In episode three of Agriland's limited podcast 'The Dairy Trail', which aired earlier this week, Co. Wicklow farmer Dan Somers spoke about his herd of Montbéliardes.

Dan is farming in partnership with his father Danny, with the duo milking 230 Montbéliardes on a 78hagrazing platform.

The farm based in Barnacleagh, just outside Arklow, are in a split calving system with approximately 50 cows calving down in the autumn.

The herd is achieving their target of 7,000L milk with 557kg of milk solids.

Dan talks about how they got into Montbéliardes, saying his father and uncle had a mixed enterprise of dairy, sucklers, sheep, and tillage when they were in partnership.

He said the Montbéliardes suited that system, as they gave a good calf and a good cull cow.

The 'Montys', which are originally from France, are known for their longevity, fertility, ease of calving, and high-quality.

When Dan came home from college and some time abroad, he wanted to get into the dairy aspect but they did not have a large quota.

Once the quotas were abolished, they went full dairy, and both the herd and the farm have seen a significant expansion since.

The majority of the herd is 'home-bred'; however, the Somers bought in a few cattle last year after a salmonella outbreak on the farm.

Dan talks us through their winter calving system, and dives int0 their vaccination programme and calf care.

He also speaks about the upcoming breeding season and how heat detection collars are making his life that much easier.

They are also allowing him to use sexed semen on his best cows to get top quality replacement heifers.

Dan also breeds a portion of red gene Belgian Blue beef calves through the Montbéliardes.

We hear about the winter diet and how growing 28ac of beet and feeding it to the herd is working out for the Somers.

Dan talks us through the grass season gone by and the struggles they had with drought.

We also hear about the silage season as well as reseeding using red clover.

In addition, Dan talks about the valuable asset which is his cousin Sean, who is employed full-time on the farm.

According to Dan, the cousins do all of their own work, which means they do not need to get any contractors in on farm.

Infrastructure

Dan talks us through the farm's infrastructure, starting with their 22-unit swing over parlour, which is fitted with a backing gate in the holding yard to keep keep cows flowing and improve safety.

He then talks about the drafting gate and roll over crate installed by the parlour.

He uses the roll over crate to dry-off cows, paring all four feet, and clipping tails and ear, with dosing also done at this time.

Dan installed automated feeders in 2013 and said: "From a labour-saving point of view, it's probably one of the better things we have bought on the farm."

He said they will notice a sick calf on the machine quicker than when batch feeding, but added that disease and infection can also spread quicker through it.

There aretwo main cubicle houses, one which holds 240 animals and another which holds just over 100.

Under these is the Somers' slurry storage tanks, which are fitted with an aeration system.

Dan said they were installed from a safety point of view as the yard is on a slope, meaning internal agitation would have been needed.

To reduce lameness, he has poured concrete on the laneways where the most traffic is.

If you have already listened to Dan's podcast, you can tune into the fourth and final episode of season three of 'The Dairy Trail' on Monday (December 15) at 5.00p.m.

Episode four, which will be hosted here on Agriland and across all other platforms, will feature Co. Waterford-based dairy farmer, John Byrne, who will be speaking about winning an award for keeping somatic cell count low and how he is achieving that.