A crowd of more than 600 turned out to the Irish Grassland’s summer tour in the Nire Valley of west Waterford on Tuesday last to hear the O’Gorman family story.
Theirs is an inspiring tale, of hard work, succession and progression neatly wrapped into one.
It all began back in 1965 when two brothers by the names of Paddy and John O’Gorman, inherited the home farm at the ages of 25 and 23 respectively.
They had a vision at that early stage of growing and developing the farm into something bigger and better and that’s exactly what they set about doing.
Over the next 24 years, up to 1989, they would go on purchase a total of 230 acres bringing the farm to 300 acres in total milking 200 cows.
The two men worked extremely hard over the years to set the farm up for future generations.
Succession
In 2007, after completing a degree in Ag Science from UCD, Paddy’s son Ollie returned home to farm. The three men worked together for almost two years, with both Paddy and John affording Ollie the wriggle room to try new things and push the boundaries of what the farm was capable of.
John’s son Michael was also interested in farming. In 2009, after completing an electrical apprenticeship, Michael decided to return home and join the family business.
That year, the decision was taken by Paddy and John to dissolve their own partnership and split the business equally between their two sons to give them scope to manage and run their own unique businesses.
In early 2009, the herd was split evenly based on calving dates. Ollie got 96 cows and 150 acres of land, while Michael also got 96 cows and the other 150 acres.
A second yard with a parlour was built and now the two farms while still side by side could operate individually.
Michael and Noreen O’Gorman
Today, Michael and his wife Noreen are milking 200 cows across a 60ha milking platform with a total farm area of 111 hectares.
With little opportunity to add more land to the milking block, the couple have invested in a number of outfarms which have allowed them to increase stocking rate and cow numbers on the home block.
The current milking platform stocking rate is 3.2 cows/ha with the outside ground used for silage, some zero-grazing and calf-rearing. The herd is crossbred with an EBI of €160.
Michael began crossbreeding the original herd back in 2009 as he felt the cows were underperforming in terms of milk solids. Fertility was never an issue but fat and protein percentages of the herd were low.
“The milk was always in the cows it was just a matter of getting the fat and protein percentages into them” Michael said.
In 2009, the herd produced 350kg of milk solids/cow on average, in 2025, the herd did 568kg of milk solids/cow with fat at 5.19% and protein at 3.94%. The key drivers of the business according to Michael is the fertility of the herd and the focus on grass production.
In 2025, the six-week calving rate of the herd was 93%. The average figure for grass grown over the three-year period from 2023 to 2025 is 12.8t DM/ha.
The total intake of the cows last year was 5.9t DM/cow on average. Of this, 3.1t DM/ha was as grazed grass, 1.1t as meal, 0.25t as palm kernel, 0.25t of zero-grazed grass and 1.2t of silage.
Cutting costs is a big focus for the farm this year with the low milk price being the driving factor.
The costs in 2025 for the business were reported on the day as 34.15c/l. This figure excluded the labour cost and is 3.35c/l lower than the Teagasc E-Profit monitor average.
Reducing meal feeding was one the cost saving methods that Michael had targeted for 2026 and so far this year, the cows have eaten 495kg of meal, that’s a 30% reduction on last year’s figure of 710kg for the same date.
The year-to-date milk solids yield of the herd is exactly the same as it was last year at 289kg/cow, despite the reduced feeding level.
The second area of focus in relation to costs is a longer-term approach that the entire O’Gorman business has taken, and that’s avoiding poor decisions on investments by the business.
Easy to say but harder to do, the O’Gorman’s try to focus their free cash on appreciating assets. Assets that offer returns on investment like land, better genetics and reseeding as opposed to those depreciating assets like tractors and other forms of machinery.
That depreciation is a big cost to a farm and something they steer clear of, which pays off in a year of low milk-price.
Ollie and Anna O’Gorman
After lunch, attendees made their way across the road to hear the second half of the story.
Ollie and Anna O’Gorman are currently milking 325 cows on the home farm.
The way luck had it, after the original split in 2009, any land that came up around the two farms came up on Ollie’s side.
He managed to lease an additional 100 acres into the home platform giving a total milking platform area of 120ha, with a stocking rate of 2.7 cows/ha.
As well as growing the home farm, Ollie is also involved in several other units. Since 2015, Ollie’s brothers David and Patrick have gotten involved in the business and between them, they are now milking 980 cows across a total of five milking blocks.
Each brother runs their own individual unit, while the two additional units are managed between David and Ollie.
The O’Gormans have built their business around developing simple repeatable systems.
The system in operation on the home block is implemented across all five farms for ease of management and to allow for a crossover of staff between the farms.
In 2025, the cows on the home farm produced 465kg of milk solids at 5% fat and 3.96% protein.
The herd is crossbred with the cows very similar to Michael’s. The EBI is the exact same at €160, while the six-week calving rate of Ollie’s herd is slightly lower at 86%.
Despite having the same cow type and the exact same EBI, the solids produced on Ollie’s farm are close to 100kgs less than that of Michael’s.
There’s a couple of reasons for this, Ollie pointed out.
He is feeding less meal with 864kg/cow fed in 2025. However, with the lower stocking rate, cows are eating closer to 4t DM/cow of grass compared to 3.1t/cow on Michael’s farm so this is not the reason.
The primary reasoning for lower solids output is that to grow the business and have cows ready to go on other farms as they came up, Ollie kept any cows that went in-calf.
There was no voluntary culling done and therefore under-performing cows and late calvers that were kept over the years are dragging down the average of the herd.
As all five farms are now at capacity, poor performers, later-calving cows, lame cows and high SCC cows can be culled which will help to improve the average.
“We’re about two years away from having the herds where we want them. We have plenty of replacements this year which will help to move things along,” Ollie said.
Multiple units
The challenge of growing the business is something that Ollie, Patrick and David have enjoyed.
It’s taken time and a lot of effort to get it to where it is today but it’s something the lads say they have embraced.
People management is one of the areas of managing a business at scale that takes the most time according to Ollie.
Their team is a mix of Irish and international staff and with this comes some communication challenges.
A simple system and clear messaging are a big part of navigating those issues.
“All of the lads know what a good grazing residual is and they know what a pre-grazing cover should be.
“If cows are roaring or they’re not content, that means something needs to be done. That’s just an example of something simple that they all learn” Ollie said.
The O’Gormans give their staff plenty of responsibility whether it’s making grazing decisions or managing their own units, in what’s a ‘sink or swim’ approach.
The brothers feel this helps new staff to develop skills quickly and think on their feet.
1965
Ollie’s father Paddy and Michael’s father John inherit the home farm and form a partnership.
1989
Over 24 years they purchase 230 acres – 200 cows on 300 acres.
2007
Ollie returns to farm with his father and uncle.
2008
Michael returns home and Paddy and John’s partnership is dissolved.
2009
Michael and Ollie start on their own units with 96 cows and 150 acres each.
2026
Michael running 200 cows across 111ha’s. Ollie involved in running five units with his brothers David and Patrick, milking 980 cows.