Dairy Management: If you had a choice, what parlour would you build? Maybe a 60-point rotary or maybe a 16-unit with cluster removers? For many, much will depend on what your business objective is, what resources are available (money, land, etc) and labour availability.

There are farms all over Ireland that have made different decisions based on their own circumstances and will make different decisions in the future. In our recent study of milking parlours (as reported in the Irish Dairy Farmer magazine), we review the performance of five parlours and one of our main conclusions is that entry and exit from the milking parlour is almost as important as the parlour itself. Dairy farmers often get sidetracked on discussions about the number of units and technology to increase the efficiency within the parlour. Size or the number of units is seen as the critical component of efficiency but the reality is different for many. Instead of efficiency, many farmers need to look at getting a proper collecting yard with a good backing gate.

Milk quality: I attended the Cellcheck milk quality awards on Tuesday night that rewarded the top 500 farmers on somatic cell count (SCC). As discussed on the night, SCC is one aspect of milk quality but total bacterial count, thermodurics, fat, protein, lactose, etc, are also important and make up the milk quality package that delivers 2c to 3c/litre premium to farmers. In times of low prices, this is the difference between making a margin or not.

On the night, Dairygold boss Jim Woulfe highlighted that chlorates in milk was becoming an issue that needs to be addressed. Effectively, this is related to the detection of chlorine in milk products similar to the trichloromethane (TCM) issue of the past. The problem for many farmers who are using public water supply is the level of chlorine in water is so high that it follows into the products when the milking equipment is washed with this water.

Crossbreeding: On pages 34 and 35, we ask what is happening in terms of advice to dairy farmers on breeds other than Holstein Friesian. The reality is Holstein Friesian sires have dominated and continue to dominate the sire listings as they get a genomic boost and, of course, the benefits of our breeding programme. The Jersey breed is an alternative that some farmers are using and sires of this breed effectively don’t get a look in. Independent research is showing Jersey crossbred herds are more profitable – €200 per cow extra profit, per lactation. For some farmers, it will take 15 to 20 years to breed better milk and fertility performance into existing black and white herds using the best black and white sires available. Using the best Jersey sires available could make much more sense and put more profit in farmers’ pockets much quicker. ICBF needs to work with Teagasc to sort this data anomaly sooner rather than later.