Teagasc advisor Neily O’Sullivan looks at how a farm near Macroom has made labour savings and improved infrastructure.
JEREMIAH, Geraldine, Steven Lucey (and baby Jer) are farming just outside of Macoom in the townland of Knockeenacutting.
They are operating a 70 dairy cow herd and also keep a beef enterprise where they rear all their own calves born on the farm.
They are farming a total of 63 hectares, approximately half of this is owned and half is rented long term.
Aside from dairy replacements all other young animals – namely Friesian bullocks and Angus heifers – are reared on the outside blocks.
These animals are usually sold at 18 months or just before their second winter, depending on market conditions.
These outside blocks are also used for a two cut silage system.
The Lucey’s are Dairygold suppliers and last year they sold 452kgs of milk solids per cow at 4.41% butterfat and 3.64% protein.
Breeding policy on the farm is to use high EBI Friesian AI for six weeks, then let out beef stock bulls.
This practice suits their system and they feel it’s working well for them.
Steven was working off-farm for a number of years but decided to come home to work full-time alongside Jeremiah three years ago.
On the basis of this, they set up a Succession Farm Partnership to facilitate the transfer of the farm to the next generation.
Jeremiah and Steven also started to look at ways to make labour savings on their farm and improve infrastructure.
The Luceys made plans to improve farm buildings and in August 2022 they started the upgrade to their milking parlour.
The existing 8 unit parlour that was in situ has been replaced by a 14 unit parlour which was finished and is up and running since January 2023.
The new parlour has up-to-date specifications to improve milking and time spent in the parlour which include automatic washing, cluster removers, cluster flush, air gates and automatic meal feeders.
‘We are extremely happy with how it turned out, milking time has greatly reduced and overall has improved labour immensely,’ said Steven.
Jeremiah and Steven also installed solar panels on the roof of the new building.
While it is too early to say how much they are saving in electricity costs, the initial results are very positive and they hope the investment will pay for itself in five years.
Keeping an eye to the future, the next project on the list was to install a calf feeder to further improve labour efficiency on the farm.
As the family keep all the calves on the farm they felt this investment was vital as calves up to this point took a lot of time and they were looking to further reduce the workload and make the job of calf feeding easier for them.
A JFC calf feeder was installed in January 2024 and to date the family are extremely happy with it.
‘It has made a huge change to how we rear calves,’ said Jeremiah. ‘It has made feeding much easier and greatly reduced the spring workload.’
While the Luceys have no plans to increase cow numbers, long-term Jeremiah and Steven will look to improve the breeding of the herd to breed cows with higher fertility, fat and protein with a target to produce 500kg of milk solids per cow.
They plan to do this by focusing on EBI, improving the six-week calving rate and focus on good grassland management to increase genetic gain and breed a robust sustainable cow for their system.
Increasing grass utilised is the biggest factor influencing net profit on dairy farms whilst also reducing farm emissions.
Neily O’Sullivan is a business and technology dairy advisor based in Macroom.
