Doing the basics well is key to milk quality success on Tuam farm

The National Dairy Council (NDC) milk quality award winners the Connelly family held a farm walk on their farm on the edge of Tuam, Co. Galway.

The walk showcased the farm and gave farmers an opportunity to see how this family has achieved excellent milk quality.

The Connelly’s farm was a suckler and sheep enterprise until 2019, when the first dairy heifers calved down.

72 heifers calved down in the first year, with 97 cows now being milked on the farm.

Austin and Yvonne work on the farm fulltime, while their four daughter who are still in education help also.

The purchased heifer were brought from three sources with careful consider made when selecting suitable animals, the majority of the herd are Holstein cross Friesian, but some crossbred genetics are also in the herd.

System

A spring-calving system is operated on the farm with calving starting in the first week of February.

Calving interval on the farm for 2023 was 366 days, with a six week calving rate of 93%.

The farm has a replacement rate of 19% and all replacement heifers are calved between 22 and 26 months.

The 2023 Breeding season will last for ten to 11 weeks, with dairy artificial insemination (AI) used for the first four weeks on suitable cows and then high dairy beef index (DBI) beef sires will be used for the remainder of the breeding season.

A major focus is placed on calf rearing on this farm, with there being no calf mortality in 2023.

It has always been the policy on this farm that each calf gets its mothers colostrum within two hours of birth followed by transition milk for three to four days.

Only about 20 replacements are kept on the farm and these are reared on whole milk for about 12 weeks in a former lambing shed where they have access to a paddock.

The Connelly have built good relationship with the purchasers of their beef calves, with discussion had over calf type before each breeding season begins.

All calves for sale are kept for on average two to three weeks.

The replacement heifer calves and in calf heifers are grazed on the milking platform, with all the silage also harvested from the platform.

Breeding

When purchasing the stock a major focus was placed on obtaining the highest genetic merit animals possible.

The economic breeding index (EBI) was used by the Connelly’s to ensure the stock they purchased was of high genetic merit.

Additional consideration’s were avoiding any extremes and keeping sources to a minimum.

The 72 in calf heifers were purchased from herds in Kilkenny and Galway.

The average EBI of purchased stock was €160 while the average herd in the country was €106.

Breeding on the farm focuses around obtaining higher percentages of fat and protein, along with improving fertility.

Last year the herd averaged 550kg of milk solids (MS)/cow, this was achieved from 6,424L of milk with fat of 4.59% and protein of 3.73%.

Currently the herd is at €198 of an EBI, with a milk sub-index of €61 and a fertility sub-index of €80.

Milk quality

Milk quality is a key focus for the Connelly family, Yvonne does the majority of the milking on the farm.

Attention to detail from cow care to milking procedures is excellent on the farm and is a key reason as to why milk quality is so good on the farm.

Milk recoding also plays a vital role in the overall decision making on farm from breeding to identifying any problem cows and making culling decisions.

	Average cow numbers	Fat %	Protein %	Kg MS/cow	TBC	SCC
2019	63	4.38	3.7	418	7	54
2020	85	4.59	3.74	484	7	36
2021	91	4.59	3.64	502	7	40
2022	94	4.59	3.73	550	6	49

Each year at least four milk recordings are carried out with the final one done just prior to drying off.

Selective dry cow therapy (SDCT) has been carried out over the past two years with 75% of cows receiving sealer only in 2022 up from about 25% in the previous year.

Attention to detail is critical here and only one line of cows is dried off at any one time so that the procedure is absolutely correct.

To date in 2023 there have been just four cases of mastitis with two of these being identified by the recently introduced rumen bolus which identified prior to clinical signs.