22 April 2024

Growing Organics: Navigating a difficult spring in Kerry

Thomas Kavanagh, a participant in the Growing Organics Monitor Farm Programme, operates a suckler to weanling system outside Dingle, Co. Kerry. Like so many farms across the country, a wet spring has brought challenges in terms of grazing and readying silage crops.

Farming 36ha of reasonably good, dry ground, cow and calf pairs, along with weanlings, were turned to grass on March 17. However, the arrival of Storm Kathleen forced a retreat indoors for the calved cows.

Although Thomas would like to have retained these at grass if conditions allowed, he has set up his system for a six month winter, along with a buffer, meaning that ample feed, bedding, housing and slurry stores were available with the return of cows and calves indoors.

In terms of calving, 15 of the 25 cows had calved and only two required veterinary assistance. With ground conditions improving and calved pairs returning to grass over recent days, the plan with the remaining cows is to turn them out once calved two days. After starting in mid-March, Thomas expects the last of his cows to have calved by the end of April / early May.

On the silage front, ground conditions didn’t allow Thomas to apply slurry to silage ground. As producing high-quality silage is a priority of his, he’ll instead target a late May / early June cutting date. After which, slurry will be applied to grow second-cut silage.

Weanling performance

Thomas plans to sell his weanlings privately off farm in the near future. These animals performed exceptionally well over the winter months. Offered a diet of high-quality silage and an organic ration comprising of a pea, barley and oat mix sourced from an organic grain grower in Co. Cork, they gained 1kg/head/day from weaning in November to March – leaving them in a weight range of 240-430kg.

Watch the video below for more details on how Thomas managed during the recent wet weather:

Thomas hosted a Growing Organics Farm Walk in 2023. To learn more about the establishment of his suckler enterprise, see the below:

Growing Organics: Establishing an organic suckler enterprise in Kerry

Learn more on the Growing Organics Monitor Farm Programme here