Irishman running herd of 4,000 high-yielding cows

With a market share of over 30%, Al Ain Dairy holds number one position in the fresh milk business in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

The Gulf state of 5m people includes the principalities of Dubai and Abu Dhabi.

Al Ain runs a very large dairy farm of its own, currently milking 4,000 cows, with a further 3,650 youngstock.

This is a hostile environment for milk production, with a summer peak of 48°C. In July and August, humidity is over 65%. Daytime temperatures in winter are 25°C and 12°C at night.

Farm manager of Al Ain Dairy is Pat O’Dwyer, who hails from a mixed farming background in Bagnalstown, Co Carlow. He moved to Al Ain in 2008, having worked in Saudi Arabia with Masstock (now Almarai) between 1991 and 2004.

When asked about growth plans, the response was “to double production in three years”. They are currently seeking planning permission for a 10,000-cow unit.

Farm performance is benchmarked against US herds operating similar systems and, despite the challenging environment, is regularly in the top 10%.

While the manager is Irish, the system is very much a high-input, high-output confinement system based on the US model with four times per day milking. Success is about attention to detail.

“The secret is to keep it the same every day – cows don’t like change,” O’Dwyer said.

As shown in Figure 1, every item fed on this farm is imported. Furthermore, all technology and inputs has to be imported as there is no local back-up. A US-based nutritionist, Dan Sevcik, formulates the ration.

Pat O’Dwyer explained: “Every single feed ingredient has a full analysis and a cost per unit of feed value. The nutritionist puts target milk yield, cow body condition score and feed ingredient cost into his computer and it generates a ration to maximise yield at the least possible cost.

“We calve all year round and ship an average of 120,000 litres per day,” he said. “The rolling herd average is 11,276 litres per cow. We are currently at 39 litres per day for milking cows.”

Peak yield for cows is 52 litres at 45 days in milk, while heifers peak at 39 litres at 55 days in milk.

Average lactation length is 355 days, with a calving interval of 13.56 months. Cows are housed in open-lot cow houses, similar to those in Arizona or California in groups of 240 cows. Beds are cleaned four times a day while the cows are taken for milking. New, fresh sand is spread in beds every year.

The farm’s 140 staff operate two “double 40 rapid exit” parlours, which can each milk 400 cows per hour.

Milking takes five hours, followed by 45 minutes of cleaning and staff breaks. Milking begins at 6am, noon, 6pm and midnight. Cows are fed one hour prior to milking.

“We have three farm supervisors, foremen and around 130 labourers on the farm,” O’Dwyer explained. “We run our own maintenance teams, including a workshop for tractors and loaders, and do in-house complete rebuilds when necessary.

“We will clock up to 6,200 hours per year on a tractor or loader. Tractor engines last up to 30,000 hours with similar for loaders. Diet feeders get similar hours – we currently have an Irish-made Hi-Spec machine on 34,000 mixes (and still going very good!).”

Water is sourced from the state infrastructure, which can include very deep wells and plants that desalinate sea water.

Pat O’Dwyer explained: “We rely on municipality (government) water for cattle drinking and equipment cleaning purposes. We have an in-house water treatment plant for treating slurry water, which is then used for cleaning milking parlours and other general cleaning,” he said.

However, when requested, water, labour and feed costs were described as “commercially sensitive information”.

All milk from the farm’s 4,000 cows is sent directly to the adjacent liquid milk plant, which has a 30% share of the fresh milk category in the UAE.

Al Ain also buys milk from seven other farms to meet its daily demand for 220,000 litres. Local plant management indicated that they pay approximately 50 cent per litre for this milk. Retail milk price is controlled in the region and is currently around €1/litre.

All cows are bred to North American Holstein AI sires, with bull selection primarily on milk production. Al Ain purchases 20,000 doses at a time, which lasts around 14 months.

Twenty-five percent of bulls used are genomically tested bulls. Visual heat detection is undertaken 24 hours per day. The target is >92% detection rate. Cows calved more than 49 days are considered ready to breed.

All fresh cows have at least one insemination before they reach 100 days; intervention is used for cows that have not been bred at that point. This involves the “Ovsynch” programme that includes two prostaglandin injections and a shot of GnRH before fixed time AI.

Inseminated cows that do not return to heat by day 40 to 47 after insemination are checked to confirm pregnancy. A further check takes place at day 100 and pre-dry off. All pregnancy diagnosis is done via rectal palpation by the farm’s own veterinary surgeon. Ultrasound scanning from day 30 post-service is being considered.

A technological development planned for this year is the introduction of genomic testing of heifer calves, with the bottom 20% of heifers targeted for culling.

Bull calves are sold at 21 days after birth (price is €5/kg and they average 50kg).

“For major religious festivals, an eight-old-month old bull can make €700 to €800, regardless of breed,” he explained.

Breeding is a 12-man operation. “Calves on the ground rather than conception rate is most important,” Pat said. He explained that a key metric for his system is to have 110 cows calved for every 100 cow places – in his case, 4,400 calvings in each 12-month period.

Heifers joining the herd are used to reach the target – the farm’s replacement rate is 38%, inferring an average of 2.6 lactations per cow.

“We have no outlet for excess heifers, so all come into the herd, and cull cows get pushed out on the beef market, which is very good. We regularly sell cows exceeding 900kg.” Heifers have their first calf at between 22 and 24 months. At that point, they have an average weight of 665kg and are 64 inches tall.

Heifers are first bred – with sexed semen – when they are 13 months old, provided they weigh 380kg and are 1.4m tall.

“Ninety-five percent of calves are heifers, so it’s a big plus that they weigh 5kg to 7kg lighter than bull calves,” he said.

“We use Alta sexed semen on heifers and get very good results, with conception rates only 3% to 5% lower than on regular semen. The key is good technicians.”

When asked what his biggest challenge is, Pat O’Dwyer said: “People. Seventy-five percent of the staff are illiterate. In-house training can, and does, take a long time.”

Procedures are all documented. “We are one of only a handful of farms in the world that run on ISO 22000 – this is a huge help in operations, as it involves a written referral for every task,” he said. “Everything that moves on the farm is in that document.

“With herds of this size, you are no longer a cow farmer – you manage people who manage cows,” he said.

* Our thanks to the CEO of Al Ain Dairy Abdulla Saif Al Darmaki and chief operating officer Shashi Kumar Menon for facilitating the visit by the Irish Farmers Journal. The farm visit took place during the November 2013 Trade Mission to the Middle East organised by An Bord Bia.

Ireland will have large herds too

While the majority of herds in Ireland will remain in a grass-based system, Pat O’Dwyer expects new large-scale units to be developed here in the coming years, especially if milk price rises further.

“It will be 5,000 cows milked through a 90-unit rotary, with all feed and effluent being handled by a tillage operator,” he said. “These type of units are springing up in Wisconsin, USA. It is a win-win for the livestock and tillage farmer. The modern Holstein cow can produce 11,000 litres per day anywhere there is good management – it’s as workable in Ireland as any grass-based system,” he said.