The first crop of students in Ireland’s newest dairy course are in the thick of the calving action – three weeks into their on-farm work experience.
Agricultural Science at University College Cork enrolled its first students in autumn 2019 and this group are in third year and out on placement for the first time.
All 25 students are placed on top dairy farms across Munster for 18 weeks before commencing a three month work experience in the dairy industry.
Students Hannah Dinan from Clare and Liam Wall from Cork are recipients of the Dairygold Co-Op bursary award, with their course fees paid for the four years – worth over €12,000 and they get to do their industry placement at Dairygold.
Hannah Dinan on her work experience at Jimmy Cotter's farm in Coachford.
Hannah is doing her placement with Jimmy Cotter from Coachford in Cork. When the Irish Farmers Journal visited Hannah on Monday last, 38 of the 120 cows had calved and the milkers were out grazing.
The percentage of the farm grazed was low as calving started on 1 February and only ramped up in the last week.
For the first four days after calving, cows are kept indoors in a straw-bedded shed and when their milk is ready for the bulk tank they join the rest of the milkers and go to grass.
Hannah said calving has been going well, with no major issues to report. Milk fever is generally not an issue – one cow has got it so far. The fact the freshly calved cows are on a straw bed is a big help in the event that a cow does go down as there is no risk of injury compared to a cow on a concrete floor in a cubicle shed.
Straw
Cows are fed 2kg of straw mixed with silage pre-calving. This helps to prevent the dry cows from gaining too much body condition.
Calves are fed once a day at Ballyhooly when they are three weeks of age.
The straw is mixed with the silage through a diet feeder and a high-specification dry cow mineral is added while it’s being mixed. Another advantage of the straw is that it helps to reduce the amount of grass silage being fed while keeping cows full.
Hannah said farm owner Jimmy Cotter has three objectives when it comes to managing grass in spring. Number one is to get cows out to grass if at all possible. Number two is to avoid damage at all costs and number three is to achieve the target of 35% of the farm grazed in February.
The Cotter farm at Leades is dry and free-draining, which is a big advantage when it comes to getting cows out.
This cow is the dam of the bull Leades Endurance which is available this season and bred by Jimmy Cotter.
Cows are getting larger allocations which minimises damage to the soil but the downside is that post-grazing residuals, or clean-outs are on the high side. However, Jimmy says he’s not overly worried about clean-outs at this time of year as the objective is to get cows out to grass. For the last few nights cows have been coming in at 9pm where they get access to silage and are then turned out again after morning milking.
Milking
The herd is still being milked once a day but the plan is to go to milk twice-a-day milking at the weekend. All calves are fed whole milk for four days after calving.
The bull calves stay on whole milk until they are sold while the heifer calves are moved to the heifer shed after four days and are trained to the automatic feeder. Cows were vaccinated for rotavirus in January for the first time so the calves are staying on whole milk for longer than normal this spring.
At this stage, 55% of the heifers have calved, which is a slightly lower percentage than normal. Last breeding season was the first time sexed semen was used on the heifers and conception rate was a bit lower than normal as there would normally be 60% to 70% of the heifers calved by now. Hannah said the mainly Jersey crossbred herd normally sells around 570kg MS/cow from 700kg of meal per cow.
Over the last few years the breeding programme has been more towards high-EBI Holstein Friesian bulls but Jimmy says he’s going to revert to using sexed semen Jersey bulls to breed replacements as some of this years’ first-calving heifers are just too big.
Liam Wall with the cows coming in for milking at Ballyhooly.
Liam Wall is doing his 18-week placement on a large farm near Ballyhooly in Cork, about an hour away from his home parish of Kilmurry, west of Cork city.
Calving started here on 19 January, with the first heifers calving down and to-date there is just over 50% of the herd calved, with about 83% of the herd due to calve by the end of February.
Liam is working as part of a team of five, headed up by the farm manager Daniel Ronan. Fifteen per cent of the farm has been grazed to date and with so many of the herd calved, it’s likely that the farm will hit or exceed the target of 30% grazed in February. Cows are out night and day once it’s not raining and they get access to silage at milking times and if they’re brought in at night.
Liam’s main role is milking, calf rearing and grassland management. Cows are on 12-hour breaks. They are getting allocated 5kg of grass at each milking and fed 3kg of meal in the parlour. The average farm cover is 1,064kg/ha so there is a lot of grass on the farm. Spur roads are used where necessary to get cows to the back of paddocks.
Spur road used to give cows access to part of the field.
These are about 2.5m wide, meaning two cows can walk side by side. Liam showed me some of the spur roads used earlier in the year and, while dirty looking at the time, they are already recovering.
Bull calves
No bull calves have been sold yet but Daniel hopes to start selling some this week. Sexed semen was used on heifers and conventional semen was used on cows suitable for keeping replacements for the first four weeks of breeding. Cows that they don’t want a replacement from get beef AI and all cows get beef AI between weeks four and eight, with stock bulls used for the last four weeks of breeding. The beef AI bulls are a mix of Hereford and Aubrac.
Slightly over half of the farm has been spread with slurry at 2,500 gallons/acre while the remainder has received 23 units/acre of urea. Liam says that the plan is to blanket spread all area that doesn’t get slurry with 23 units/acre of urea on 20 March followed by another blanket spread of the whole farm in the first week of April with 30 to 35 units/acre of urea.
Ag science at UCC
The new agricultural science course at UCC is specifically aimed at those interested in pursuing a career in dairy – either as a farmer/farm manager or working in leading roles in the dairy or wider agri-industry..
Leaving Certificate points for the four year, Level 8 degree are high at 506 in 2021. Places have been limited to 25 per year but the plan is to increase this in 2022 which should lower the points requirement.
The course is a collaboration between UCC and Teagasc, with students attending Teagasc centres at Clonakilty and Moorepark a few days per week in first and second year with the rest of the time in UCC learning science and business modules.
They spend almost all of fourth year at Moorepark, with lectures from dairy research officers. The course is headed up by Prof Frank Buckley, formerly of Teagasc.
This course brings to four the number of specialised dairy courses available to students in Ireland: The Level 6 Advanced Certificate in Dairy Herd Management is available at most agricultural colleges. The Level 7 Professional Diploma in Dairy Herd Management is run in conjunction with University College Dublin (UCD).
UCD also operates the Level 8 Dairy Business course, entry to this course is at second year of ag science at UCD.
The first crop of students in Ireland’s newest dairy course are in the thick of the calving action – three weeks into their on-farm work experience.
Agricultural Science at University College Cork enrolled its first students in autumn 2019 and this group are in third year and out on placement for the first time.
All 25 students are placed on top dairy farms across Munster for 18 weeks before commencing a three month work experience in the dairy industry.
Students Hannah Dinan from Clare and Liam Wall from Cork are recipients of the Dairygold Co-Op bursary award, with their course fees paid for the four years – worth over €12,000 and they get to do their industry placement at Dairygold.
Hannah Dinan on her work experience at Jimmy Cotter's farm in Coachford.
Hannah is doing her placement with Jimmy Cotter from Coachford in Cork. When the Irish Farmers Journal visited Hannah on Monday last, 38 of the 120 cows had calved and the milkers were out grazing.
The percentage of the farm grazed was low as calving started on 1 February and only ramped up in the last week.
For the first four days after calving, cows are kept indoors in a straw-bedded shed and when their milk is ready for the bulk tank they join the rest of the milkers and go to grass.
Hannah said calving has been going well, with no major issues to report. Milk fever is generally not an issue – one cow has got it so far. The fact the freshly calved cows are on a straw bed is a big help in the event that a cow does go down as there is no risk of injury compared to a cow on a concrete floor in a cubicle shed.
Straw
Cows are fed 2kg of straw mixed with silage pre-calving. This helps to prevent the dry cows from gaining too much body condition.
Calves are fed once a day at Ballyhooly when they are three weeks of age.
The straw is mixed with the silage through a diet feeder and a high-specification dry cow mineral is added while it’s being mixed. Another advantage of the straw is that it helps to reduce the amount of grass silage being fed while keeping cows full.
Hannah said farm owner Jimmy Cotter has three objectives when it comes to managing grass in spring. Number one is to get cows out to grass if at all possible. Number two is to avoid damage at all costs and number three is to achieve the target of 35% of the farm grazed in February.
The Cotter farm at Leades is dry and free-draining, which is a big advantage when it comes to getting cows out.
This cow is the dam of the bull Leades Endurance which is available this season and bred by Jimmy Cotter.
Cows are getting larger allocations which minimises damage to the soil but the downside is that post-grazing residuals, or clean-outs are on the high side. However, Jimmy says he’s not overly worried about clean-outs at this time of year as the objective is to get cows out to grass. For the last few nights cows have been coming in at 9pm where they get access to silage and are then turned out again after morning milking.
Milking
The herd is still being milked once a day but the plan is to go to milk twice-a-day milking at the weekend. All calves are fed whole milk for four days after calving.
The bull calves stay on whole milk until they are sold while the heifer calves are moved to the heifer shed after four days and are trained to the automatic feeder. Cows were vaccinated for rotavirus in January for the first time so the calves are staying on whole milk for longer than normal this spring.
At this stage, 55% of the heifers have calved, which is a slightly lower percentage than normal. Last breeding season was the first time sexed semen was used on the heifers and conception rate was a bit lower than normal as there would normally be 60% to 70% of the heifers calved by now. Hannah said the mainly Jersey crossbred herd normally sells around 570kg MS/cow from 700kg of meal per cow.
Over the last few years the breeding programme has been more towards high-EBI Holstein Friesian bulls but Jimmy says he’s going to revert to using sexed semen Jersey bulls to breed replacements as some of this years’ first-calving heifers are just too big.
Liam Wall with the cows coming in for milking at Ballyhooly.
Liam Wall is doing his 18-week placement on a large farm near Ballyhooly in Cork, about an hour away from his home parish of Kilmurry, west of Cork city.
Calving started here on 19 January, with the first heifers calving down and to-date there is just over 50% of the herd calved, with about 83% of the herd due to calve by the end of February.
Liam is working as part of a team of five, headed up by the farm manager Daniel Ronan. Fifteen per cent of the farm has been grazed to date and with so many of the herd calved, it’s likely that the farm will hit or exceed the target of 30% grazed in February. Cows are out night and day once it’s not raining and they get access to silage at milking times and if they’re brought in at night.
Liam’s main role is milking, calf rearing and grassland management. Cows are on 12-hour breaks. They are getting allocated 5kg of grass at each milking and fed 3kg of meal in the parlour. The average farm cover is 1,064kg/ha so there is a lot of grass on the farm. Spur roads are used where necessary to get cows to the back of paddocks.
Spur road used to give cows access to part of the field.
These are about 2.5m wide, meaning two cows can walk side by side. Liam showed me some of the spur roads used earlier in the year and, while dirty looking at the time, they are already recovering.
Bull calves
No bull calves have been sold yet but Daniel hopes to start selling some this week. Sexed semen was used on heifers and conventional semen was used on cows suitable for keeping replacements for the first four weeks of breeding. Cows that they don’t want a replacement from get beef AI and all cows get beef AI between weeks four and eight, with stock bulls used for the last four weeks of breeding. The beef AI bulls are a mix of Hereford and Aubrac.
Slightly over half of the farm has been spread with slurry at 2,500 gallons/acre while the remainder has received 23 units/acre of urea. Liam says that the plan is to blanket spread all area that doesn’t get slurry with 23 units/acre of urea on 20 March followed by another blanket spread of the whole farm in the first week of April with 30 to 35 units/acre of urea.
Ag science at UCC
The new agricultural science course at UCC is specifically aimed at those interested in pursuing a career in dairy – either as a farmer/farm manager or working in leading roles in the dairy or wider agri-industry..
Leaving Certificate points for the four year, Level 8 degree are high at 506 in 2021. Places have been limited to 25 per year but the plan is to increase this in 2022 which should lower the points requirement.
The course is a collaboration between UCC and Teagasc, with students attending Teagasc centres at Clonakilty and Moorepark a few days per week in first and second year with the rest of the time in UCC learning science and business modules.
They spend almost all of fourth year at Moorepark, with lectures from dairy research officers. The course is headed up by Prof Frank Buckley, formerly of Teagasc.
This course brings to four the number of specialised dairy courses available to students in Ireland: The Level 6 Advanced Certificate in Dairy Herd Management is available at most agricultural colleges. The Level 7 Professional Diploma in Dairy Herd Management is run in conjunction with University College Dublin (UCD).
UCD also operates the Level 8 Dairy Business course, entry to this course is at second year of ag science at UCD.
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