Agriland recently made the trip to Co. Tipperary – just outside Clonmel – to chat to new entrant to dairy, David Kehoe about his new dairy unit.
David and his parents have been sheep farming all their lives, with up to 900 ewes on the farm at one point and 500 at the time of changing systems.
However, with not enough money coming in to support two incomes, a decision was made to make the switch.
David, who studied in Kildalton Agricultural College and Waterford Institute of Technology, developed a grá for dairy while working on a dairy farm during his time in college.
On top of that, he was also relief milking on a couple of farms and through this, his passion grew stronger.
This then left him at a crossroads with two choices. He either took on a role in Saudi Arabia on a large-scale dairy operation, or sat down with his parents and discussed what options were available to him at home.
He decided on the latter and, after coming to the decision that sheep farming wasn’t going to sustain an income for both his parents and himself, he decided to pursue his passion for dairy.
This journey began in 2019 when he bought in 48 Friesian heifer calves which, this year, calved down and have nearly all come to end of their first lactation.
Speaking to Agriland David explained where his interest in dairying came from: “My passion for dairy farming started back when I was in college in Kildalton.
“I got paired with a fantastic dairy farmer for my work placement and I learned a lot from that experience and thoroughly enjoyed it.
“I have worked on dairy farms since then, doing a lot of relief milking and I just saw myself pursing a career in dairy.
“I interviewed for a job on a large-scale dairy operation over in Saudi Arabia and had the chance to go, but I sat down with my parents and, in fairness, they were great with me. They said if I want to go down the route of dairy that they wouldn’t stand in my way, and as such, handled the mantle over to me.
“They have been brilliant since we made the decision that sheep weren’t going to sustain an income for both of us and, to be honest, my passion was for dairy and I never saw myself staying at sheep.
“They [my parents] are still heavily involved and have been great support to me since transitioning over.”
What does the new dairy unit consist of?
The Kehoe farmyard consists of dry bedded sheds, with a number of small outhouses dotted around it.
A milking parlour, handling unit, and collecting yard – all under the one roof – were constructed in between one of the old lambing sheds and some of the outhouses.
The new dairy unit was designed by Aidan Kelly of Agri Design and Planning Services (ADPS) who also completed the planning for the project.
As the drawing (below) illustrates, the new dairy unit measures 12.5m wide and 28.8m long.
David installed a 16-unit parlour but has room to increase it to 20-units. At the moment, he is milking 48 cows, with the plan of moving this up to 84 next year. He said 16 units is more than enough for the next few years until he reaches his goal of pushing cow numbers to 110-120.
At the opposite side of the parlour is a handling area, which consists of a walkway, a crush, an exit race and holding pens.
At the front of the building, the bulk tank and plant room can be found. David opted for an 11,000L bulk tank and decided against putting in an office as he said he would never make use of it.
At the rear of the build is the collecting yard. Due to ongoing construction work beside the milking parlour, the collecting yard isn’t built to the capacity it was originally designed for. However, David said he could still fit 80 cows comfortably in it.
‘Credibility and reliability over price’
David said that reliability and credibility came before price when it came to deciding on what brand of parlour he was going to choose to milk his cows.
David took into consideration all the different options on the market, but having developed his passion for dairy through milking cows in a parlour, he quickly crossed off going down the robotic-milking route.
Then, taking into consideration the size of milking platform he could work off and the number of cows he could possibly milk, the Glanbia supplier crossed off a rotary and took the decision to go with a herringbone parlour.
Speaking about his decision on how he would go about milking his cows David said: “I love being in the pit putting the clusters on so when it came to deciding on what way I would milk the cows, I took all my options into consideration but I knew robots weren’t for me.
“A rotary would have been too big just at the scale I would be operating at so I went with a herringbone parlour. Again, I looked at all the brands out on the market but when it came to making a decision I chose DeLaval for its credibility and reliability.
“I could have put in a different brand of parlour and saved a few thousand euro but I said from the start, I always put credibility and reliability before price and I suppose I took that mindset from the agricultural contracting business I run with my father.
“It’s no good buying a cheap machine that’s going to give you bother and then if something does go wrong and you have to drive over an hour to go get a part, what are you really gaining? Nothing, only a headache.
“So that experience I got from working with machinery came into my thinking when deciding on what brand of parlour I was going to go with.
“DeLaval has a good name around here and if something goes wrong, the serviceman is a stone’s throw away and, bar a few teething problems at the start, the machine has worked away perfectly since commissioned last February.”
The 16-unit parlour
David said that from working on a few different dairy farms over the years, he was able to take home some ideas he could implement on his own farm.
He decided on a 16-unit DeLaval parlour and, although he considered a number of extras, he scaled back and kept it simple.
“I had originally thought about going the full hog and putting in a top-of-the-range-spec machine, but after thinking about and looking at what budget I had, I scaled down and kept it simple.
“It’s a 16-unit parlour with room for 20 units. It has automatic cluster removers (ACRs), auto-wash system, built-in milk recorders, batch feeders, zig-zag rump rails, light weight clusters, and a manual entry and exit system.
“In the end I decided against a dumpline. Look, it adds a bit more labour not having one, especially during the springtime – but it’s nothing major.
“I also didn’t go with feed-to-yield system. The batch feeding system, in my opinion, does the job perfect. The beauty of the parlour is that I can feed more meal to an individual cow if I want with the Touchfeed pad attached to each milking unit.
“All I have to do is mark a cow when she’s going into the parlour to remind me to give her a bit more meal and just hit the button on the pad.
“I also think the individual troughs [mangers] in the parlour are a better job than having just one trough lining the whole parlour.
“The reason for this is that the mangers prevent cows from bullying others and taking their feed. Bullying is further prevented also through the rump rails; cows find it hard to move back and twist with them and turn back into the trough behind them – except for the few shorter cows who make easy work of it,” David joked.
He continued: “All in all, I couldn’t be happier with the parlour. I took ideas from elsewhere and tried to work it to what I wanted and I think I have. The next job, which probably won’t be for a while yet, is to put mats in for the cows in the parlour and also down in the pit for myself.”
Handling area
Directly beside the milking parlour – which is similar to many modern dairy units – is a handling area.
In this space, a walkway, crush, exit race and a large holding area that can be further divided up into smaller pens can be found.
One nice feature that catches your eye is the incorporation of small table, hung on the wall at the front of the crush, along with a small whiteboard.
To encourage cattle down the exit race or crush, David hung stockboarding on the gates. Also, to the side of the handling area is a small loading pen that David can use to load any cattle onto the trailer. It was dead space turned into something useful, David said.
Speaking about the handling setup, David said: “Again, it’s a simple, straightforward design.
“One thing that isn’t there that I will look at putting in at some stage is a drafting system. As of now, I’m drafting cows manually.
“To make this a bit easier for myself, instead of pressing a button on the pad either at the front or back of the pit, I can pull a lever to draft cows from anywhere in the pit.
“It just makes life that bit easier. I have a large holding pen there for any cows.
“I hung a small table at the front of the crush just again to make life easy. If we are AI-ing (artificially inseminating) cows or dosing, for example, I can leave any equipment/medicines on the table and I have a whiteboard there beside it to make note of any cows tag numbers.”
‘Bright working environment’
One aspect of the new build that stands out straight away is how bright it is inside the whole building.
David said he wanted a bright, inviting parlour to work in, and so decided to contact Greenhill Systems about their range of roof sheeting.
He decided on their Heatguard 50 roof sheeting. David said the benefits of it over standard sheeting is that, first of all, it creates a very bright environment in the building.
He also said there are energy saving benefits associated with it, as well as actually helping to keep the parlour cooler on warm days.
He also said that there are no shadows in the parlour which can frighten cows and that the cows, overall, seem very content coming in – which he said has meant very good cow flow in and out of the parlour.
Cost
The overall cost of the new dairy unit came to €290,000, including VAT.
Being a young farmer, David applied for a grant under the Targeted Agricultural Modernisation Scheme (TAMS II).
This meant he was eligible for a 60% grant, which he got, and he was also able to claim VAT back, which helped to bring the overall cost down.
The whole job took less than four months to complete with ground broken last November and the milking machine up and running the following February.
Speaking about his decision to move to dairy, David said: “I’m very happy with the decision. I thoroughly enjoy coming into the parlour and milking cows.
“I have a very good working relationship with my parents which was key to a smooth transition over from sheep to dairy.
“I’m just delighted I could pursue my passion and hopefully now over the next few years I can continue building cow numbers. I’m in the middle of transitioning over from dry sheds to cubicles, so a lot of work is till to be done yet, but we’ll get there hopefully,” he said.
