For this week’s Dairy Focus, Agriland made the trip down to the McCarthy family farm near the village of Crossbarry, Innishannon, in Co.Cork to see how they manage milking 440 cows.

Brian and Maire farm alongside their three children – Ciara, Sarah and Brian junior (Jr.). The family currently have 80% of their cows calved, with over 500 cows and heifers due to calf down this year.

Brian has been running the farm for nearly 30 years, with many changes occurring during this time.

After completing his studies, Brian Jr. plans to take over the family farm, but before doing so, he plans on working abroad and obtaining experience dairy farming in other parts of the world.

Brian Jr. is currently completing his leaving certificate and hopes to study Dairy Business at Munster Technological University (MTU). 

Along with being heavily involved with the farm, Maire works off-farm and has sat on the board of Bandon co-op for the last ten years.

The family currently employs one full-time member of staff along with a number of relief milkers.

Up until last year, the family had taken students from France, Switzerland and Germany to work on the farm, but due to the current Covid-19 restrictions, that was not possible this year.

Herd expansion and milking 440 cows

Speaking to Brian about some of the history of how the farm has developed, he said; “When I started farming over 30 years ago, we were milking around 80 cows”.

“The herd size has been increasing since 1999, we started leasing land with quota attached or bought quota, which allowed us to expand.

”When the quotas went, we were milking around 300 cows, with an extra 100 cows being added to the milking herd since then,” he added.

”Before the quotas were abolished in 2015, we would have kept all calves and operated a bull beef system on the farm.

”This year we are planning to milk between 400 and 440 cows.”

Dairy Focus

System of production

Commenting on the system of production operated on the farm, Brian said: ”We operate a spring-calving system with calving starting here in the last week of January and finishing in early May.

”Having a spaced out calving season allows us to milk cows all year round, and helps with cash flow on the farm.

“We aim to get the cows out to grass in early March; this year we started grazing on March 2, and cows have been out full-time since March 6.

”We have been grass measuring for the last number of years and see great benefits in it.”

Brian continued: “This year we have invested in grass-measuring software for the farm, which will hopefully allow us to utilise more of the grass we grow.

”We breed all the cows to either Friesian or Simmental and keep all dairy heifer calves.

“Using the Simmental bulls gives us a valuable beef calf to sell; we would also keep some of the Simmental heifers out of our high economic breeding index (EBI) cows.

”We sell about 80 to 100 heifers/year, usually after they have calved at two-years-old.

”The current production of the herd is about 7,000L/cow at 4% fat and 3.5% protein.

”Moving forward we would like to increase the amount of solids being produce by the herd, through a improved breeding policy.”

Calf feeders

With the herd sizing increasing, and number of replacement heifers being kept, also increasing, the family decided to invest in some automatic calf feeders.

Brian stated: ”We installed two urban calf feeders about four years ago. Each feeder has four feeding stations to accommodate the large number of calves.

”It just makes the feeding of calves so much easier; calves receive 4L of colostrum at birth and then a second 2L feed of transition milk. After this, the calves are moved onto the feeders.

“The feeders work Monday through Sunday; if it was a man you would say he is a ‘great fella’.

”We keep upwards of 150 heifer calves each year; having the feeder makes the management of these calves so much easier,” Brian added.

”The machines allow you to focus on the younger calves; when you come into the calf shed in the morning you know the calves have been fed.

”The feeders are identifying sick calves earlier and let you know what calves have not drank.”

Breeding

Speaking about the breeding policy used on the farm and the focus going forward, Brian said: ”We use a combination of Simmental and Friesian stock bulls on cows.

”We currently do not use any artificial insemination (AI) on the farm, with facilities being the main reason why.

“We have no way in our current parlour of drafting cows out to be artificially inseminated, which is one reason why we are looking at updating the parlour.

”Moving forward we want to increase the use of high economic breeding index (EBI) [and] AI bulls on the farm. One of the major negatives of using stock bulls is you cannot choose which bull serves which cow,” Brian said.

”So having the facilities to be able to draft cows out and service them to AI, will allow us to increase the genetic gain in the herd.

”This will hopefully lead to increased milk solid production from the herd.”

New parlour

Milking 440 cows is no mean task so the family has decided that an upgrade to the milking parlour is required. Commenting on this Brian stated: ”As the herd increases, our current parlour has become inefficient.

”It was a great parlour when we had 200 cows, but the herd size has increased further and the milking has become too long.

“We have looked at several parlours, including a rotary, but the capital investment for that kind of parlour is huge.

”Instead we are planning on going with a 36-unit herringbone parlour. We are planning on keeping it a fairly simple parlour to start. We might add a few things on once it has been built.

”The new parlour is going to have a drafting system in place and facilities to allow us AI the cows.

”We are hoping to start construction of the new milking parlour later this year or early next year,” he concluded.