Spiralling Input Costs
As a dairy farmer, you're always a bit of a price taker; input costs keep creeping up, and you've got fairly little control over your milk check. We had a choice to make, so we shifted to strip grazing and drastically cut back on feeding silage indoors. Take our silage making, for example: we’ve managed to halve our contractor bills. In our case, we were spending about €15,000 a year. Halve that, and you’re down to €7,500. Multiply that over an eight-year contract with Collie, and it adds up fast. On top of that, for every extra bit of grass you ensile, you'd need to build another clamp, lay down concrete, or put up a shed for storage. So for me, the investment easily pays for itself.
Fresh Grass vs. Silage
You’re trying to simplify grazing by cutting out the middleman. Because you let the cows harvest more grass themselves, you don't have to mow it and you don't have to clamp it. Those are real, measurable costs. That cow grazes the grass herself, and tonight or tomorrow morning, it's milk in the bulk tank.
Strip Grazing Without the Wire
It’s a great piece of kit and it genuinely adds value, but it still requires proper management from the stockman. However, if you want to really optimise your grazing through strip grazing, you can make massive gains simply by getting rid of the electric wire. I've got plenty of other jobs around the farm, and my dad is getting older. If you can cut out the heavy lifting or make the job easier, while pushing efficiency to the next level, that’s an absolute win-win.
Calm and Control During Fetching
Bringing the cows in for milking is brilliant now, too. It’s calm, there’s no chasing, no stress, and the cows can just walk in at their own pace. We also have a lot of ditches around here, and occasionally a cow ends up in one. Now, you can check the app and see if one has been left behind. You still have to go out and sort it out, obviously, but just having that visibility is a massive relief.
Grazing Premiums and Eco-Schemes
And that’s completely ignoring the slurry you no longer have to spread. Of course, the extra hours at grass earn you a bit of a premium through eco-schemes or your dairy contract. That premium is just for grazing in general, which isn't down to Collie itself, but Collie actually makes hitting those 1,500 or 2,500 hours achievable. If you believe in grazing and it suits your system, this is definitely a tool that helps you do it properly. If you just look at the savings on contractor bills alone, I think it makes absolute business sense.
