Heanton Barton strategic farm launch

Jim Kirk introduces us to Heanton Barton Farm in North Devon, home to an all year round calving herd of 575 Holstein Friesians. He provides more details about the team, herd, the farm infrastructure – including investments over recent years, his performance and plans for the future.

Heanton Barton farm team

Jim took over running the farm from his dad around 18 months ago. As well as the family, there are three full time employees as well as an apprentice.

The young team all live within a five-mile radius of the farm and all focus on different areas. 20-year-old herdsman Harrison takes charge of the cows alongside Jim.

The team meet at 10.30 every day to make sure everyone’s kept up-to-date, using a whiteboard to list jobs, which are ticked off as they’re completed.

Herd health, breeding and feeding 

Of the 1,000 head of cattle on the farm, 520 are in the milking herd producing an average of 11,000 litres per year, 50 are dry cows and the remainder, youngstock. Earlier this year they sold 80-90 calves at 42 days old due to a lack of room, but they’ve found extra capacity to hold onto them in future.

Their herd health plan involves vaccinating for IBR, BVD and Lepto, as well as Salmonella at dry off which provides some immunity to the calves. The herd has been TB clear for three years.

They test for Johnes every three months and anything high gets a red tag, which are kept with the herd until drying off when they are housed separately. Johnes cows are only put to beef and none of their milk is fed to calves.

Genus RMS took over the breeding programme 18 months ago, which is now managed by Jim and Harrison who do all AI supported with quarterly reviews from Genus. British Blue and Welsh Black are used for beef.

The ration contains grass silage, maize, soda wheat and blend as they want to increase their milk from forage. Previously a mix of maize and wholecrop was grown on 70 acres. Jim found the maize to be more effective at increasing yields so now concentrates on this crop and has expanded planting to 250 acres.

Rotary parlour, new sheds, water reservoir and silage clamp

Initially they decided to replace the herringbone parlour with robots as milking was taking too long with their growing herd. However, the robots limited expansion as they required further sheds to make room for additional units.

To overcome this, they installed a 60-point GE rotary parlour and have never looked back. Herd size is no longer limited, and two people can milk the cows in under two hours.

A purpose-built cubicle shed was built three years ago, copying the design from a neighbouring farm, and designed solely for milking cows with cow comfort and health in mind.

Another neighbour provided the inspiration for a new calf shed, which helped them address pneumonia issues. It consists of five pens on one side and seven on the other with curtain sides that can be raised in hot weather. Calves are initially housed in individual crates and moved into groups of five until weaning.

Inspired by a news report, they constructed a water reserve to help them manage during hot summers. The reservoir was constructed in an existing wet field, which contains two springs and now receives the water from farm roofs. An ultraviolet filter ensures it’s safe for cows to drink and meets all of their water needs, which delivers large cost savings.

Their previous earth banked silage clamp was replaced with a new concrete-side pit which fully complies with SAFFO regulations. In future, they hope to install a roof.  

Key performance indicators

We examined the farm’s performance against three of our KPIs:

• Pregnancy rate is 24% which they achieve by prioritising getting cows back in calf, aiming to serve by 50 days. Most cows are in calf by 100 to 130 days.
• Age at first calving is 24 months, placing them in the top 25% of GB farms. They aim to give calves a great start in life by focusing on attention to detail to ensure they grow and thrive.
• Business overheads are currently 9.9ppl achieved by making the most of in-house staff and machinery on farm. Only spraying and spreading is contracted out.

Areas of future focus

• People management – Heanton Barton has always been a family farm, but as it expands, Jim recognises the need to become more business focused.
• Business and financial management – Jim acknowledges that there has been less scrutiny of profitability so has taken on responsibility for the bookkeeping to help identify improvement areas.
• Reduce carbon footprint – Jim feels like farmers should do their bit to become more carbon efficient and maintain public appeal since they buy our products.
• 3 x milking – when times allows, Jim would like to explore moving to three-times-a-day milking and understand how to effectively schedule staff to cover shifts.