At Dairy Day 2026, the Irish Farmers Journal will be running a demonstration of the top 10 labour-saving investment ideas.

In the run-up to the event, we will be previewing one of the 10 potential investment ideas each week.

Then, on Saturday 14 November at the UL Sports Arena, visitors will have an opportunity to see each of the ideas come to life.

There will be a demonstration area where each of the options are shown at work.

This edition is looking at automatic calf feeders as a labour saving technology.

Time is at a premium on most Irish dairy farms over the course of the spring months and any few minutes that can be carved out in a spring day are like gold dust. If an automatic calf-feeder can help achieve that, it’s something worth looking at.

Flexibility

The big selling point of automatic calf feeders is flexibility. The farmer is not as tied to feeding calves twice a day every day after morning and evening milking.

With the feeder, a farmer can tend to calves at a point in the day that suits them.

An automatic feeder also replicates the natural tendencies of calves by allowing them to drink smaller amounts at more frequent periods throughout the day and night versus the standard twice-a-day feed.

Calves are more settled as a result, with no competition at feeding time and each calf is guaranteed to get their full quota of milk.

Another benefit of the feeder is the health alerts which notify the farmer of which calves have failed to drink and how many visits they make to the feeders.

Sick calves typically drink less and will make more unsuccessful visits.

Costs

The cost of the feeders will vary depending on the number of stations. Typically, there will be either two or four stations and each station will feed 30 to 35 calves.

A two-station feeder will cost approximately €15,000 including VAT, while the four-station feeder will cost in the region of €21,000 including VAT.

TAMS grant aid is available on calf feeders and it is based on the number of stations. A four-station feeder is grant aided to the value of €17,254.

At the grant rate available to all farmers of 40%, that’s a reduction of €6,900 off the cost of the feeder. This would bring the investment cost of a new four-station feeder to €14,100.

The 60% grant available to young farmers and women would see a reduction of €10,352 off the cost price.

Yearly services are recommended on the feeders to keep them in good working order and this comes at a cost of around €375 for the two stations and €450 for the four stations.

Saving

Labour saving is the big reward from investing in a calf-feeder. Teagasc has found that automatic calf feeders save an average of one minute per calf per day over twice-a-day manual calf feeding.

On a farm with 100 calves reared for four weeks, that’s a time saving of 31 hours at the busiest time of the year.

Assuming another 30 replacement calves are kept on for a further eight weeks, the time saving increases to 59 hours across the entire calf-rearing period.

At a cost of €15/hour for labour, that’s a saving of €885. There is also the opportunity cost for the time to be allocated to other jobs that could add value to the farm.

Jobs such as grassland management or administration which hasn’t been accounted for, but are extremely valuable in the spring months.

Value

While they may not be as cheap as some of the other options on this top-10 list, more and more dairy farmers are turning to automatic calf feeders, which says enough in itself.

The time saving comes at the most valuable time of the year and that cannot be underestimated.

Dairy Day 2026 is fast approaching. The event will take place on Saturday 14 November in UL Sports Arena, Limerick. Tickets can be bought here. See www.ifj.ie/dairyday for more information.