My name is Andrew Mc Shea and I farm a small holding of 23 acres in the townland of Tully, just outside Ballyshannon, Co. Donegal. The land is fair to good.
At present I am running 12 cows with calves at foot and 2 replacement heifers. My aim is to get to 15 cows and keep some replacements as well.
I close 6 acres for silage and cut that twice which leaves 17 acres for grazing. This can be tight at times but I have the farm nearly all reseeded so this helps to keep a “grass bank” for the cows.
We calve our cows in the Autumn, (usually October) and I start to AI the cows again Christmas week and stop the second week of Feburary. I use AI exclusively on my herd. I started doing my own AI-ing 3 years ago and I am very happy with the results so far.
I also do contract reseeding, as a sideline using a “Guttler Greenmaster” machine (see the photos below). It helps to take much of the hard work out of reseeding.
Andrew’s Guttler Greenmaster Re-seeding machine
Close up of the Guttler Greenmaster Re-seeding machine
One of the suckler cows at present on the farm
This years calves which will be kept for replacements.
One of this years calves which will be kept as a replacement.
A picture of the field before reseeding commenced
The same field after reseeding before the slurry went out