The farm is a family-run business with no outside staff; Sean farms along with his wife, Margaret, his father, Pat, and his son, Kevin.

There are 240 cows in the Lisnamuck Holstein herd in a total confinement system. There are approximately 350 acres on the farm with about 40 to 50 acres in wholecrop each year.

Four years ago, there were about 140 cows on the farm. The rapid expansion has meant an increase in land farmed. Heavy land around the farmyard and a dispersed farm layout reduced Sean’s ability to graze cows at grass, so he purchased a ZG75 zero grazer with a 36m2 capacity.

Sean installed a robotic parlour in February 2014. He milks 90 high-yielding cows through it currently, while the rest of the cows are milked through an existing 14-point swingover parlour.

High yielders

Sean said: “The main reason to install the robot was to get freshly calved cows milked three times a day. I would not have had time to do this in the existing parlour. Currently, the high yielders are milking 3.2 times per day, on average. It has reduced parlour time by about three hours each day.”

The robotic parlour is a double box SAC Future Line MAX and was supplied by Pearson. Cows are pre-dipped, blow-dried and pre-milked into a preparation liner. This milk is then discarded. Cups are attached and cows are sprayed afterwards. Both parlours have in-parlour feeders with cows fed to yield.

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