How Cheshire suckler farm adapted to survive drought

Cheshire suckler farmer Ian Norbury has torn up his feed budget several times this summer, as bales have been bought, winter crops cancelled and stock sold early.

Like in many areas of central, eastern and southern Britain, his grassland farm on the edge of Mobberley, near Knutsford, has had a phenomenally hot, dry summer.

His decisions are based on the goal of making £100-£200 a cow profit. He also wants to grow his Aberdeen-Angus herd to 150 head and earn a £30,000 wage. He had increased cow numbers from 65 to 125, but has had to cut back again.

“Even when other parts of Cheshire had loads of rain recently, it’s missed us,” he explains. “This is the second dry summer in a row.”

The upshot is that grass growth has been insufficient, meaning 190 bales have been fed already, of which 133 were bought in. And, with no rain earlier in the summer, wintering crops (kale), which worked well last winter, could not be drilled.

See also: Farmer Focus: Drought derails sheep dairy plans

For the past five years, Mr Norbury has been an AHDB Strategic Farmer. He says this has made him better placed to steer the business through a dry year, by focusing on the following areas:

1. Talk about it

As well as discussions with friends and neighbours, Mr Norbury discusses ideas with a network of farmers and consultants across the UK, many of whom he met through the Strategic Farmer programme.

A member of staff had the idea to buy oat straw in the swath, bale it, and store it on farm. It will likely be bought by Mr Norbury to feed as straw at £16/bale, after other farmers suggested seeing if the cows would eat it. Nutritionally improved ammonia treatments have also been considered.

2. Know your options

A former dairy unit, the farm has 150 cubicles, which means cows can be bedded cheaply on mats and sawdust.

At this time of year, the clamp usually has 560t of silage in it. Currently, it has only 500t and it is unlikely that another cut will be made. Recently, the system has been to house cows in February, two weeks before calving in early March.

A further 14 store steers can be sold early, and more forage bought in to get through the winter. As well as the oat straw – which the cows have started eating – a parcel of land across the river may become available. This could be used to bale-graze cattle through the winter, but it needs brash clearing and fencing, so Mr Norbury will not rely on this.

Two silage fields have been rested and will be brought back into the rotation, which will hopefully take the pressure off the grazing platform.

Priority stock are high-index bulls, cows and replacement heifers. Steers, fattening heifers and lower-demand bulls can be sold to bring money into the business and reduce feed demand.

Older cows in good condition can be kept on sacrifice paddocks, and thinner, younger cows targeted at best grazing.

3. Aim to make money

With fertiliser doubling in price to £700/t, and then increasing to £900/t, the business decided to go without fertiliser this year, saving about £18,000, or £156 a cow.

With costs rising, the farm’s margin may only be £100 a cow, so it seemed more logical to buy in a bit of haylage at, say, £25-£30 a bale, if needed, rather than buying fertiliser. It turned out that fertiliser would have been limited in its use, as the farm has had so little rain.

Instead of the usual application of 30-40kg N/ha on grazing ground and up to 60kg on silage ground (20-25t/year of product), the farm relied on home-produced slurry instead.

Growing youngstock above 1kg a head a day is great if it is cost effective. Growing at 0.8kg a head a day on hay will be fine this year, as long as rain and compensatory growth follow next spring, says Mr Norbury.

4. Know dry matter supply

Weekly grass measurements show growth fell to 24kg dry matter (DM)/ha a day in June, compared with 50-60kg DM in June and July last year. The oldest sward was used as a sacrifice paddock for the cows, which were fed 133 bales of hay, bought in at £20/bale from a local farmer.

After this point, grass growth stopped. But by early September, grass growth reached 38kg DM/ha, equalling demand, meaning bale feeding could stop.

Mr Norbury will measure the farm on the last two Mondays of September after some rain to gauge how much of a wedge has been built up for the cows. A monthly stocktake of cake, straw, calves, youngstock, bulls, fertiliser, clamp silage and bales is done to create a plan for the month ahead.

Bales are weighed in the mixer wagon, or over the weigh bridge to get accurate DM figures.

5. Know dry matter demand

All cows, calves and bulls are weighed when they go through the Arrowquip crush. Weaning, bulling and housing weights are crucial to gauge herd performance.

Heifers – because of direct sales to high-end butchers – and breeding stock command a premium. However, steers go deadweight to ABP. This year 20 head were sold aged 15 months to an approved finishing unit as stores to lessen demand, averaging £1,100 a head.

A decision to cull the bigger commercial cross-bred cows was taken early last year when the weather was dry. A batch of 16 went after pregnancy diagnosis last year, grossing £17,200 (£1,075 a cow).

Cows weighing 800kg would have needed 1,920kg of DM, or 6.3 bales each, over a 120-day winter. Selling these cows has saved 100 bales of demand.

6. Know your key numbers

• 1,750kg DM/ha The amount of cover left on fields to protect against the heat and stop land drying out, leaving grass leaves ready to power growth when rain comes
• 3% The DM requirements of youngstock as a percentage of bodyweight
• 380-400kg How much a haylage bale weighs, which at 80% DM means about 304kg DM/bale
• 650kg Approximate mature cow weight for winter budget. A dry cow has a 2% DM requirement as a percentage of bodyweight, so the DM requirement is 13kg a cow a day, or 1,300kg a day for 100 cows. This equals 4.27 bales/day, which could be rounded down to three bales, plus a bale of oat straw and deferred grazing, as there will be slightly fewer than 100 cows at the farm
• 480 Number of bales needed for 120 days from November until mid-February, which means 250-300 will need to be bought in