parlour is chlorine-free, and the farm reduces costs through its involvement in trials for companies selling detergents and grass seed. Pig slurry is also used to maximum effect to cut fertiliser costs, while maintaining dry matter production at an impressive 14.5t/ha. In addition, Rathard is embarking on selective dry-cow therapy from this autumn.

The whole farm has been reseeded, with Peter taking the rather unconventional approach of setting seed as soon as conditions allow in the spring.

“Last year, we were sowing on the day after St Patrick’s Day. This year it was a fortnight later but it’s a great job for minimising the hit your total dry matter production takes per acre,” said Peter.

This focus on the bottom line means that the breakeven point for the farm after wages is 29.5c/l,and Peter is confident that figure will drop by a significant 5c/l next year.