Ayrshire: Using key performance targets to improve dairy farm margins

Join us for an event with strategic dairy farm hosts Wallace and James Hendrie and Dr Joe Patton, Head of Dairy Knowledge Transfer Dept from Teagasc, Republic of Ireland to understand how key herd performance figures can impact on financial margins.

During the meeting we will be identifying and agreeing future targets for key herd performance metrics and exploring how these could help benefit the bottom line.  

We will take a critical look at the farms current performance and explore and identify realistic targets and discuss how these can be achieved.

The main topics will include:

• Whole farm stocking rate and feed budget
• Herd fertility
• Milk productivity
• Overhead costs
• Carbon per kg / milk

About Millands Farm 

Millands Farm is a 345 hectare, all grass farm owned by Wallace and James Hendrie.  They employ two full-time and three part-time employees to work alongside them including a Herd Manager and a Calf Manager. 

They operate a spring block calving system comprising of 600 cows, producing 5400 l/cow.  Calving starts early March and lasts 12 weeks with 82% calving in the first 6 weeks.  Cows are fed on a bunkered silage system with cake in the parlour and rotational grazing measured and allocated with the ambition to improve their milk from forage.

Follow their story by visiting www.ahdb.org.uk/farm-excellence/millands-farm 

About Dr Joe Patton

Dr Joe Patton is the recently appointed head of Dairy Knowledge Transfer in Teagasc, the state agriculture development authority in Ireland. In this role, Dr Patton leads the team of dairy specialists and advisers in the organisation. He graduated from University College Dublin with a Degree in Agricultural Science in 2002 and completed a PhD on the nutritional effects on reproductive function in dairy cattle in 2006. He has held a number of roles in Teagasc, including researcher in the area of dairy herd nutrition, leader of the Teagasc winter milk systems project, and specialist adviser on dairy herd nutrition. He has also worked extensively with milk processors in Ireland to develop joint industry initiatives for improvement of dairy farm performance.  

About Strategic Dairy Farms

Strategic dairy farms aim to help farmers learn from each other through regular on-farm meetings where key performance data is shared and what the best farmers are doing is showcased.

They form part of the Optimal Dairy Systems programme which aims to help dairy farmers reduce costs and increase efficiency by focusing on either a tight block or all-year-round calving system.

The growing network of strategic dairy farms have calculated KPIs for their enterprises which are shared at meetings and published online. These are physical and financial performance measures that are critical to success. Farmers can benchmark their businesses against these KPIs to help identify areas for improvement. 

Follow the programme and find other local SDFs at www.ahdb.org.uk/farm-excellence