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Jeremiah & Maria Daly

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Jeremiah and Maria are farming in Co. Kerry and have four children. The farm is located in Scartaglen. The milking block consists of 19.1 ha and there are 60 cows this year. The out block consists of 6 ha for silage and replacements. The farm sold 370 kg ms per cow last year, feeding 460 kg of concentrate per cow. Jeremiah works part time on the farm and has help from his wife Maria and family for spring and when on holidays.

Farmyard

The parlour which was built in 1992 has 6x2 units. The collecting yard can hold 60 cows. There are 75 cubicles in total and slurry storage for all cows and replacements. There is accommodation to calve 6 cows at any one time and we have calf space for all calves at peak. Milk is transported to calves by forklift and calves are fed with a batch feeder.

Grazing

There are 19 paddocks on the milking block. We have about 1.5 km of roadways which are being extended each year. Water troughs are located in the centre of some fields, with ¾ inch pipes and the farm is serviced quite well for water. There are 2 groups of stock on the milking block. Grass cover is measured weekly throughout the year and every five days at peak growth.

Machinery work

The contractor does 100% of slurry, All bales, reseeding, fertiliser in the springtime. The main tractor work Jeremiah does is slurry agitating and spreading fertiliser.

What does labour efficiency mean to Jeremiah?

“Continuously stepping back from what we are doing and looking to see if there is a simpler and easier way”

Weekly Updates 2020 

 July

Week Ending
Sunday
Milking AM
(cups on)
Milking PM
(cups on)
No. of milkings 
by farmer
Farmers hours 
per week
Employee/family 
hours/week
Contractor used 
this week
2nd Aug

6:30 

OAD 6 19 5 None
Comment

We got 45mm of rain Wednesday night. To overcome challenges like this we mix and match our ground to the weather conditions. We didn’t always have this approach. We used to be on a rotation and graze the same paddocks at the same time. I now realise that you need a plan and this plan works well and we have target covers of 1200-1400 on both dry and wet land so we mix and match when needed. This means we get better graze outs, re growths and milk solids hold up better as well. This way you are never exposed to a few days of wet weather. 

Jul 26th

6:30

OAD 5 18 10 Bales
Comment We had the contractor in last week to make bales on an out block. I am off farm a good bit these days. It’s a relaxed time here for us on the farm so this works well for myself to be gone more from the farm. We have pushed hard over the last few years to get the farm labour efficient and profitable. This has proven to us that you can have other interests outside farming. You don’t need radicle changes. For us the OAD milking, a simple system and applying simple practices to reduce time spent on tasks is serving us well.
Jul 19th 6:30 OAD 6 21 4 Spraying
Comment Workload is quiet which is good as I am busy enough with my off farm job. The farm is running well with grass supply and demand matching fairly well and this leaves easier management as there have been no big spikes in grass growth this year. Cows are milking well, breeding is over and meal feeding is at 0.7kg of soya hulls just to get cows into the parlour.
Jul 12th 6:30 OAD 6 20 4 Milk recording & Bales
Comment We got a milk recording done last week. There was a range in litres from 13 litres to 25 litres and we have a few cows giving 7% f and 5% p%. The average at the minute is 16.6 litres, 5.41 f% and 4.14 p%. The milk recording is exactly the same as the co-op.  We made 40 bales from the milking block last week. Grass quality is excellent. We are feeding 1kg concentrate while the weather is wet. The bulls were taken out from the cows and heifers last week.
Jul 5th  6:30  OAD  7 19  6 None 
Comment   It was a challenging week trying to get good graze outs. We are trying to move cows to lighter covers. Cows are milking well doing 17 litres, 5.25% f and 4.11 % p (1.6kg/ms/cow), feeding 1kg of soya hulls. I have decided the bull will be taken out from the cows and heifers on the 13th July. I have to stick to this date to make sure calving finishes mid April 2021. This is number one for labour efficiency so I have to be strict.

 

June

Week Ending
Sunday
Milking AM
(cups on)
Milking PM
(cups on)
No. of milkings 
by farmer
Farmers hours 
per week
Employee/family 
hours/week
Contractor used 
this week
Jun 28th 6:30 OAD 7 22 6 Slurry, Lime
Comment We had about 10% of the slurry left to get out which we got our contractor to spread last week. The heifers are grazing on a leader follower system.  We have 6 ha, divided into 6 paddocks. Calves graze each paddock for 3 days and then the heifers go in behind to clean out the paddock. As the demand is low on this block in Spring we got half of it cut for silage in May. This meant clean paddocks for calves in June and since then we have taken another paddock for silage. This works really well from a parasite control point of view. Healthy calves means less work for me.
Jun 21st 6:30 OAD 6 19 6 Bales
Comment I worked 19 hours on the farm last week. I did six of the milking’s which took 2 hrs each from bringing in the cows to washing up. That’s 12hrs gone. We had the contractor in to bale a paddock on the milking block. I spent 2 hrs mowing this paddock. I spent 1hr spreading fertiliser. I am doing two grass measurements per week and this took 2 hrs and I spent 1hr putting up reels. This work is what I call the essential work. In my opinion the best return for my hours is doing the two grass walks.
Jun 14th 6:30 OAD 5 24 10 Reseeding & spraying
Comment We fed 5 bales of silage last week to slow demand down. We got some rain at the weekend so we will hopefully be back on track. Cows are milking well on OAD at 18l, 5.03 f% and 4% protein.  We are still feeding 1kg concentrates. We got some small maintenance work done last week. We started with repairing a few doors in the sheds. I find it good to get these jobs done now and not have to be rushing and racing to get things fixed before the cows calve.
June 7th  6:30  OAD  21  Spraying weeds 
Comment   We had the contractor in last week spraying weeds. I wouldn’t dream of doing this job myself because of time, regulations, paper work and also I wouldn’t have the machinery like my contractor has. He uses exactly what’s required and never misses a spot. The farm is running on 29 hrs because we are just OAD milking,splitting paddocks and herding young stock.

 

May

Week Ending
Sunday
Milking AM
(cups on)
Milking PM
(cups on)
No. of milkings 
by farmer
Farmers hours 
per week
Employee/family 
hours/week
Contractor used 
this week
May 31st 6:30 OAD 5 20 13 Bales
Comment We had the contractor in to bale surplus grass on the milking block. There are very few repeats here at present. Erring on the side of caution I took out the teaser bull and put in the stock bull but still the repeats are low. Time will tell how the breeding season went. There wasn’t much more we could do so hopefully we will have a compact calving pattern next year.
May 24th 6:30 OAD 6 24 10 None
Comment This time of the year is really enjoyable. The pace of work is slow. We have an ideas whiteboard in the dairy. Any ideas, for extra work to be done go here. These days we are looking at this board and planning ahead. The herd hit 4% protein last week. Looking back on figures, it was august last year when the hit this protein %. I put it down to spending more time managing grass. For farm profitability this is a must to have this time available.
May 17th 6:30 OAD 5 18 22 Bales, manure
Comment All the farmyard manure was spread by the contractor in 2 hrs last week. Heifers are 2 miles away from the yard. I am using sexed semen on the heifers and AI TAD. We observe 3 times per day. We have a simple set up on the heifer block. The heifers are fed meal in a trough in the pen, then they can be easily drafted and I AI them myself. It takes 1.3 hrs. per day. It is well worth the time spent as these are the heifers that will be milking next year.
May 10th 6:30 OAD 5 18 20 None
Comment I have the contractors booked for spraying weeds, silage, reseeding and spreading farmyard manure. I do the AI OAD and tail paint is topped up every 2-3 day in the parlour. Cows are observed 4 times per day for 10-15minutes. There is a teaser bull with the heifers on an out block and this works very well. 78% of cows have been served in 13 days so we are on target to reaching 90% in 3 weeks.
May 3rd  6:30  OAD  18  20  Slurry  
Comment   Had the contractor in last week to pipe out slurry where the silage was taken off on the milking block. I find we use less fertiliser, have better regrowth’s and better utilisation with the piped slurry. Because we have children at home now paddocks are fertilising twice per week. We use the vid fertiliser dispenser as we wouldn’t have enough ground to spread the 1/2 tonne bags. It’s a great device, means you don’t waste any fertiliser.

 

April

Week Ending
Sunday
Milking AM
(cups on)
Milking PM
(cups on)
No. of milkings 
by farmer
Farmers hours 
per week
Employee/family 
hours/week
Contractor used 
this week
Apr 26th 6:30 OAD 6 22 20 Bales
Comment

20% of the milking block was baled last week. We had 98 bales, this is very unusual for us to be taking this amount of bales off the milking block. We sold the last of surplus beef calves last week. Still have a few surplus replacements on milk. The last cow calved 17th April. At the moment we are measuring every 5 days due to high growth rates and recording on pasturebase. The benefits are not just more money but now we have stopped topping and pre mowing. This was a complete waste of time and energy.

Apr 19th 6:30 OAD 5 20 16 None
Comment We are due our next milk recording soon. We have always got someone in to do this but we can’t do that at present. I am going to look into DIY recording. With the extra help around it’s an ideal time to do it. Milk recording is a necessity. When it comes to breeding I look at the previous milk recording and this helps decide on what cows to bred replacements from. Breeding from average cows leads to an average herd. This is no good for profit or labour efficiency.
Apr 12th 6:30 OAD 7 20 22 Yard work
Comment Grazing is going really well.  I will probably skip 20% of the 1st round. Cows are milking well on OAD at 5.5%f, 3.75%p, 19 litres, feeding 1kg meal for the last 3 weeks. We started tail painting last Thursday. This is an important job that will help to keep the calving pattern compact. The contractor was in last week making the bale storage area bigger. This will leave better access to different quality bales for feeding out in winter.
April 5th  6:30  OAD  22  24  Slurry 
Comment  We had the contractor in last week to spread slurry on the milking block. With the umbilical system we got slurry onto the steep ground, which never gets slurry. It’s another job done, at a good time of the year. The calves outside can come back into the shed if they want. Having them outside definitely reduces the workload with less bedding and cleaning sheds.


 

March

Week Ending
Sunday
Milking AM
(cups on)
Milking PM
(cups on)
No. of milkings 
by farmer
Farmers hours 
per week
Employee/family 
hours/week
Contractor used 
this week
Mar 29th 6:30 OAD 7 30 32 None
Comment The under pass is now being used. To be able to let the cows go straight out of the parlour and in the morning only to need one person to bring the cows in is a massive labour saver.  The 6 week calving rate is 85%. It simplifies everything when it’s all done together and you are more focused on the job. All stock are out except the stock bulls. This has reduced all yard work and how the big focus is on grass and some maintenance jobs.
Mar 22nd 6:30 OAD 7 30 25 Fertiliser
Comment Got the contractor to spread fertiliser last week with the quad to all the milking block. 35 units per acre on 20ha took him 2 hrs. If I had to do it myself there would have been damage done to the ground and it also would have taken the full day. It’s a huge labour saver for us. Cows are out day and night since Friday. That’s the first day we got out here; normally we would be out much earlier than this.This prolonged indoor period has definitely added to labour and less profit.
Mar 15th 6:30 OAD 7 38 38 Underpass
Comment Finally got the underpass put in. We have 70% of our land across a busy road. From a labour and safety point of view I do not regret for one minute this cost. I would advise anyone with land across a road to definitely get two quotes and not to be put off by the cost and paper work. This pass will be here for many years to come and it won’t reduce in value. Hopefully weather improves and we can get cows using it soon.
Mar 8th 6.30 OAD 7 29 38 None
Comment I got a bunch of calves sold last week. Less calves mean less work. It also gave the opportunity to easily clean sheds. I am doing my best to make sure my calves are saleable. I have been using the same BB AI bull for the last few years on the mature cows in the herd. I had no problem selling calves BB/Jex calves  last week. This bull is reliable and at 5.2% calving difficultly the jex cows have no problem calving.
Mar 1st 6:30 OAD 7 35 31 None
Comment The milk feeding policy is whole milk for 7 days to all calves and then they go on milk replacer. This works here and I find we have less scours. As we are OAD milking milk is stored for feeding calves in the evening. We don’t have a dump line. The milk for calves is collected in the pit, then cooled through the plate cooler and lifted with the fork lift to the calf shed. A milk heater is dropped into this container and heated to 25 degrees. There is a tap and hose on the container and its gravity fed into the milk feeders.

 

February

Week Ending
Sunday
Milking AM
(cups on)
Milking PM
(cups on)
No. of milkings 
by farmer
Farmers hours 
per week
Employee/family 
hours/week
Contractor used 
this week
February 23rd 6:30 OAD 7 30 49 None
Comment It’s been a busy week, 40% calved in the last 10 days. My two sons had the mid-term this week. We prioritised adding more gaps between every two posts along roadways.  This is beneficial not only in spring but in autumn and anytime there is bad weather. Also for the umbilical slurry spreading it makes life easier for the contractor.
February 16th 6:30 OAD 7 28 38 None
Comment Although the weather hasn’t been favourable we have set up a few paddocks with reels. Once weather improves cows can go straight out. I bought a mobile milker for €860 two years ago. Each cow is milked through this for the first milking. Each calf gets the dam's colostrum and when you are OAD milking it means the cows don't hear the machine turning on. I found in the past this caused cows to leak milk.
February 9th Just started calving OAD Just started calving 24 7 Slurry
Comment Calving started on Saturday. Once calved I put a red, blue and green coloured tape on each cows tail. The coloured tape relates to when the milk will be going into the tank. Each cows tag number and date of calving is on a white board in the parlour. By using the coloured tape and white board it means other milkers can easily milk the cows.
February 2nd Not started calving  OAD  Not started Calving 16.5  None 
Comment  Calving has not started. Silage is fed twice per week and pushed in every second day during the dry period. This works really well as there is surplus feed space in the cubicle shed. Because I work off the farm I need this option to reduce feeding times on certain days.