ABP's farm liaison officer Sean Cassidy recently visited the farm ahead of the arrival of the spring-born calves to see how cattle have been performing.

The father-son farming duo rear a batch of 60 autumn calves and 40 spring calves, bringing the total number of calves reared on an annual basis to approximately 100 head.

Michael and Kieran are now preparing to take in the spring-born calves, and say that the system of rearing both autumn and spring-born calves works well for them as it allows for greater use of the calf-rearing facilities.

It also means there are cattle fit to sell over different parts of the year, which brings cashflow benefits to the system.

The last three spring-2024-born cattle will be drafted in early February and so far, this batch of cattle have killed out well with an average carcass-weight of 303kg at 23 months-of-age.

Michael also remarked that he was impressed with his grades and fat scores with over half the cattle grading an 'R-'.

The autumn-born calves are now on a diet of calf ration and straw, and will be weighed and dosed if required soon.

Michael recently installed brushes on the barriers and calf enrichment play balls in the pens, and calves are both clean and content.

Weather conditions are not ideal at the moment but when they improve, the weanlings will go out to grass and will also be cut from concentrates.

They are on track for target weight at turnout, currently on good quality silage and 2-3kg concentrates/head/day.

Water quality grant support

Michael farms near the 'Athboy_060' river in the Boyne catchment region and has recently had several measures approved under the Farming for Water EIP scheme. He will receive €7,710 in grant funding to support these actions.

The application was completed with the help of the ABP farm liaison team.

The measures Michael was approved for include:

Nutrient management plan;
3ha of multispecies swards;
1,000m of cattle fencing along waterbodies;
The installation of four new water troughs, and slurry testing.

Slurry testing and the nutrient management plan will help Michael apply nutrients where needed, meaning less waste, lower costs, and a reduced risk of nutrients being washed into rivers during high levels of rainfall.