This Christmas season, Agriland is looking back on some of the standout 'Dairy Focus’ articles from 2025, in a ‘Dairy Throwback‘ series.

In part four of the Dairy Throwback series, Agriland looks back on Co. Tipperary farmer, Aidan Kennedy.

The Kennedys from Cahir won the top prize at the 2024 National Dairy Council (NDC) and Kerrygold Quality Milk Awards, however have since passed the torch to the Ryan family over the road in Thurles, whom you can read about here.

Aidan is milking 393 crossbred cows on Drangan Farm, alongside his wife Derval, daughter Galina, and son Nickolas, with three full-time employees also on the farm.

Aidan hosted a Milk Quality Farm Walk back in August of this year, giving others a chance to see how the award-winning farm operates.

Aidan is milking the cows on a 132.5ha milking platform, with the farm made up of 193ha in total.

The milking platform is stocked at 2.94 livestock unit (LU)/ha and the whole farm stocking rate is 2.34 LU/ha.

In 2024, the herd pumped out 483kg of milk solids/cow with 4.96% fat and 3.79% protein.

This came from the 984kg of meal fed per cow and the 14.7t of grass dry matter (DM)/ha grown on the farm in his award winning year.

Investment

In 2019, Aidan decided to heavily invest in the farm operation in terms of infrastructure, herd size, and grass performance.

He installed a 50-bay rotary parlour and upgraded his shed and cubicles.

While upgrading, Aidan tried to make the system as simplistic as possible, ensuring that facilities allow for easy management and stress-free labour.

At the August farm walk, Aidan said himself and Derval wanted to leave the farm in a better place for the next person - whether they were going to sell, pass down to the next generation, or lease out.

Aidan said: "We had to keep it [the farm] running, and had to do it through investing in infrastructure."

He said that milking facilities at the time was not up to spec, but through investment, he could make the business more viable and employee-friendly.

Aidan emphasised that the farm is based on simplicity, with a huge focus on grassland management, a straightforward rotary parlour, and enough cubicles and feed space.

He also has a good contractor to come in and do all the fertilising, slurry, topping, etc.

Aidan said that a good reliable team is very important for the operation, and praised Derval for the strategy she has in place for them.

He highlighted that respect amongst staff and everyone on the farm is crucial, saying: "Respect, it isn't very expensive".

Farm operation

The farm begins breeding at the end of April and continues for 10 weeks, with dairy artificial insemination (AI) used for three weeks on cows best suited for breeding replacements off.

This allows the herd to begin calving down on the farm in the first week of February.

Maiden heifers are synchronised and served with sexed semen, followed by a homebred sweeper bull 24 hours later, who stays with them for 17 days.

After breeding the best cows to dairy straws, Aidan uses high Dairy Beef Index (DBI) bulls on non-suitable cows and repeats.

The herd achieving a 90% six-week calving rate last spring, as well as a 371-day calving interval.

The replacement rate on the farm was 16% this year, with 80 heifers on the farm.

This is actually down from 2024, which was a 22% replacement rate.

The farm milk records four times a year, with the first of them commencing in April for labour reasons.

The farm achieved an average somatic cell count (SCC) of 115,000 cells/ml in 2024.

The Kennedys also carry out approximately 50 grass walks on the farm each year, allowing them to maximise production.