Fine-tuning cows for a grazing based system

Breeding cows for a spring calving system is part of a new direction for a Wiltshire farming family who have had such success with their strategy that they are now running four herds.

Building up a spring calving herd which produces a large proportion of its milk from grazed grass was a complete departure from David Homer’s previous way of breeding and farming his cows.

As a life-long tenant farmer – having been brought up on his parents’ rented farm in Warwickshire and moved to farm in his own right on a tenancy in Wiltshire – the drive had always been towards higher yields and increasingly Holstein bloodlines.

But when David (pictured right) and his two sons, Chris and Geoff, were given the opportunity of taking on an extra tenancy at Warren Farm, close to Marlborough and the Wiltshire Downs, they felt the premises were ideally suited to grazing cows.

With land adjoining the Savernake Forest, the soil across the new farm’s 223 hectares (550 acres) was relatively poor and highly variable, ranging from some heavy clay caps, which were very water-retentive, to thin soils over a bedrock of chalk.

"We felt the soil type would lend itself to spring calving and we put in tracks and troughs and a paddock infrastructure for rotational grazing," says David.

This meant that instead of chasing yields to match the herd already at the family’s nearby Chisbury Lane Farm – where the Holsteins’ average production was 10,500 litres – the team now needed a different kind of cow.

They took the opportunity to acquire completely new bloodlines suited to this system, and located a batch of cows and heifers which originated at Teagasc’s Moorepark Farm to form the basis of the new herd. Being part of the Irish government’s research centre meant the cattle came with a headstart in terms of Predicted Transmitting Ability (PTA).

"We brought 300 cows over from Ireland in 2013, which were mostly Friesian with an element of Jersey," says David. “We carried on breeding them to a similar type of genetics – mostly pure Friesian and Friesian cross Jersey bulls.

"Genetic indexes have always been part of our decision making, and we were fortunate to find animals with good EBIs [Ireland’s native index], which created a fantastic base from which to work,” he says.

Now, the bloodlines are being developed using the UK’s Spring Calving Index (£SCI) which is the farm’s primary ranking tool used for shortlisting sires.

"We use £SCI because the components of the index are the priority factors we look for in our cows," David explained.

"We don’t need heavy cows as we want to minimise soil and pasture damage, especially during the shoulders of the grazing season. Our average cow weight is 545 kg and we’d like to reduce this to 525 kg for an average, mid-lactation cow."

Also producing milk for Arla, he’s aiming to improve the genetics for milk solids, as well as health, fertility and longevity.

Selecting and blending genetics

These factors are all wrapped up in a single figure with £SCI (see below), which promotes milk quality rather than volume, has a strong emphasis on fertility, improves udder and leg health and reduces maintenance costs by limiting liveweight. Its overarching purpose is to maximise profitability for UK-based, spring block calving, predominantly grazing herds.

“Once we’ve shortlisted on £SCI we will drill down into components of the index, improving traits as each cow requires,” he says.

Unlike in some low-input herds, mating decisions are made on a cow-by-cow basis, which means that despite the variety of breeds, uniformity in size can still be achieved.

By carefully selecting and blending genetics, the Homers have developed a uniform herd of cattle precisely suited to their needs.

"They are grazing machines," says David as he watches them tear at their late summer pasture, barely pausing from the business of consuming grass.

Today, the herd produces 5,214 litres per cow, with combined fat and protein of 419 kg and 2,631 litres (just over 50%) from grazing (rolling 12-month average to August 2023).

Milk is sold through Arla CARE, meeting the scheme’s high animal welfare, renewable energy and ecosystem requirements. And with high health standards and diverse swards contributing to this qualification, David is happy to acknowledge: "We have very little lameness… and we don’t really do metabolic disease."

The only concentrates used are fed in the parlour, amounting to 0.18kg/litre, or 0.87 tonnes/cow/year. This gives a cost per litre of 8.23p, which contributes to a margin over purchased feed of 35.70p/litre or over £1,700 per cow (to August 2023). However, this margin is almost £200 less than the previous 12 months (to August 2022), before milk price dropped at the start of this year.

He says: "We wanted to reduce costs per litre and we have done so massively and that has definitely increased our profitability. However, last year the autumn calving herds had lower costs of production because they were less affected than the spring calvers by the drought."

The herds to which he refers include the Holsteins at Chisbury Lane, which have now been switched to autumn block calving, plus a third herd, also in Wiltshire, farmed under contract. A new herd is also farmed on the Isle of Bute where Chris has taken a tenancy, while Geoff now manages Warren Farm.

The two remaining herds and the total 3,500 acres (1,416 ha) of arable and grassland are jointly farmed by the family.

David says he’s completely happy with the direction of travel and the family will continue with its ‘crossbreeding experiment’.

"Some people enjoy squeezing as much milk as they can out of their Holsteins, but we, as a family, enjoy grazing cows.

"We get our kicks out of watching cows doing exactly as they’re doing now,” he says. “I feel I’m having my second farming career."

£SCI has been developed by AHDB specifically to help producers who calve in a tight block in spring and place a heavy reliance on grazed grass, to breed more profitable cows. Its emphasis on milk solids is balanced with high fertility, health and good functional traits in a small, efficient cow.

As an across-breed index, £SCI is suitable for pure and well as crossbred herds, allowing producers to compare one breed against another on the same scale.

This is particularly important in a herd such as the Homers’, as it gives an at-a-glance figure with which to compare, say a New Zealand with a British or Irish sire.

If they then choose to drill down to see a particular trait, such as female fertility, this is expressed on a scale which is common to all their candidate bulls. Without it, they would have no way of knowing whether a bull from one breed was better than another for that particular trait, nor how a bull compared with one from another country.

The index has also been developed for UK-costed inputs, and its formula reflects current and projected future UK markets into which producers are selling their milk.