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I farm: “165ac of owned land and 100ac of rented ground in partnership with my son, Justin. We have two blocks and two different herds. I milk 100 cows and Justin milks 70 cows in his parlour across the road. I milk all year round and he’s spring calving. The breed I go for is a Holstein crossed with British Friesian.”
Winter milking: “I’ve been milking here nearly 50 years. I’m milking since I was 15. The year quotas came in, 1984, I got into winter milk. I had surplus cows and I got into it then. I just gradually milked away that way. It was breaking up the workload, that was the biggest thing. I was using the autumn calving to take the pressure off the spring time. My land was in two divisions and I could cut plenty of silage for the autumn to have the cows calving then.”
Jobs at the moment: “I just dried off the spring calvers two weeks ago. There’s only a handful of them left there now, a few of the late calvers. I’ve 36 in the parlour at the moment, the majority of them will be kept milking until next August when I’ll dry them off for calving.”
This time of year: “I love milking. It’s grand to go out there and you’d milk your 40 cows or so in an hour. It takes the length out of a long, black winter’s evening. It’s actually the nicest time of the year milking when you’d have those four rows of cows. You’d have a day’s work done in an hour. Milking on Christmas Day or Christmas Eve, it doesn’t bother me one bit in the world.”
Quotable quote: “There’s a fella down in Athenry and he’s as good a dairy man as there ever was. He said, ‘If a cow isn’t big enough, she can’t eat enough to produce enough milk.’ People would say the opposite now, but I still like to see a good frame on a cow. You can fatten a cull cow and get a good price for her.”
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