Between Castlecor Farm and Loughcrew Dairy Farm – a recent beef-to-dairy conversion carried out in partnership with neighbour Francis Naper – progressive dairy farmer Brian Murphy oversees two outstanding enterprises near Oldcastle in County Meath, which between them milk 700 cows at present. We interrupted Brian’s busy schedule to find out more.

Brian Murphy took over the running of Castlecor Farm in 2008 and has almost doubled the number of cows on the North Meath farm during the intervening years. Last Autumn – in partnership with like-minded local farmer Francis Naper – the visionary 34-year-old undertook a full beef-to-dairy conversion which culminated in the first cows being milked at Loughcrew Dairy Farm in February, 2017.

Farming has always been in the blood. “I’m from a farming family in County Cork, but I moved to County Meath in 2002 and I was fortunate to inherit a farm in Oldcastle in 2008, having returned from working on farms in New Zealand,” recalls Brian, who hails from strong farming stock. His brother, Niall, farms in Missouri in the USA while his father, Michael, has farming interests in the USA and New Zealand.

“When I moved to Meath, I was impressed by the large free-draining farms in the county. Castlecor Farm was 95 hectares, milking 230 New Zealand Jersey crossbred cows in 2008. This year, on the home farm, we are milking 450 cows on a 155 adjusted hectares milking platform,” he continues.

“We grew the home farm through a mixture of land leases and also the purchase of a farm next door in 2012. The herd EBI is 130 and we sold 1,250 kilos of milk solids per hectare in the 2016 season. We have a target in place to increase this figure to 1,400 kilos per hectare in the next two years as the herd matures and we do some performance culling as we are no longer growing cow numbers on the milking platform.”

“We are in the process of stitching in clover into our existing swards after following the research in Clonakilty Agricultural College closely for the last two years. We expect this to improve production and reduce costs and help us reach our goal of 1,400kgs milk solids sold per hectare on the milking platform at very low levels of concentrates.

“We feed 200-250 kilos of concentrate per cow currently and graze some fodder beet in Autumn to extend our Autumn grazing rotation. We consistently grow beet crops that yield 30-35 tons of DM per hectare. In 2016, the farm grew 16.5 tonnes of grass per hectare.”

Brian makes extensive use of contractors for large machinery jobs like silage, slurry, reseeding and winter feeding. This frees up capital to invest into high return areas in the business.

The genesis of Loughcrew Dairy Farm in 2016 means that the Cork native is now involved in the running of two excellent, highly-profitable dairy enterprises.

“We converted a second farm from beef to dairy last year and this unit is milking 250 cows in 2017,” he continues. “I had been looking to purchase a second dairy unit since 2014 but nothing that I thought suitable came to the market at the right price.

“It was around this time I met Francis Naper, who had a farm next door to where I used to rear my young stock. Francis was heading towards retirement age but still had a strong passion for everything farming. He had an excellent farm, which was a well-run beef farm at the time. After a few conversations with Francis, I quickly learned that he was a forward-thinking, progressive farmer.

“It was through this that the Loughcrew Dairy Farm partnership was started. We converted the milking platform from beef to dairy in 2016. The business works well for both parties for a number of reasons. I believe more farmers who are reaching retirement age should consider farm partnerships with young, progressive, well-trained farmers if there is not a farming successor for the farm in the family.”

Even though he was in his 60s and heading towards retirement, Francis was very enthusiastic about the full-scale dairy conversion and Brian was extremely impressed by his vision and determination to leave behind a good, profitable farm. Francis invested substantially in a new 26-unit Dairymaster herringbone milking parlour as well as new roadways, fencing, cubicles etc.

“All our young stock are now contract-reared by John Fagan in County Westmeath,” he reveals. “This frees up time for us to focus on cows and grass and simplifies the dairy units.

“Our cows are vaccinated for lepto, BVD-IBR and we also give the cows Rotavec Corona. We operate a closed herd to minimise disease.” Brian hasn’t bought any stock since 2008.

He has surrounded himself with great people. “I’m fortunate to have an excellent team of people working with me on both farms. There are excellent farm managers on both units. John Cheevers, manager on the home farm, started working with us ten years ago and progressed to become an excellent farm manager.

“Brian Gilsenan was a young student on a Moorepark farm-management course when he started work here in 2014.  After completing the Moorepark course and working in New Zealand for a spell, he returned to us in 2016 to manage the second unit.

“We get seasonal help during the busy Spring-calving period from students from Ballyhaise College. We are fortunate that many of our college students continue working for us once their studies are finished and we have a number of excellent, well-trained young people currently progressing in our business.”

All of the milk from both Castlecor Farm and Loughcrew Dairy Farm goes to Glanbia. Looking to the future, Brian is not ready to rest on his laurels anytime soon. To the contrary, further expansion and progression seems inevitable…

“In the next five-ten years I hope to continue growing the business through buying land and creating equity partnerships with landowners and our own people working in our business,” he concludes. “I see excellent opportunities for this around the midlands and County Meath.”

Taken from Irish Tractor & Agri magazine Vol 5 No 4, June 2017

Castlecor Farm, Loughcrew Dairy Farm