When Michael Fagan decided he was going to get into dairying, people thought he was mad. It was 2014, he was in his mid-50s with an off-farm job while farming cattle and sheep on 100 acres overlooking Lough Ree in Glasson, Co Westmeath.

His plan was to continue working off farm and install a robot to milk the cows. He started with 45 first-lactation cows in 2014. The sheep shed was converted to house the robot and a dairy and small office were built to the side. Over the following summer, the slatted shed at the back of the sheep shed was extended and converted to cubicles.

Michael Fagan with his Grazeway gates.

Michael is currently milking 85 cows, which is at the upper end of the Lely A4’s capacity, but plans are in place to install a second robot at the end of the year. The aim is to increase cow numbers further by getting heifers and youngstock off the farm.

Total meal fed last year was 800kg/cow, up from 650kg the year before. The EBI of the cows is €127 and they produced 480kg of milk solids in 2017. Because there are more cows on the robot than normal, milking frequency averages about 1.8 milkings/day over the year. The farm was originally operated as an AB grazing system but ABC grazing was initiated last year, which Michael has found to be beneficial.

“Grazing three paddocks per day has helped the slower moving cows a lot because they get access to more grass whereas before the field would be half-grazed before they get to it.

‘‘Other than going into three paddocks per day, it’s run the same as any other dairy farm except the robot does the milking,” Michael says.

It usually takes about an hour a day to run the farm during the summer and autumn. Michael’s son Kevin is studying dairy business in UCD and is around during the summer and weekends to help at the big jobs.

Obviously, the springtime is busier with calving, feeding calves and training heifers. The empty rate last year was 12% after 12 weeks of breeding. The robot does all the heat detection and AI is used. Last year, Michael culled hard and 19 heifers joined the herd.

Challenges

The biggest challenge Michael encountered was getting used to the technology at the start, but after the first few months he had it mastered. He is on a fixed-service contract with Lely Mullingar, which costs him €190/month and, for this, he gets three services a year and unlimited help over the phone but call-outs are charged as per normal service rates. Michael says he rarely needs to get them out for something he can’t solve himself or over the phone.

The other challenge is grazing high covers at the shoulders. “In a conventional system, you can lock the cows into the paddock and walk away and when you come back, it’s grazed. But in a robot the cows can walk in and out and if you’re feeding silage in the shed they’d prefer to eat that than graze out properly,” Michael says.

He’s happy with his decision to get into cows and to buy the robot. Coming from a dairy farming background, he prefers dealing with cows than sheep or cattle. The 2017 profit monitor shows that total costs are 22.2c/l, so the farm is making a decent profit, particularly on a per-hour worked basis. Like with any new enterprise, the first year was challenging, but by focusing on things that deliver a profit; cows and grass, the farm is generating a good income now.

Michael says that if it wasn’t for the robot he wouldn’t have got into cows. While the costs of the first robot at about €140,000 are higher than a conventional parlour, savings are made in concrete, sheds and a much smaller water system. Of course, one of the biggest drawbacks is that upscaling the robot costs money. The second robot is likely to cost in the region of €80,000, whereas extra units can be added to an existing parlour at much lower cost.