Maeve O’Keeffe, Ballynoe, Co Cork
Maeve is farming with her husband Ed Keneally where they milk 340 cows across two milking platforms in Ballynoe, east Cork.
When the Irish Farmers Journal visited the O’Keeffe farm at Ballynoe last week, Maeve went through the plan for the spring and how they’re preparing for it.
The first thing she says that they’re doing is preparing themselves for it, as the family was about to go on holidays for 10 days the day after the visit.
Maeve says that rest and relaxation is high on the priority list over the coming weeks in advance of the mayhem at the end of January.
All the cows calve on the O’Keeffe farm at Ballynoe, with late calvers wintered on Ed’s home farm at Curraglass. By March, the late calvers will come back to Ballynoe and a bunch of milking cows will replace them at Curraglass and that parlour will start up for the season, milking 120 cows or so at peak.
Even at this time of year you can see that standards are high and preparation has already started for the spring. The calf and calving sheds have been power-washed since summer and they are now halfway through white-washing the walls.
A new cubicle/calving shed was built a few years ago and the former calving shed has been converted to a large calf shed. The system is as follows: cows close to calving are moved to a pre-maternity cubicle area next to the calving area.
Cows on the point of calving are then let into the calving area. This is a big loose pen that’s bedded with woodchip topped up with straw. Maeve says that letting them in just before they calve is important.
“They’re quiet, relaxed and easier to manage when they’re at that stage. If we leave them in any earlier, they just run around and make a mess of the place,” she says.
Once they calve, they’re moved to a smaller pen near the door of the shed and the calf is fed with pooled colostrum and moved to a small pen in the calf shed across the yard. Maeve says they prefer to feed the calf with a bottle and nipple, but if someone wants to use a stomach tube that’s OK, but she prefers the nipple feeder.
The colostrum is stored in used 3l milk cartons which are dated and kept in the fridge at the calf shed.
Calves are trained to the multi-teat feeder straight away and put into groups of 10. After a few days they are moved from the baby calf house, which can hold about 60 calves to the heifer calf shed or the bull calf shed.
Heifer calves are kept in the former calving shed, which has been converted to a four-pen calf shed with computerised feeder. The area with the feed stations is slatted and bedded with straw while the back of the pens is bedded with woodchip and topped up with straw. A straw blower is on a tractor all spring and used to top up straw in the calf shed and calving shed once or twice a day.
The fridges for colostrum are set up in the baby calf shed on the Ballynoe farm.
In terms of labour saving, Maeve says that they don’t need to carry buckets to feed calves with a pipe pumping milk from the milking parlour to the bull calf shed, while a trolley pulls a blue barrel of transition milk to the baby-calf shed.
During the spring there are three full-time people working on the farm, as well as Maeve and Ed.
Young family
“It sounds like a lot but we are milking on two farms and we have a young family, so it’s a choice that we make. It means no one should be under pressure and there is capacity in case someone gets injured or sick,” she says.
They operate in shifts, with one shift starting at 2.45pm to 11.45pm and the night shift starting from 12.30am to 7am for the busiest few weeks of calving with this person then moving to the role of milker on the Curraglass farm when that starts up.
Sheds are white-washed in advance of calving.
For now, Maeve says the key thing is to make sure they are as prepared as possible. Over the coming weeks, they will be starting to feed dry cow minerals, they have tags ordered, additional calf sheds will be set up as the farm is currently locked up with TB, used milk cartons will be collected for colostrum, hot water systems will be checked, etc.
Jack Kearney, Rathcormac, Co Cork
For Jack Kearney, the steady system of the last few springs is going out the window this year as the farm embarks on a new expansion journey. Leasing an additional 70 acres next door to the family farm near Rathcormac, means that the herd is going to go from 160 to 240 cows next season.
When Jack returned home from Kildalton College in 2014, his parents Annette and Larry were milking 85 cows. Steady expansion over the last few years brought them to 160 cows, but Jack says that the same level of expansion is now going to take place in just one year, so it’ll be a learning curve.
Jack Kearney, Rathcormac, Co. Cork
In terms of preparation for it, the Kearneys are in a good place as they already have plenty of good help in the system. Over the last few years, the farm has become a learning ground for young people in school and college looking to learn how to milk and earn some extra money. Jack says they never went out looking for extra help.
“The first guy landed in the yard one evening looking to learn how to milk and it started growing from there. Now we have lads that come in a few evenings a week after school or college and we have two lads that milk at the weekends.
“Most of them are not from farming backgrounds, so we have to teach them how to milk and that could take a week or a month but they can all milk on their own now. It’s definitely a cost in the business but it’s small money and I always knew I would need to learn how to manage people at some stage,” he says.
“At times we could have been trying to find work for them, but the biggest problem is that we could be half idle ourselves, so that’s not really a problem at all. Most of the lads start off on small money and we increase it every six months,” Jack says.
The Kearneys have little investment to make in facilities, despite the increase in numbers. A new cubicle shed built in 2018 increased the cow housing to 240. The existing 16-unit parlour will be under pressure alright, but the plan is to increase this to 20 units.
With the herd at the upper end of the limit for the middle band in nitrates, the farm has gone back to feeding whole milk to calves, converting an existing powder based computerised calf feeder to take whole milk.
One of the big labour savings in spring is the use of a contract rearer, who takes 60 heifer calves at two to three weeks of age. Baby calves are stomach tubed and trained to drink from a 10-teat feeder at the next feed before being moved to the computerised feeder at about two days of age.
Jack usually starts the day in spring at 6am, with his parents checking calvings on the camera up until about 2am. Jack says that if they’re up late at night they take it handy in the morning and he says all the main jobs are usually complete by 6pm or 7pm in the evenings.
He’ll be back running and playing junior hurling with Bride Rovers in March, which he says is important.
“It’s important to have an interest outside of farming, but what I find great is that you’re meeting lads not involved in farming at all so you’re having different conversations.
“The first of the cows are due to calve in late January so we’ll be rearing to go by then. The key thing in the busy days is to focus on the priority jobs of milking, bedding, feeding calves and getting grass to cows. Everything else can wait on the busy days once they’re done,” he says.
The calving shed has been converted to a calf shed. This floor will be bedded with woodchip and then lined with straw for extra comfort.
The Irish Grassland Association dairy conference takes place on Wednesday 8 January at Charleville Park Hotel with tickets available at www.irishgrassland.ie
Maeve O’Keeffe is farming with her husband Ed where they milk 340 cows across two farms in east Cork. Jack Kearney is farming in partnership with his parents where they are milking 160 cows but will calve down 240 next spring. Both are speaking at the Irish Grassland Association conference.
The big cage is used to move calves around the farm using the loader with doors at either end.
Maeve O’Keeffe, Ballynoe, Co Cork
Maeve is farming with her husband Ed Keneally where they milk 340 cows across two milking platforms in Ballynoe, east Cork.
When the Irish Farmers Journal visited the O’Keeffe farm at Ballynoe last week, Maeve went through the plan for the spring and how they’re preparing for it.
The first thing she says that they’re doing is preparing themselves for it, as the family was about to go on holidays for 10 days the day after the visit.
Maeve says that rest and relaxation is high on the priority list over the coming weeks in advance of the mayhem at the end of January.
All the cows calve on the O’Keeffe farm at Ballynoe, with late calvers wintered on Ed’s home farm at Curraglass. By March, the late calvers will come back to Ballynoe and a bunch of milking cows will replace them at Curraglass and that parlour will start up for the season, milking 120 cows or so at peak.
Even at this time of year you can see that standards are high and preparation has already started for the spring. The calf and calving sheds have been power-washed since summer and they are now halfway through white-washing the walls.
A new cubicle/calving shed was built a few years ago and the former calving shed has been converted to a large calf shed. The system is as follows: cows close to calving are moved to a pre-maternity cubicle area next to the calving area.
Cows on the point of calving are then let into the calving area. This is a big loose pen that’s bedded with woodchip topped up with straw. Maeve says that letting them in just before they calve is important.
“They’re quiet, relaxed and easier to manage when they’re at that stage. If we leave them in any earlier, they just run around and make a mess of the place,” she says.
Once they calve, they’re moved to a smaller pen near the door of the shed and the calf is fed with pooled colostrum and moved to a small pen in the calf shed across the yard. Maeve says they prefer to feed the calf with a bottle and nipple, but if someone wants to use a stomach tube that’s OK, but she prefers the nipple feeder.
The colostrum is stored in used 3l milk cartons which are dated and kept in the fridge at the calf shed.
Calves are trained to the multi-teat feeder straight away and put into groups of 10. After a few days they are moved from the baby calf house, which can hold about 60 calves to the heifer calf shed or the bull calf shed.
Heifer calves are kept in the former calving shed, which has been converted to a four-pen calf shed with computerised feeder. The area with the feed stations is slatted and bedded with straw while the back of the pens is bedded with woodchip and topped up with straw. A straw blower is on a tractor all spring and used to top up straw in the calf shed and calving shed once or twice a day.
The fridges for colostrum are set up in the baby calf shed on the Ballynoe farm.
In terms of labour saving, Maeve says that they don’t need to carry buckets to feed calves with a pipe pumping milk from the milking parlour to the bull calf shed, while a trolley pulls a blue barrel of transition milk to the baby-calf shed.
During the spring there are three full-time people working on the farm, as well as Maeve and Ed.
Young family
“It sounds like a lot but we are milking on two farms and we have a young family, so it’s a choice that we make. It means no one should be under pressure and there is capacity in case someone gets injured or sick,” she says.
They operate in shifts, with one shift starting at 2.45pm to 11.45pm and the night shift starting from 12.30am to 7am for the busiest few weeks of calving with this person then moving to the role of milker on the Curraglass farm when that starts up.
Sheds are white-washed in advance of calving.
For now, Maeve says the key thing is to make sure they are as prepared as possible. Over the coming weeks, they will be starting to feed dry cow minerals, they have tags ordered, additional calf sheds will be set up as the farm is currently locked up with TB, used milk cartons will be collected for colostrum, hot water systems will be checked, etc.
Jack Kearney, Rathcormac, Co Cork
For Jack Kearney, the steady system of the last few springs is going out the window this year as the farm embarks on a new expansion journey. Leasing an additional 70 acres next door to the family farm near Rathcormac, means that the herd is going to go from 160 to 240 cows next season.
When Jack returned home from Kildalton College in 2014, his parents Annette and Larry were milking 85 cows. Steady expansion over the last few years brought them to 160 cows, but Jack says that the same level of expansion is now going to take place in just one year, so it’ll be a learning curve.
Jack Kearney, Rathcormac, Co. Cork
In terms of preparation for it, the Kearneys are in a good place as they already have plenty of good help in the system. Over the last few years, the farm has become a learning ground for young people in school and college looking to learn how to milk and earn some extra money. Jack says they never went out looking for extra help.
“The first guy landed in the yard one evening looking to learn how to milk and it started growing from there. Now we have lads that come in a few evenings a week after school or college and we have two lads that milk at the weekends.
“Most of them are not from farming backgrounds, so we have to teach them how to milk and that could take a week or a month but they can all milk on their own now. It’s definitely a cost in the business but it’s small money and I always knew I would need to learn how to manage people at some stage,” he says.
“At times we could have been trying to find work for them, but the biggest problem is that we could be half idle ourselves, so that’s not really a problem at all. Most of the lads start off on small money and we increase it every six months,” Jack says.
The Kearneys have little investment to make in facilities, despite the increase in numbers. A new cubicle shed built in 2018 increased the cow housing to 240. The existing 16-unit parlour will be under pressure alright, but the plan is to increase this to 20 units.
With the herd at the upper end of the limit for the middle band in nitrates, the farm has gone back to feeding whole milk to calves, converting an existing powder based computerised calf feeder to take whole milk.
One of the big labour savings in spring is the use of a contract rearer, who takes 60 heifer calves at two to three weeks of age. Baby calves are stomach tubed and trained to drink from a 10-teat feeder at the next feed before being moved to the computerised feeder at about two days of age.
Jack usually starts the day in spring at 6am, with his parents checking calvings on the camera up until about 2am. Jack says that if they’re up late at night they take it handy in the morning and he says all the main jobs are usually complete by 6pm or 7pm in the evenings.
He’ll be back running and playing junior hurling with Bride Rovers in March, which he says is important.
“It’s important to have an interest outside of farming, but what I find great is that you’re meeting lads not involved in farming at all so you’re having different conversations.
“The first of the cows are due to calve in late January so we’ll be rearing to go by then. The key thing in the busy days is to focus on the priority jobs of milking, bedding, feeding calves and getting grass to cows. Everything else can wait on the busy days once they’re done,” he says.
The calving shed has been converted to a calf shed. This floor will be bedded with woodchip and then lined with straw for extra comfort.
The Irish Grassland Association dairy conference takes place on Wednesday 8 January at Charleville Park Hotel with tickets available at www.irishgrassland.ie
Maeve O’Keeffe is farming with her husband Ed where they milk 340 cows across two farms in east Cork. Jack Kearney is farming in partnership with his parents where they are milking 160 cows but will calve down 240 next spring. Both are speaking at the Irish Grassland Association conference.
The big cage is used to move calves around the farm using the loader with doors at either end.
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