Penllech Bach launch

Strategic farmer Matt Jackson has come a long way since he left Manchester when he was 15. From small beginnings, he has built a successful farming enterprise in partnership with landowner David Wyne Finch. In his first webinar, he introduced us to Penllech Bach and how he got there.

Matt grew up in Manchester and his passion for farming started after camping holidays in North Wales on a beef, sheep and dairy farm. After leaving school at 15 with no qualifications, he moved to Wales to begin his farming dream.

At 17 he went to New Zealand to learn how to shear sheep and dress wool. On his return he got a relief milking job and approached Rhys Williams, a shared farmer in North Wales, for a fulltime job.

While he enjoyed the sheep work, he didn’t think it was a long-term option and so in agreement with Rhys, he went back to New Zealand for six months in June 2007 and worked on a low-cost Jersey farm of 400 cows. On his return he began working for Rhys, milking 1,200 to 1,250 cows. In 2009 he began his own farming venture and bought 20 heifer calves and sold them on the following Spring and over the next five to six years went into a shared farming agreement with David Wyne Finch.

Farm overview

• 100 hectares (ha) milking platform, all grassland
• 370 New Zealand Jersey/Friesian crossbreds
• Average yield 5,500 litres/cow at 4.8% butterfat and 3.8% protein
• Averaging 450 kg of milk solids/cow
• Grazing mid-February - November

Penllech Bach business structure

 In 2013, Matt and David started the conversion into a 50/50 joint venture. Matt bought 350 cows and David matched that with £350k of infrastructure. They have one account that everything runs in and out of. The cows sit in Matt’s own limited company and the infrastructure in David’s. Profit is split 50/50.

Matt finds the partnership works very well. He says the key is trust, integrity and good relationships. They had worked together for a long time and so knew they had the same goal and visions.

Conversion process

The farm was previously a beef and sheep enterprise and so there was limited infrastructure. Matt project managed the conversion, which included:

• Around 3km of tracks
• Fencing fields into paddocks
• Installed a 24/48 Waikato milking parlour with automatic cup removers (ACR)
• Collection yard
• 50ml water ring main with 28 new troughs, one in each paddock
• New shed
• Silage clamp

 Matt outwintered the cattle for the first year. The location is quite exposed and the Jersey crossbred cows he bred himself held condition well with good-quality silage and deferred grazing, even in harsh weather.

When they started milking in spring 2014, they were almost fully set up, apart from the shed and silage clamp which they had decided to do in the second year of their joint venture.

There were lessons to be learnt along the way, including the importance of knowing the farm and having farm maps before starting any work. He contracted in someone to lay the pipes and because they did not know the location of drains he went through a lot them, something they are still fixing today.

Infrastructure

Housing

 1/3 loose housing. 2/3 made up of around 300 cubicles.

In the first two months of winter, the loose housing is used for cows that are under condition or cows that won’t lie in cubicles. Later on, half is turned into a calving pen and used for calf rearing. This is efficient as there is only a short distance to carry calves after birth to give colostrum. It also means they can be feeding calves and keeping an eye on the cows at the same time.

Parlour

• 24/48 Waikato parlour with ACRs
• Batch feeders
• 16,000 litre bulk tank with heat recovery (purchased second hand)

Spring management

At Penllech Bach they finish milking around 12 December which leaves 60 days until calving. Cows are dried off in batches as Matt finds it simple and efficient and similar to systems he had seen in New Zealand. Within two days, everything is dry. They don’t blanket treat with antibiotics and have low levels of mastitis. Cows go on to a low metabilisable energy (ME) diet and are housed which means it is easy to keep condition. Two weeks before calving they are put on high-quality silage to lift energy levels.

They start calving on 25 January and 80-90% calve within the first six weeks. They aim for 450kg milk solids and are currently getting around 440kg. They milk twice a day.

In the first few years they vaccinated for Leptospirosis, Bovine Viral Diarrhoea (BVD), Infectious Bovine Rhinotracheitis (IBR), Salmonella and Rotavirus. However, as they rear their own heifers and don’t bring anything in they have reduced the vaccinations they give. They have milk recorded on and off and use the data to draft out the lowest 30%.

Mating management

At the beginning of the mating season, Matt uses artificial insemination (AI) for 4-5 weeks and then follows on with a team of bulls. Matt’s next-door neighbour rears breeding bulls from Penllech Bach. The AI semen used is conventional as opposed to sexed semen as this suits the business. They use a Jersey straw on a Friesian cow, a crossbred straw on a crossbred cow and Jersey straw on a Friesian.

Youngstock management

 In recent years, Matt has hired someone to come in and check on the cows through the night during calving. This means they can make sure they match the right calves to cows. Calves are given 2-4 litres of colostrum, depending on whether they are tube or teat fed. The colostrum is from their stores and after having problems with scours, includes a rotavirus vaccine.

For the first 10 days, calves are fed second and whole milk and from then they move onto milk powder and are fed twice a day. This is reduced to once a day until they are around 60 kg when they are weaned off milk onto meal. They are fed a diet of meal and straw until they reach 80 kg liveweight and go to a local contract rearer. Matt rears 100 calves himself.

During rearing, calves are fed 2 kg of meal a day with grass. They are weighed monthly until 110 kg when they are sent to grass. They then spend 17 months on grass up to the point of calving. Heifers are served at 15 months, ready to calve down at 24 months.

Grazing and forage management

 The 100 ha milking platform has very heavy clay soil which is exposed to the sea front. Matt has reseeded around 65% of the farm since 2014, but wants to maintain his older, hardier swards which outperform reseeds during the winter months.

They aim to open grazing in mid-February with an average farm cover of around 2,600 kg DM/ha and then close the rotation with around 2,000kg DM/ha. Cows are usually out grazing from mid-February until mid-November, where cow demand and grass growth is matched to the required area. Matt says the farms reaches ‘Magic Day’ (when grass growth outweighs cow demand) on or around the 1 April.  

Matt measures grass growth weekly and inputs figures onto AgriNet. The P and Potassium (K) indices of the soil are very good, sitting around index 3. Matt puts this down to the fact winter feed is bought in from local sources so they are bringing in a lot of organic matter. They use 200-250 kg of Nitrogen and spread slurry regularly through the year.

They grow 15 tonnes of dry matter a year and produce 3,657l milk from forage.

Matt says: “it’s important to monitor where we are and compare.”

83% of cows and heifers calve in the first six weeks. This is a crucial KPI for the business as the more days in milk the better.

Matt also says cost control is key. Although challenged with milk price, their full economic cost of production is very good at 23.4ppl. Matt says this is down to keeping focused, not buying too much that depreciates and focus on areas of the business that will increase in value.

When Matt got into farming, someone said to him “Four legs make it pay and four wheels take it away.” He says he absolutely stands by that.

Forward focus for Penllech Bach 

• Growing more high- quality grass
• Improving milk yield and quality
• Maximise cash out of the business to maximise capital repayments
• Creating and replicating efficient farms
• “Showing that farming and agriculture is a good industry to be part of and help incentivise young individuals into it.”