Watch: Lisbeg Farms' new greenfield 920-cow dairy unit

The abolition of milk quotas in 2015 and the consecutive years after this resulted in those with large enough land banks to convert to the more traditionally lucrative enterprise that is dairying.

Lisbeg Farms, based in Eyrecourt, Co Galway, and owned by the Bourns family, held a suitable land bank of 1,400 acres (300 acres in managed forestry) but had held off from conversion until 2023 when the first heifers calved down and milk production began.

Beef was one of the main enterprises on the farm, with 1,500 bulls under 16 months finished on the farm each year, with 1,500 Mule ewes also running on the grassland block of 640 acres.

The remaining 460 acres comprised tillage ground.

“We were looking at dairy a good few times on and off,” explained Chris Bourns. “With the farm even being mapped in 2008 for dairy, we didn’t just go down the line [of dairying] at that point. What it ended up was, we had four full-time enterprises on the farm, with my dad Richard having a sport horse business as well. We looked at the dairy, and rather than take out one enterprise, we would just take them all out [beef, sheep and tillage] and just go down the route of dairying.”

But what prompted the move in the first place? “In 2021, we started measuring grass on the farm and we saw the ability the farm had to grow grass when it was managed right,” stated Chris.

Much of 2021 was spent on the road for the Bourns family, travelling to various different yards to view cubicle sheds, milking parlours and associated facilities across all four corners of Ireland, something the Bourns would recommend to any new entrant.

“Farmers were very open with the information they shared with us, and we learned a huge, huge amount,” noted Sarah Bourns.

Planning went in for the new dairy unit in December 2021, with planning approved the first time round, to the shock of the Bourns family.

On 27 April 2022, the first digger landed on the greenfield site, with the first heifer calving down and milking on 27 January 2023.

While all of this was going on, the farm still lambed down its 1,500 ewes, dispersed these ewes in a special sale in September 2022, as well as continuing to finish young bulls, install 6km of roads, plumb and install 250 odd drinking troughs and fence out the 41 paddocks on the grazing block.

With some expansive sheds (a mix of slatted and bedded) already on the farm, the question arose as to why the family didn’t look to convert the drystock housing to a dairy fit.

“The original farmyard had a lot of good sheds on it. We did look about converting them alright.

“One of the main reasons we didn’t was because James O’Callaghan of Farm Design Solutions, got the map on Google Maps and started drawing a circle; 500m, 1,000m and 1,500m. So, then we tried moving the yard to the centre of the farm, as we were getting too far away from some of our furthest paddocks,’’ said Chris.

While the centre of the farm was in a lower, wetter area, a higher, drier site close by was chosen for the new development.

This also suits for hauling silage between the old and new yard, as the existing silage pits in the old beef yard service the dairy. Dry bedded beef and sheep sheds are utilised for calves and calving, while some old slatted tanks are used for storage of the dairy slurry.

The result was two new identical cubicle houses being built on a greenfield site, alongside the dairy building housing an 80-point Pearson parlour.

A huge amount of thought went into the design and layout of the shed, with the Bourns family praising local company Easyfix, which was key to the whole process.

Both sheds house 450 cubicles. Each shed measures 96m (315ft) in length and 31.4m (103ft) in width, with feeding on three sides of the shed.

The shed is set up with three rows of head-to-head cubicles, with each bank of cubicles comprising 25 head-to-head, or 50 cubicles, per block, with nine blocks of cubicles in total split up with crossover points and passageways in each building.

Cubicles are set at 1,040mm centre to centre, which is slightly lower than the recommended width.

David Gunn of Easyfix said: “When we first looked at this, we looked at the standard centres [for cubicles] of 45 inches (1.143m) and when we looked at cow type with Chris and Sarah, we would have adjusted that and we have these cubicles in at a 41in centre, so that’s to suit the cow type, and is with a fully flexible cubicle. If a cow needs that little bit of extra room, that cubicle will move with her.”

The head-to-head cubicle measures 4m (15ft) in length. “By doing this, along with our 41in centres, we can put 450 cubicles in each shed.

While using our standard centres we would have been back down to 414 cubicles,” explained David, “so there was a sizeable advantage on that, without compromising cow comfort”.

Cow cubicles are fitted with an Easyfix mattress mat, with 25mm of latex foam for optimum cow comfort.

While interlocking standard mats were discussed, the Bourns ultimately went for the mattress option and they “wouldn’t go back” to change it.

In such large sheds, there is a risk that the subdivision of the shed would be compromised through a lack of separation gates or water troughs, but this is far from the case in Lisbeg.

Each crossover point is fitted with a tip over water trough, with a bi-fold gate on each of these points for subdivision which gives access to cows either side of the gate to the trough.

Each crossover point measures 4m in width (13ft 1 in) which is slightly wider than the 3.6m recommended.

Guillotine gates are fitted at each bank of cubicles, meaning cow groups of as low as 25 can be achieved.

Cubicle passageways measure 3.6m (11ft 8in) in width while the feed passageways are significantly wider at 5.2m (17ft) width.

The huge amount of travel that Chris and Sarah did looking at other units prompted them to choose wider than standard passageways.

"There were three different designs of sheds we looked at, and the most efficient shed to feed cattle is two double rows of cubicles and feed on two sides.

"The three double rows of cubicles, by right, should have feeding on all four sides, but I don’t like feed getting wet,’’ explained Chris, with the Bourns opting to feed on three sides; along the length either side of the shed and at the sheltered gable end, with the gable facing the prevailing wind closed off with space boarding and a mass concrete wall.

Overhangs on these three sides protect feed from rain.

Feed space

Feed space per cow sits at 0.5m, which is slightly lower than normal, though through lower mature cow size, subdivision and feed management this is not an issue.

Old feed is pushed against the barrier with a silage pusher, with new feed placed outside this, effectively acting as a wall to hold feed in place.

"If we are buffer feeding in the summer, we will utilise both sheds, splitting the herd in half, with half being buffer fed in the morning and the other half buffer fed in the evening’’ explained Chris.

Passages are scraped down with Alfco rope scrapers, with two large tanks fitted in each shed; one halfway down each shed and the second at the bottom of the shed where feeding occurs.

A slurry aeration system was fitted by Easyfix, with the farm having spread slurry using LESS equipment on paddocks for many years.

“All our soil is index 3 and 4 for P and K, as we would have had very good-quality slurry coming from the beef unit, which we spread on both our tillage and grassland in the past using LESS,” explained Chris.

This is something that the Bourns wish to continue with in dairying, with both slurry and dairy washings spread after cows.

At the moment, much of the slurry storage utilised is from the older beef unit, with two of the beef sheds left free from stock for this purpose.

The future plan of the farm is to install a slurry tower for ease of management.

The Bourns were highly complimentary of all parties involved in the project, with the main contractors and suppliers including James O’Callaghan (Farm Design Solutions), Kenny Civil and Plant, Easyfix, Pearsons, Hogan Engineering, Colm Finnerty Concrete, Banagher Concrete, Loughane Concrete, Alfco, Intercool Engineering, Galway Hydromat, Greaney Plumbing, Moynan Electrical, Maher Engineering, Condon Engineering and V Mac Silos.

The 80-point Pearson parlour and associated works will feature in one of our upcoming Farm Buildings features, where a full breakdown of costs associated with both the accommodation and milking facilities will be given.

Lisbeg is a top-notch setup from a housing point of view, and credit should go to all involved, but particularly to the Bourns family.

Spending time travelling to the four corners of Ireland to view other setups has stood to them well, and they now have accommodation that ticks all of their requirements.

It couldn’t have been easy to go greenfield with such a large bank of sheds in the old beef yard, but it is ultimately the right choice in the long run, as a yard in the corner of such a large block of land wouldn’t have worked for cows walking.

They still have the use of the older slatted and dry sheds for calving, calf and heifer rearing, with the family looking to rear all of their own youngstock.

While some would say that this project is not relevant to the majority, it would be foolish not to take some of the clever design into consideration, such as narrowing the cubicle beds to suit cow type and fitting 10% more cubicles in, as a result.