First generation Lanarkshire farmer, Michael Shannon has spent ten years developing and perfecting his paddock grazing system in order to make his farm more profitable.

Speaking at a Better Grazing meeting held in Perth last autumn, he told farmers who attended that “grass is king” and not to over complicate their systems, but to keep things simple and relevant to their own farms in order to increase production and save costs.

Michael and his wife Michelle moved to Thankerton Camp, near Biggar, in 1996 and run a 100% forage system. The farm’s 84 hectares are divided roughly into half-hectare paddocks, and Michael moves cattle every day using electric fences on a 21-day rotation.

“Once the system is set up, the cattle quickly get into the routine of moving and I can do everything myself with no other labour and no dog,” he said.

Michael buys native, preferably Aberdeen-Angus cross stores, and finishes them on forage for his farm shop, Damn Delicious, with the surplus sold deadweight. The farm and farm shop are very much a family business, with Michelle and their eight children all helping out where they can.

He said: “There are around 200 cattle on the farm and I finish about 150 each year – two-thirds for the shop and one-third for Highland Meats. My system is not about speed of finishing; it is about profitability.”

The farm also has 280 ewes, and Michael rotationally grazes the sheep at 24 ewes with lambs per hectare, shifting them every two to three days. Even with this high stocking rate, each year he has surplus grass to make silage.

Stocking rate for the cattle is based on liveweight; at the peak in the spring it is nearly 3000kg liveweight per hectare, dropping to 2400kg and then 2000kg at the end of the season.

He said: “I have never had a year when I have had enough livestock to eat all the grass at its peak growing time.

“The key is to follow the grass growth curve: graze it hard in the spring, which will improve the quality in the autumn, but be careful not to overgraze it later in the year when it will not recover.”

Michael recommended the optimum time to graze is when the grass is at 10 to 12cm, and it is critical to avoid grazing it after the third day to prevent stock eating any re-growth.

He is currently achieving 600kg of liveweight per hectare and one of his targets is that, between purchase and finishing, the value of every beast he brings onto his farm must increase by £1 per day off grass alone. He calculates his summer grazing system costs 29p per head of cattle per day, while his wintering system costs 48p per head per day, including fertiliser and reseeding.

Over the winter months the cattle are strip-grazed on Swift, which is a hybrid rape/kale, with access to silage. He has recently tried fodder beet, which has increased his winter daily liveweight gain, and he has been impressed with it.

He said: “Feeding cattle kale and silage is basically a maintenance diet where they only gain about 0.25kg per day, but the ones on fodder beet have been gaining about 0.7kg per day.”

Each year, about ten hectares are taken out of grass and sown in kale, followed by spring barley undersown with grass. The first-year grass is grazed by sheep, before being grazed for up to five years by cattle.

By this summer Michael plans to have 300 cattle and 300 breeding ewes on the paddock grazing system, with reduced winter numbers of 200 cattle.

He said: “With Brexit looming, I plan to make every blade of grass the best quality I can and make my 84 hectares work for me.”