For this week’s Buildings Focus, Agriland headed to Sligo to the scenic area of Strandhill to check out a new milking parlour and cubicle shed under the one roof.
The new dairy facility is on the farm of Philip Parke, who also runs an agricultural contracting business alongside the dairy enterprise with his father Richard.
Like many dairy farms in the last number of years, cow numbers started creeping up and the existing parlour and housing started to come under pressure.
Speaking to Agriland inside his new parlour and cubicle shed, Philip said: “We had been operating out of an eight-unit parlour and we had no real place to go with it, in terms of increasing the size of it.
“We are up to 100 cows now and milking time was taking to long in the old parlour and we had to look at doing something to improve that and cut the time spent in the pit.
“We were also at a stage where we needed more cubicles. We had converted sheds over the years and although they worked out well, just with the increase in cow numbers and replacement stock as well finishing some cattle, we were getting tight for space.
“So between the parlour and the housing situation we needed to look at doing something to take the pressure off and also to free up more time which this new building has done for us.”
Design
The shed, which contains the new cubicles and parlour, was built beside the existing sheds on the farm on a site which was once part of a paddock and also part of the yard which would have been used to store bales of silage.
The parlour
Philip opted to with a 18-unit swing-over arm Pearson milking parlour supplied and fitted by Jarlath Colleran of Ja Colleran Farm Services.
The Parkes went with a parlour consisting of automatic cluster removers (ACRs); an auto-wash system; milk indicators; a low-line wash system; dumpline; a batch feeding system with individual troughs; air gates, both at the front and back of the parlour; and a variable speed and vacuum pump.
Commenting on the parlour, Philip said: “It’s been a dream to work in. Getting the cows milked is quick and efficient and doesn’t take half the day like in the old parlour.
“It’s a well-equipped parlour and done to a fine finish. It’s light and day the difference between what we had and this parlour.
“Cow flow in and out is great and for myself, milking is just enjoyable again, because towards the end in the old parlour it wasn’t.
“Credit to Jarlath and his team, the parlour was in and up and running in no time.”
Philip mentioned the extra touches Jarlath and his team made to the parlour, for example making a steel frame (pictured below) for the pipes carrying the meal from the 12t meal bin to the parlour.
According to Philip the pipes are usually seen being held in the air by a chain and said small things like this added to the overall finish and service he received.
Milk is stored in a 6,000L capacity tank that came from the old dairy in the original parlour.
The cubicle shed
Housing on the farm was also getting tight, as was slurry storage, and having thought about originally fitting a new parlour into an existing shed on the farm, the Parkes instead opted to go with a new shed to house both the cows and parlour.
The cubicle shed, which is under the same roof as the parlour, consists of 104 cubicles.
It consists of two rows of back-to-back cubicles with feed space on two sides of the shed.
There is no break in either of the rows of cubicles, as the distance from one end of the shed to the next in order to get to the feed barriers isn’t that big so Parkes opted to have the extra cubicles.
With the parlour at one end of the shed, the other end of the shed, if it ever became a need in the future, could be further extended to accommodate more cubicles which then leaves room for further expansion.
Philip went with spaced sheeting on the roof – except for the area of the shed covering the parlour – and said that for a big shed it is airy, but not cold, and that cows are very content in the shed.
To keep the solid concrete floor passages between the cubicles clean, Philip opted to go with the Dairypower rope scrapers.
Ja Colleran Farm Services supplied and fitted the three rope scrapers and Philip said that once they were up and running they worked well and continue to do so.
He said the only issue that would possibly creep up was the motor for the scrapers possibly getting damaged by the cows scratching off it.
So to avoid this issue, Jarlath designed and made a barrier so that cows wouldn’t be able to do any damage to it (pictured below).
Also found on the other side of the parlour between where the cubicles are is a crush. The Parkes manually draft their cows after milking from the holding area.
Philip said: “We don’t have a drafting system but with the crush we have, it’s all compartmentalised, which means if we only need one cow out of all the cows in the chute we can open up any section of it and draft cows out that way.”
The area between the crush and the cubicles doubles up as a collecting yard for cows that are going into the parlour. This area is entirely slatted and has increased the slurry storage on the farm, something Philip said was needed.
The area directly behind the parlour is also slatted which helps to reduce the amount of water needed to wash down around the parlour post-milking.
To keep dry cows and cows in-milk separate, as the Parkes milk all-year round, there are six-bar gates at intervals in the shed.
All the cubicles, mats, diagonal feed barriers, gates and water troughs were sourced from Teemore Engineering.
Philip said that he wanted to be able to access each passageway in the cubicle shed easily, in case a cow ever went down, so he added three sliding doors at the back of the shed which allow access into each of the passageways.
For his and other’s safety, a number of these slip-through points are in the shed and Philip said he’s sorry he didn’t put more in at the time of the building the shed.
The concrete work was carried out by Norris Plant Hire. The shed was sourced and erected by North West Tool Hire.
Cost
The Parkes were eligible for a grant under the Targeted Agricultural Modernisation Scheme (TAMS II).
The cost of the entire build is standing at roughly €370,000. However, with the value of the grant and the VAT taken into account, the entire dairy unit is standing to the Parkes at €270,000.
Speaking about going ahead with the new cubicle shed and milking parlour, Philip said: “We have great comfort now.
“Between the milking and the cubicle shed it all came together nicely and you know the days of spending hours in the parlour and looking for space for cows and also slurry storage are behind us.”
