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Four years ago, Seamus Flynn gave up a full-time job to take over the family farm outside Kilworth, Co Cork. When he took over the farm with his wife Karen, his father Lar was milking 60 cows and also had a calf-to-store system in operation.
Seamus’s main focus when taking over the farm was to make management as straightforward as possible. The old infrastructure functioned fine but there was a considerable labour input requirement. This swallowed up a significant amount of time during the day.
The winter accommodation consisted of old-fashioned cubicle sheds that had to be scraped out daily with a tractor to an outdoor slurry store. The dairy parlour built in the 1980s was old fashioned and small with just six units and the collecting yard also had to be scraped daily with a tractor.
“I didn’t want to be a slave to the farm so I knew investment was needed to make management more streamlined,” explained Seamus.
He decided to build a brand new cubicle shed, dairy parlour and handling area which he felt would be a huge management boost and free up time for other things during the day. Seamus works for Alan McGrath contracting during the summer and the improved facilities have made this easier to do this.
The shed is laid out in three main sections. The majority of the area is taken up with the 94 cubicle spaces and a slatted area. There is a handling area situated in the centre of the shed and this also can be used as calving pens in the spring time. The milking parlour is at the lefthand side of the building with the dairy adjoining.
Seamus wanted to keep everything under the one roof and maximise the payback on his investment. By situating the parlour in the shed, Seamus says that he can get far better utilisation from his slatted tank.
During the summer, cows walk through the slatted area in front of the shed on their way to the parlour. This effectively acts as a collecting yard. When cows are housed during the winter the same tank is used to collect any slurry produced.
“If I was to build the parlour somewhere else, I would have to go to the cost of building another tank and there would be months when it wouldn’t be used,” Seamus said.
Walsh Engineering did all the building work including concrete and shed erection. The fibre cement roof sheeting was supplied by Cembrit, a European company which has recently set up a base in Ireland.
The 38.4m-long slurry tank is 2.74m (9ft) deep and the slats are 4.4m long. A series of gates is used to prevent cows walking into the cubicle passages and each pillar along the slatted area has fittings to hang a gate off. In the winter, this is the main feeding area for cows. Automated scrapers in the cubicle passages transport slurry to the slatted area.
There are 14 units in total in the parlour. It is a massive change from the old parlour where there were only six units available.
“In April when all cows are milking and being drafted for AI it takes just one hour in the morning to do everything and 40 minutes in the evening. With the old system I would be two hours milking,” Seamus explained.
Extras included to speed up milking consist of automatic cluster removers, swing-over arms and an auto-wash system.
There is a 7,600l capacity bulk tank with a swift-flow cooling system. The bulk feed bin was supplied by Spiro Feed Ltd and has capacity for 8.5t of meal.
When cows are milked they can exit via the passages in the cubicle section of the shed. Currently, Seamus has to manually draft any cow in heat to the crush for AI.
He would love to have an auto-drafting system in place to simplify things further but for now he says he can manage drafting himself.
The handling area is also designed for maximum usage throughout the year. The crush is used for both the annual TB test and AI services.
The pens to the side of the crush are used for holding drafted cows but they are also used as calving pens in the springtime.
One of the dividing gates is actually a calving gate which is always useful to have when a cow needs assistance.
Cost
Seamus’s agricultural consultant, Anthony Agri, successfully applied for TAMS II grant aid on his behalf towards the cost of the milking machine and associated plant as well as the automated scraper system.
The total cost of those investments came to just under €80,000. Seamus qualified for the Young Farmers Capital Investment Scheme so he will be entitled to a grant of 60% towards this investment. He didn’t apply for grant aid towards the building of the shed itself because he had reached the TAMS II investment ceiling already. The costings for the milking machine and associated plant excluding VAT:
14-unit parlour: €36,600.
14-unit pneumatic batch feeder, augers and troughs: €12,400.
7,600-litre swift cool milk tank inc auto washer: €21,000.
Three-passage automatic scraper system: €8,696.
Total: €78,696.
The building work including concrete, slats, shed erection and penning came to €158/m2 excluding VAT.
Combined units are not for everyone, but for this sized herd where all facilities needed upgrading it made a lot of sense. Seamus was taking the long-term view that it would be a job for life and felt the large investment was justified. It is a compact building that will be used throughout the year which gives more bang for buck.
The cow flow into the parlour may be compromised somewhat with the design and farmers planning something similar should take this into consideration.
Cows enter a parlour quicker in straight lines without turns. This unfortunately was not possible in Seamus’s design because he needed to make use of the internal slurry tank. This would be a bigger issue if the milking herd was larger, because any small delays in cow flow can have a significant impact on overall milking times. That said Seamus is very happy with the whole development and feels cow flow is reasonably good. Milking takes half the time compared to the old system which is a huge improvement.
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