'I've a regular income now': Former suckler farmer on switch to contract rearing

A regular income was the main lure that attracted Neill Boland to convert from running a suckling enterprise to contract rearing.

After taking over the family farm in the '90s, he moved to convert the dairy enterprise into suckling, as the land at Enniscrone, Co Sligo, was fragmented in small parcels and they couldn't carry the number of cows to make it viable.

"I went into suckling and I loved it but it wasn't paying," says Neill, who is married to Catherine, a school teacher, and has a busy household with Éabha (2) and Liam (1). "It was too inconsistent."

It was around seven years ago that he decided to take the plunge and go into contract rearing.

"There was no one else in the area at it. I had to travel quite a bit to speak to someone about it. I took a gamble with a friend of mine - I got out of suckling and beef and full-time into contract rearing.

"The suckling payments were once a year and beef was unpredictable. With the contract rearing, I have a regular income and I know what is coming down the road."

He points out that it works well with a fragmented farm. "The first time, my friend gave me them as one-year-olds, and he took them back eight or nine months later. Now, seven years later, we are still at it," the 39-year-old says.

He is now contract rearing animals for three different dairy farmers - one local and two from Meath.

Neill feels that the key factor is developing a good working relationship with the farmers. "There had to be a chair between each of us: an arbitrator so that if there is an issue or a hiccup, we can turn to them as we were both learning. As you go along the road, there will be hiccups." Each contract and payment is individually worked out with the farmer, depending on their requirements and whether they want to supply meal or vaccines.

"We sit down in January during a quiet time in the year and discuss it. So I know what is coming," he says, with a target of 0.7kg/day for calves.

Flexible

Now he is taking in calves as young as four weeks old for one farmer and sending them home as in-calf heifers at 22 months.

"I offer what the farmer wants and I try to be as flexible as I can. I give them as many options as they want. Once I'm at it full-time, I give everything to it," he says.

"When the farmer sees them going out the gate in a lorry, he needs reassurance they are going to come back in calf. I email him every month with updates and weights." Now he is carrying 115 calves and 115 breeding heifers across 45ha in total.

Next year he believes the numbers will increase as the dairy operators expand. "It is unlimited, really. I'm with a dairy group and a lot of them are looking for contract rearers."

One of the major stumbling blocks that Neill found was rearing the dairy calves, which he described as a "different ballgame" after the sucklers. "It was getting used to getting the young calf from milk to meal to grass and getting the calf growing on as much grass as possible. I'm in PastureBase Ireland and that is a big curve, getting them on to grass," he says, adding the right dosing programme was also key. "I'm grass measuring every seven days."

Over 90pc of the farm has been reseeded in the last 10 years with a mix made up from diploid varieties on the latest Teagasc PastureProfit index. He said it has paid off in terms of grass growth.

His silage samples last year came in at 76pc DMD, with 20ha set aside for it each year.

"You are trying to keep costs down in terms of meal so I was trying to get that bit right," he says. All of the calves and heifers are weighed every month and any that aren't on target are picked out."

He says both himself and the farmer weigh the animals at the start and any that are underweight are selected. He adds that an agreement is struck such as providing meal to bring the animal back up to weight.

The calves are kept on straw while the heifers are housed during the winter on a four-bay double-slatted shed.

After trial and error, he found out-wintering any calves that are behind targets on kale helps to bring them back up to weight in the spring. "I've seen calves doing 100kg over two months," he says. "It's also great for reseeding old pasture."

All the heifers are synchronised and scanned and AI is carried out before bulls are used for mopping up. Neill provides the bulls for two farmers and a third farmer supplies his own bull.

"In comparison to the suckling, the dairy animals are much lighter. The cows come in around 700kg, while the heifers are around 250kg.

"You can nearly have two heifers to where you would have one cow," he says.

Neill says it also works well with suckling if you can manage your grass properly.

In his discussion group, several have been saying they may enter into it to back up their income from sucklers.