Tyddyn yr Eglwys

Follow our journey if you are interested in:

• Efficiently grow and utilise as much grass as possible 
• Evaluating the contribution of individual cows to overall profitability 
• Maintaining or reducing current labour input levels 
• Maximising their returns and cash out of their business

Overview

Dylan and Hannah Harries have been operating as contract farmers at Tyddyn yr Eglwys since October 2013. Owned by Kim and Bryony Petty, both the Pettys and Harries have a stake in the herd.

Our farm

Located in north-east Pembrokeshire, Tyddyn yr Eglwys is a 283 ha farm, of which 160 ha is grazing platform. Dylan and Hannah aim to incorporate efficiencies into all aspects of the farm, including a well-designed parlour allowing a high throughput of cows per hour. After spending winter with access to the self-feed silage clamp adjacent to the cubicles, cows calve onto an outdoor calving pad during the spring, before moving to pasture when in milk.

Our herd

This spring-calving herd of 550 Friesian X Jerseys averages 5,800 litres per cow per year at 4.80% butterfat and 3.80% protein. All replacements are home reared and the average age at first calving for 2019 was 21 months. To allow maximum access to good pasture and increase the production of milk from forage, there has been recent investment in tracks and troughs, silage clamps and slurry storage. Dylan and Hannah also incorporate a herbal ley containing clover, plantain and chickory into their reseeding programme.

Our journey

Dylan and Hannah’s aspirations as strategic farmers is to maximise cash out of the business, breed an efficient herd of grass to milk-solid converting cows and utilise as much grass as possible.

Follow Dylan and Hannah's progress from events on twitter by searching for #SDFTyddynyrEglwys

Our key performance figures

Tyddyn yr Eglwys openly share their key perferomance indicators, so you can see how they perform against a number of technical and financial measures. 

News and past events

• Marginal litres: Profit or loss (November 2021) Dylan Harries and John Roche explore how marginal litres may be impacting your profit line (YouTube, 1 hour 30 minutes)
• Overheads key to driving farm performance (February 2021) How to maximise cash out of the business whilst maintaining job satisfaction and quality of life for the whole farm team
• Lean management for dairy with Jana Hocken (January 2021) Dylan and Hannah explore how to implement lean management processes on-farm in a dairy context with world-renowned, New Zealand author of The Lean Dairy Farmer, Jana Hocken
• Figuring out the key to good breeding (December 2019) How the spring calving index (£SCI) informs breeding decisions and drives profitability at Tyddyn yr Egglwys
• Using farm data to identify top performers and passengers in your herd (October 2019) The learning is not currently available for this event
• Tyddyn yr Eglwys launch overview (August 2019) Dylan and Hannah Harries join our strategic dairy farm network 

Find out more about the funding of our strategic dairy farm programme in Wales

Explore our other strategic dairy farms