During the week, Agriland made the trip to Ballyconnell, in Co. Cavan to chat to dairy farmer, Seamus Dolan about an underpass he installed, and how he has improved cow flow and comfort on his farm.
Seamus operates both a spring and autumn calving system – which sees him calve down 240 cows – with hopes of increasing this to 280 over the next 12 months.
To facilitate increasing cow numbers over the last few years, the Cavan native leased ground across the road from his home farm.
This meant, up until a couple of weeks ago, cows had to be walked across a busy main road leading into Ballyconnell, morning and evening, anytime they were over grazing on this leased ground.
Seamus said that a lot of valuable time has been lost over the past five years – with up to two hours a day – an hour in the morning and the same again in the evening, lost – bringing cows across the road to the milking parlour.
Speaking to Agriland on his farm, Seamus said: “The land we have rented is on a long-term lease so we said we would go and put an underpass in and just streamline the farm.
“Crossing cows on a road is dangerous, but one as busy as the one we were walking the cows on, was just deadly.
“It used to be a case that when we would be walking the cows across early in the morning for milking it was fine, but after milking we would have to hold them in the collecting yard for 45min or so if they were going back over across the road.
“I used to wait until around 9:15a.m to move the cows back across the road because by that stage all the work and school traffic would be gone.
“The fact we were holding cows back, and then the time it was taking to move them across the road, we were losing probably two hours a day not to mention the time cows lost being out on grass.”
Job done in less than 2 weeks
Having decided enough was enough and having secured planning permission, Seamus got the ball rolling on putting in the new underpass.
Work began on constructing the underpass in July of this year and in less than two weeks, no more cows were crossing the road.
Liam Cullivan and his team at Cullivan Plant Hire got the job of constructing the underpass.
Seamus had to apply for a road closure licence from the county council which was approved.
Seamus said that work began on a Wednesday and the following Friday week, the job was done.
Work began with digging out the banks on either side of where cows would enter/exit the underpass and the tank for slurry/water.
When that was done, the road was closed – for five days – and work began digging up the road and putting in the culverts and patching up the road for it to opened up again for the public.
The underpass is 20m long, 3m wide and 2.1m deep.
The underpass is a bit longer than what Seamus had originally expected, because the county council asked for it to extend out 3m on either side of the tarmacadam road.
Speaking about the finished job, Seamus said: “I have to give Liam Cullivan and his team huge credit for the job they did.
“The attention to detail was second to none and it’s just a dream to have it finally in [the underpass].
“I also have to thank the public for the patience they showed for the last five years while I moved cows across the road, but also during the five days when the road was closed.
“The time we are saving going for cows and walking them across the road has meant we can get other jobs around the farm done now.
“Also, because I have a batt-latches, the cows can mosey across from the leased ground under the underpass over to the parlour without me having to go back for them and hold people up on the road.
“It was one of the best decisions I have made, even though we only have it in five weeks.”
The cost of the entire job is standing to Seamus at roughly €70,000.
Improving cow comfort by laying down astroturf
From looking at the underpass above, you’ll probably have noticed the astroturf laid on the roadway.
Seamus’s farm is quite hilly, with some of the inclines cows have to make on their way to the parlour being quite steep.
Not only is the farm quite hilly, but the distance from the furthest paddocks to the parlour stretches as far as 1.7km.
So in order to make the journey easier and more comfortable for cows, Seamus decided to lay astroturf on his roadways – with about 900m laid currently.
He added: “Lameness wasn’t the reason for putting down the astroturf, it was more got to do with making the cows’ life easier and comfortable getting to and from the parlour.
“It’s quite a long walk from the furthest paddocks on the rented ground over to the parlour and also that farm is quite hilly.
“I was able to source the astroturf from two different sources and I must say it’s a terrific job.
“The cows love it. The astroturf doesn’t quite stretch the width of the road so there is still a bit of gravel surface on either side and you can see the cows avoiding it and just queueing up behind each other or even barging one another to get on to it.
“Even though it wasn’t put down for lameness problems, it’s definitely going to help keep them at bay or at a very low level at least.”
The astroturf is costing Seamus roughly €2.50 /sqm, with the Cavan man laying it down himself.
