Pat and John Hickey are dairy farmers with farms in Kilkenny, Westmeath and Roscommon. John is on the home farm in Kilkenny while Pat and his wife Elaine run the Westmeath one, with farm manager Brendan Elliott running the Roscommon unit.

There are 280 cows on the Westmeath farm and about 360 on the Roscommon unit. A new 30 unit DeLaval herringbone parlour was built on the Westmeath farm in 2008. This parlour is basic with no frills except for Duovac, which reduces the vacuum pressure on the teats when milk flow drops.

But when it came to building a parlour on the Roscommon farm, the Hickeys opted for a rotary. “We laid out the farm to carry 350 to 400 cows and planned our facilities accordingly. Our initial thought was a 36-unit herringbone with automatic cluster removers (ACRs) and we were pricing companies on that basis. Bertie Troy of Grasstec and an agent for Milfos came to price and after viewing the property asked had we considered a rotary. We laughed saying “no, definitely outside our budget” but he got us thinking and when we considered the benefits we realised that he was right.” Pat says.

In the end, a 40- unit DeLaval rotary was built on the Roscommon farm complete with a circular yard, ACR’s and the automatic wash unit from the herringbone in Westmeath which Pat didn’t like operating. Automatic retention was installed last spring, which Pat says is a necessity.

So what’s the difference between the two?

Patrick Hickey's cows in the circular collecting yard with the backing gate in operation on his land at Mullymux, Roscommon where he runs a dairy farm.

“Throughput for the rotary parlour in Fortview [Roscommon] would vary from 240/h at peak to 300/h in the autumn. Ardnacranny [Westmeath] is fairly steady at 130-150cows/h with one person, this would increase to 180/h with the addition of a second person. But after doing a milking in each, there is no doubt even though there are more cows going through the rotary, that it is much easier on the operator. We have fitted the retention in Fortview and without doubt, an automatic backing gate is a must in Ardnacranny,” Pat explains.

In terms of investment cost, the rotary plant cost about €2,000 a unit more than the herringbone but the construction costs were more or less the same.

Pat will be presenting this information and more at the International Agricultural Workforce conference being held in Cork on Tuesday 10 July. He will be joined by speakers from France, New Zealand and Australia along with Irish speakers who will be giving their take on how to set up farms and attract and retain key people on dairy farms.