I didn’t grow up on a farm but I always loved farming. After completing my electrical apprenticeship, I returned to college in 2010 to do the higher certificate in agriculture in CIT and Clonakilty. In 2012, as part my second-year work placement, I chose to go to New Zealand for three months and I never came back. Starting at assistant level on a 1,400-cow farm in mid-Canterbury I worked my way up to managing and then spent three seasons contract-milking. That is a form of share-milking but instead of a percentage of the milk cheque you get a fixed payment per kg of milk solids produced. I’ve also spent a season managing a 350-cow low-input farm in Cornwall, UK, in between.

The farm here in Manaia Taranaki is a flat coastal holding that runs 750 Friesian cows on 220ha. It’s not the typical New Zealand system. Here, we run 550 spring-calving cows and 200 in autumn. It’s quite intensive.

Cows are milked through a 60-bail rotary one-person shed with cows split in two herds. There’s a diet feeder in use 365 days a year feeding up to half the diet on a feed pad depending on grass growth. Feeds include tapioca, kibble maize, dried distiller’s grains, palm kernel, maize silage, grass silage and molasses. All young stock are off the farm at 100kg or once weaned. The farm target is over 400,000kg of milk solids at 550 per cow or 1,875kg/ha.

Cows are milked through a 60-bail rotary one-person shed with cows split in two herds.

There has been excellent winter and early spring growth. It’s very mild and grass is taking off about two weeks earlier than normal. This is a huge turnaround from last season when it stayed wet and cold until October and then there was no rain until April. It is similar to the Irish season this year. Summer is dry usually, with very little rainfall from late December to April.

I’m only working part a season this year as I am coming home. Ideally, I’d love to develop a partnership or share-milking scenario with the goal of eventually owning a herd of cows

So far, it has been a cracker of a spring. Calving has gone really well. We have an early calving start date of 10 July with 50 left to calve now. There are four full-time staff on the farm and the day starts with cups on at 4.30am. There are still 90 calves in the shed. They are fed twice a day. These are the last of the replacement heifers, a few Friesian bulls and 50 Hereford crosses from the late calvers.

There are 130 replacement heifers and 100 Friesian bull calves outside on six litres OAD and meal.

These are fed by the end of milking, with everyone coming together to collect the fresh calves and draft out the calved cows before breakfast at 9am. Time between milkings consists of feeding out on the feed pad and setting up break fences and any other odd jobs. Milking starts again at 2pm. Colostrum and penicillin cows are milked OAD at the end of afternoon milking and usually everyone is home before 5.30pm.

Mating

This week, the entire herd will be tail-painted to watch for pre-mating heats. Mating begins on 5 October.

I’m only working part a season this year as I am coming home. Ideally, I’d love to develop a partnership or share-milking scenario with the goal of eventually owning a herd of cows. That’s always been a dream of mine. I’m keen on simple, repeatable, cost-effective farming systems.

I also want to be an example for other young Irish people who may not have grown up on a farm but are interested in farming.

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