Over the festive period, Agriland has decided to revisit some of the most popular ‘Dairy Focus’ articles from 2023, in a ‘Dairy Throwback’ series.
In part four of the Dairy Throwback series, Agriland returns to the rebel county to meet with Senator Tim Lombard, on his farm near the village of Minane Bridge.
Along with being a senator and Fine Gael’s agricultural spokesperson, Tim milks 127 cows alongside his wife, Catherine, and their four children.
His mother was also heavily involved in the farm up until a few years ago. While Tim is away, Paddy Galvin looks after the day-to-day running of the farm.
The farm, which then consisted of 40ac, was purchased by Tim’s late father in 1967, with a mixed-farm operating until the mid-80’s, when the farm moved to focus on dairy only.
Poultry was on the farm for a number of years, starting with broilers, and then turkeys during the dry period for the cows.
At peak, there were around 800 turkeys on farm in the lead up to Christmas, which Tim described as tough work that would “give you a very good grounding”.
Over the years, land has been purchased, along with a number of blocks being rented.
Tim had been farming alongside his father and mother, but after his father passed away in 2004, he took over the running of the farm.
At this stage, there were around 60 cows being milked on the farm.
The herd has now grown to 127 spring-calving cows. A small autumn-calving herd was operating for a short period, while herd size was increasing.
Investment has been made to improve facilities on the farm to allow for the increase in cow numbers.
Farming
Tim credits much of the farm’s success to the hard work that was put in by his mother and father.
Tim’s mother remained heavily involved with the farm until quite recently, as mentioned, but due to health reasons she has had to step back.
Tim is working off-farm Monday-Friday, with at least two nights/week spent in Dublin. He also spends a large amount of time travelling his constituency.
The weekends are spent milking cows with the help of his children.
“Milking cows at the weekend is my therapy, the cows don’t talk back.
“It is a wonderful space to be in, the milking parlour – I have no radio and I just milk away.
“I like the space and solidity of it all, I find that milking cows is the most perfect place to go and debrief myself,” Tim said.
Grass
Like most Irish dairy farms, grass is key to the production model on the farm, with cows going to grass early-February, and staying at grass until mid-to-late-November.
The farm consists of mixed land with the home block made up of free-draining early land, while other parts are heavier-type land.
Grass growth has been good on the farm this year. Where silage is usually needed in the summer months, the wetter conditions has meant it wasn’t needed this year.
Changes have been adopted on the farm to increase sustainability, lower emissions and improve water quality.
All the slurry on the farm is spread using low emission slurry spreading (LESS) technology, and protected urea is the only chemical fertiliser spread on the farm.
Around nine weeks ago, 3ac were sown with multi-species swards, which Tim is hoping to graze in the coming days, if weather improves.
Breeding
The herd consists of high economic breeding index (EBI) Friesian cows – although a few Dairy Shorthorns can also be found on the farm.
Heifers calves are grazed on the farm, but in October they are moved to a rearer’s farm, and return the following October in calf.
Breeding has gone well on farm, with a 76% six-week calving rate based on the early scanning results.
100% sexed semen for dairy breeding was used this year – with heifers and the high-genetic merit cows, and the rest of the herd bred to Angus.
The farm saw a conception rate of 55% for the cows, and around 70% for heifers on first service to sexed semen.
The breeding focus for the herd is to increase the solids within the herd, while also improving the herd’s overall EBI.
TB
The farm, like many others, continues to have issues with bovine tuberculosis (TB), with the cows being locked up with on January 9, of this year.
This, according to Tim, meant that it was a very challenging spring on the farm, with 128 calves going to grass on the farm – whereas normally only 30 would.
The farm went clear in late-June, but for six months, no animals were moved off the farm.
This placed added financial pressure on the system, but has also created a major pressure on the workload of the farm.
Tim said that due to ongoing issues with TB on the farm, he now takes a different approach to dealing with it.
“My view of TB is that as long as it stays out of the house, I can live with it,” he said.
“I had a TB test here in 2007 and at the time I was milking 60 cows. I lost 12 cows in that test,” he added.
“The same day I lost the 12 cows, my late brother Gerard came around and said his cancer was gone.
“I said, ‘Jesus, that’s the best thing ever’. Gerard was dead 18 months later – so TB is a stress financially, physically and mentally, but as long as you can keep your house healthy you can balance it.”
Commenting further, Tim said: “As tough as it is on the farmer and their family, you have a vet that is probably a friend of yours coming into the yard knowing that if [they] put [your animal] down on January 7, that you will have a ferocious six months ahead.
“But still they have to do it, the animal that went down with me, [the lump] was the size of a sliotar – I could see it from 20ft.”
Tim said that something really needs to change with the eradiation programme for TB.
“We have been at this since the mid-50s, and have spent billions on it,” he said.
“We need to look at it differently. The majority of my neighbours don’t buy in stock – so the idea that trading is the big issue doesn’t work in our scenario.
“There is a huge issue around how we are going to deal with it, we have put a lot of money into it and it has failed.
“I think strategies have to be put in place to manage our TB issue, rather than so-called eradication – because it just hasn’t worked.”
Succession
Like most farmers, Tim hopes that one of his children will take over the running of the farm after him.
“My two daughters help me with milking on the weekends. The kids all have an interest at the moment – I would love for one of them to take over the running of the farm,” he said.
“I do think there is a body of work to be done around female participation in farming.
“We would have wonderful vets here and the majority of them are female, I often think when they come into the yard that for my daughters they are role models.”
Ultimately, Tim plans to return home and focus on full-time dairy farming, but for now he is continuing with his political career and farming part-time.
To read more Dairy Throwback articles on Agriland, click here.