After a few years of construction on building sites in London, Michael and Maguerite Crowley took over the west Cork family farm in 1994. Back then, it was a 24ha plot of land on top of a mountain, near Skibbereen, milking 30 cows to fill 131,834 litres of milk quota.

The name of the game was year-round calving, big yields and plenty of purchased feed.

The absolute perfect cow is the half and half

However, it wasn’t long before compact calving and managing grass became the hallmark of the Crowley dairy enterprise.

Michael and Marguerite have a passion for cows and grass. They started crossing their Holstein Friesian cows with Jersey sires about nine years ago – now, all cows have some Jersey genetics.

Michael said: “The absolute perfect cow is the half and half. Crossbreeding for us all started from a trip to New Zealand in 2007 – 10 years ago. At the time, we were feeding 6kg of meal in early lactation and getting big volumes but not enough solids. They had much smaller cows, fed on grass only, and were getting better milk solids than us.”

The six-unit parlour in 2007 has been upgraded to a 16-unit one. The extra units mean there is time to get out of the yard. With a young family keen on local GAA, the cows are usually started at 4pm, and washed up and out the gate by 6.30pm.

The Crowleys are big fans of the CMT paddle and it is used religiously. Gloves are used all the time – as Michael said long gone is the thinking ‘‘big men don’t wear gloves’’.

More often than not, there are two in the parlour. Last spring, they calved 162, about 70 heifers in total, with surplus stock sold in February and March. This was super commercial performance from a real family business.

Detergent for the bulk tank stored in a disused milk jar.

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