Denis Collins is farming in partnership with his wife Leonora and his brother Paudie in Newmarket, Co. Cork where new investments are proving a key time-saver for himself and his cows.

The Collins brothers are due to calve down 300 cows this spring over a grazing block of 350ac, where Denis described the land as “heavy in parts and exceptionally dry in other parts,” which he believes is a nice balance for growing grass and getting cows out.

The foundation herd on the farm are Montbeliarde-cross cows with a focus in recent years to put more dairy traits into the herd in the form of Holstein-Friesian straws.

They originally had a 14-unit Dairymaster parlour with 180-190 cows going through it when quotas were abolished, but to access the whole milking block, it involved crossing two busy roads and sometimes a 5km walk to the parlour and back to the furthest paddock.

The Collins’ herd of Montbeliarde cows with one of the kid’s toy car

Denis described the milking block as “quite fragmented”, with a lot of labour required to get cows across roads and into the milking parlour, and that was before the 190 cows had to be milked through a 14-unit.

This way of milking was quite unsustainable and so they decided to build another parlour up the road and plan to put in an underpass to get cows from one part of the land to the other.

New investments

Denis and his brother decided to split the herd in two and for one brother to milk 150 cows and the other to milk the other 150, which required building a new parlour and eventually an underpass.

Paudie and the farm manager, Darragh Shine operate one block and Denis and his wife Leonora operate the other block which works well for all parties involved.

Denis said that the new yard started in 2019, when he invested in a new slatted tank and cubicle shed with 160 cubicles and 200 fed spaces and did up all the roadways on that side of the farm.

The shed was equipped with three CleanSweep Dairymaster manure scrapers as they have had them in the home farm since 1997 and they still “give little to no problems”.

The clean sweep control box that Denis finds so easy to operate

This was followed by putting up a 20-unit Swiftflo swing parlour in 2021 and Denis described these investments as “a no-brainer” for saving the cows walking 2.5km to the parlour and 2.5km back, along with saving on labour.

Denis went with a Dairymaster parlour as they have had a 14-unit for years and he described it as “bulletproof”, and said that “with any of these machines, the service is everything and we have a good relationship with the service man, John Cremin”.

Cremin Dairy Services have helped the Collins’ along the way and, down the line, Denis intends to put in a drafting unit and collars which will go hand-in-hand with the Dairymaster gear already in the yard.

The parlour has 2ft 6in centres and is equipped with cluster cleanse, automatic feeders, an auto-washer, a variable speed vacuum pump, and air gates at the back.

Last year, Denis said that he was milking 120 cows through the parlour at peak and that he was spending no more than an hour in the parlour.

He commented that he has had no trouble with milk quality from using the cluster cleanse and that any trouble or spike in cell count that has occurred is due to him not being ruthless enough when culling problem cows.

The biggest advantage that Denis finds with the parlour is that it is so easy to use and that there is no problem getting in a relief milker to milk in it.

In terms of getting cows used to it, he had no problems and praised the Dairymaster troughs for getting better control of heifers as they came in.

A look at the parlour up beside the Dairymaster troughs

When pressed about putting in a dump line, Denis said: “I didn’t see the need for it as we run a freshly calved group and we put antibiotics into the dump bucket and so the pipe is just taken out from the bulk tank after milking and put into a 200L barrel”.

A major part of saving time and labour will be the new investment in an underpass underneath a busy road, which Denis said is crucial for cow flow, flexibility, and labour.

He is also conscious of his “great neighbours” travelling the road, even though he commented “we live in a part of the world here in Cork where people are sympathetic to farmers.”

Performance

The Collins’ have delayed the calving start date this year to match the grass growth curve on their farm and to get cows out relatively quick after calving in drier conditions.

The planned calving start date was February 11 and between the two farms, there are over 100 cows calved, with Denis currently milking once-a-day at the moment until more cows calve down.

Paudie is milking on his farm as usual, twice-a-day as more cows have calved on that side of the farm. Cows on each farm are currently receiving 3kg of concentrates.

The aim is to get cows out for a couple of hours each day in the coming days when ground conditions are more favourable and a few more cows calve.

Denis feeding his herd of cows zero-grazed grass

The cows produced over 422kg of milk solids (MS), with cows averaging 14.49L/day at 4.12% fat and 3.61% protein.

Denis said that the Montbeliarde cow has a poor economic breeding index (EBI) but “if you look at some of the cows and see the solids they are producing, with great SCC (somatic cell count) while going back in-calf, we would be laughing at EBI”.

The herd’s EBI is currently at €129, but the EBI of 2025 inseminations was €320, which shows the Collins’ are trying to get more dairy traits into their herd of Montbeliarde cows.

The breeding season consists of using conventional dairy artificial insemination (AI) straws and aiming for a 22-23% replacement rate to drive on genetic gain in the herd.

They use dairy AI on the best of the herd based on milk recording data, parity, and overall performance, with the remainder of the cows getting mopped up with three Hereford bulls and two Aberdeen Angus bulls.

They also run their herd through sire advice on the Irish Cattle Breeding Federation (ICBF) site to pick a team of bulls and go through matching up bulls with their breeding advisor.

In terms of breeding and the genetics of the herd , Denis admitted that they don’t have the type of cow they want yet and that in terms of breeding and infrastructure “we are at the growing stage, there is still a lot to be done”.

The Collins’ have been more vigorous with their breeding programme in the last couple of years by genotyping their herd and selecting bulls that will improve solids and fertility.

Denis described the farm system as “by no means the finished product” but said himself and his brother are “in a privileged postion” and said: “I wouldn’t be here for only the work my mother and father have done here before.

Denis’ children enjoying the good weather on the freshly renovated laneways

Denis revealed that he is happy to progress the farm even further in the next few years and “bang out the underpass in the summer”, but said nothing is possible without the support of all of his family and four kids, Willow, Beatrix, Donnacha and Patrick.

“My brother Tim who is teaching and my sister, Catherine have also put in a lot of effort over the years, it has been a group effort from everyone and it took everyone to chip in to get the farm where it is today.”

For the future, Denis said himself and his brother Paudie are happy milking 150 cows each and said: “there is a lot investment to be done yet and a lot more to do and it’s about fine tuning what we have now and making our system more robust.”

New investments

Performance

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