Dairy Farm (2017 - 2021)

When Ian joined the Strategic Farm programme his aims were to:

• Improve grassland management by implementing rotational grazing and introducing an outwintering system
• Improving growth rates to reduce age at slaughter
• Tighten the calving period

Over the four year project, Ian introduced rotational grazing which has enabled him to increase his stocking rate, whilst grazing the same amount of land. It has also enabled him to increase youngstock growth rates from 0.9kg/day to 1.2 kg/day. Ian has also started growing forage crops including kale, to outwinter the suckler cows. By doing this the housing period reduced from 20 to 8 weeks and wintering costs from £1.30/head/day to 70p/head/day.

Ian has also worked hard to improve suckler cow efficiency. He has reduced his mature cow size which has meant that on average, cows are weaning 43% of their body weight. He has also reduced the calving period from 23 to 12 weeks. 

Ian recorded a podcast summarising the changes he has made and the impact it has had on his business, you can listen to it here https://audioboom.com/posts/7835555-beef-lamb-my-strategic-farm-journey-with-ian-norbury