Michael, Ellen and Thomas work as a team on this farm and between them they have grown the business to milking 120 cows.

Very recently they have acquired a new block of land beside the farmyard, 33 acres, that should provide a lot more feed for milking cows.

This has helped the decision to gradually get out of winter milk production and this year breeding will stop at the end of July. In 2018 about 13% of the annual supply was delivered in November, December and January.

Young stock numbers are climbing slightly with 24 first-calvers in the herd this year, 28 bulling heifers and 32 heifer calves in the pipeline. Calving is all year round.

The 10-unit double-up parlour in Lisavaird.

A total of 62,560kg of milk solids were delivered in 2018 with about 1,400kg of meal fed per cow. The parlour is a 10-unit double-up.

Challenges

The challenges the Nyhan farm have are similar to many farms – maximising the grazing season, reducing nitrogen use, improving EBI and herd health. That’s not to say they are behind the game in various aspects indeed fertiliser is spread with boundary control technology and a trailing shoe is used while spreading slurry on grazing and silage ground.

The cubicle shed with feed face on each side and in a central feed passage.

Milk recording is key to providing excellent results on quality milk according to Thomas.

“We milk record at least seven times per year and the text to the phone spurs you into action on the problem cows.”

Ellen is in charge of the books and they use agri audits to keep the books in order.

This company takes all the sales returns, invoices, etc and organises them into a sensible fashion so that a track on the key numbers is at hand.

As you can see from the stats box and artwork, the quality of milk is excellent and 2019 results are heading in a similar direction.