A good crowd of farmers braved the rain to attend the Dairygold milk quality award winner’s walk on the farm of Sean and Treasa Moher, Croughmore, Mitchelstown, on Tuesday.

“The cows are milked in Cork but spend a lot of their time in Tipperary,” was a good description of the farm’s location, with the border splitting the farm.

Attention to detail was a key trait on this farm, both on farm performance and health and safety awareness.

The farm was immaculate and walking through the farm roadways you could tell it wasn’t just cleaned up for the day. It was a credit to the family and backed up their attitude of maintaining a safe working environment.

During the walk, Treasa spoke of farm safety and how the farm is not a creche.

Milking routine

Sean Moher gave those present the rundown on his milking routine and how it helps to achieve high-quality standards.

Farm financials were not covered in depth, with a focus on technical performance instead. A bit of digging through the booklet provided revealed an average milk price for 2015, according to the ICBF co-op score card, of 31.2c/l.

Mohers won the Dairygold milk quality award, which consists of the three top performers in each of the Dairygold regions. The judges were Dr Karina Pierce, UCD, and Don Crowley, Teagasc.

Farm credential

The farm consists of 56ha (138ac) owned, with 13ha (35ac) rented. The milking platform consisted of 44ha (109ac).

It is a spring-calving herd with 88 cows milked in 2015, producing 461kg of milk solids each with a meal input of 800kg per cow.

Current EBI is €161. In 2015, the stocking rate on the milking platform was 3.14 cows/ha.

Overall, farm stocking rate is 1.80 LU/ha. Variable costs for 2015 were 9.9c/l and fixed costs, including this, rose to 21.1c/l – but this does not include a cost for own labour.

Milk quality 2015

  • SCC 128,000
  • Butterfat 4.15%
  • Protein 3.58%