Dairy
Optimized Milking Intervals with Sean Kelly, Tipperary
Dairy farmer, Sean Kelly from Tipperary outlines his milking times for the farm. Sean finds the 16/8 milking interval optimises milk production and milk quality while allowing flexibility to take some time off the farm.
15 March 2024
Watch: John Hatton's Dairy Farming Approach
John Hatton, alongside his wife Kay and their son Mark, who is currently in Australia, have their own approach to dairy farming with a focus on efficiency, family, and lifestyle balance.
14 March 2024
Keeping Calves Healthy this Spring
Stephen O’Callaghan, Walsh Scholar, Teagasc Meath, discusses the critical aspects of calf rearing, emphasizing the importance of calf health for achieving growth targets and ensuring animals thrive.
14 March 2024
How Liam Brophy’s home farm converted from drystock to dairy
New entrant dairy farmer, Liam Brophy, joins Emma-Louise Coffey on the latest Dairy Edge podcast to discuss the conversion process of his family farm as well as successes and challenges along the way.
11 March 2024
Slurry Storage and handling - how best to invest
Patrick Gowing discusses the importance of maximizing slurry nutrient use through effective management strategies to sustain grass production and improve water quality, in response to rising fertilizer costs and stricter environmental regulations.
11 March 2024
Spring Grassland Management on DairyBeef 500 Farms
Grazed grass will continue to be the cheapest feed available to beef animals. Turning animals out early to spring grass will improve animal performance and reduce cost of production.
07 March 2024
The importance of genetics in dairy-beef systems to maximise performance & profitability
As a joint episode between The Dairy Edge and The Beef Edge podcasts, dairy farmer Paul Delaney and Teagasc beef specialist Catherine Egan join Emma-Louise Coffey to discuss the importance of genetics in dairy-beef systems to maximise performance and profitability.
04 March 2024
Fertiliser cuts, changes to excretion rates and crude protein feed levels in new Nitrates proposals
Following a meeting of the Agriculture Water Quality Group on February 29, a suite of measures have been proposed to improve water quality at farm level.
01 March 2024
Maintain milk fever prevention protocols in March
As the calving season progresses on dairy farms, the risk of milk fever and metabolic issues increases, writes Dr Joe Patton, Teagasc Head of Dairy Knowledge Transfer. This is because later-calving cows tend to be older and are at high risk of being too high in body condition due to longer days dry.
29 February 2024
Dairy market outlook for 2024
Coming off the back of the highs of 2022, the production year of 2023 has seen a sharp market correction in milk price.
26 February 2024
Prioritise colostrum management this calving season
Anne O’Malley discusses the importance of colostrum for newborn calves, its role in providing essential nutrients and antibodies to support the immune system, the importance of timely and adequate colostrum feeding and management practices on farm to ensure calves receive the benefits.
24 February 2024
Weekly Grass10 Update with Joseph Dunphy
On this week’s Grass10 grazing management update, Joseph Dunphy discusses PastureBase data, Dry Matter % and Predicted grass growth, rainfall & soil temperatures.
23 February 2024
Improvements to National Genotyping Programme to speed up blue card returns
Despite 98% of samples being processed in less than seven days, the ICBF has confirmed that it will make a number of changes to the National Genotyping Programme to help speed up the returning of animal passports (blue cards).
22 February 2024
Investigate birth deformities in calves or lambs - DAFM
Farmers are advised to be vigilant and to ask their vet to refer any birth deformities in sheep or cattle to the nearest Regional Veterinary Laboratories (RVLs) for investigation.
20 February 2024
Hazell Mullins on how to achieve high herd health status
‘Vet on the Moove’ Hazell Mullins joins Emma-Louise Coffey on this week’s Dairy Edge podcast to discuss the priorities to achieve high herd health status and gives her tips to limit disease outbreaks this spring.
19 February 2024
Protected urea - protecting the environment and delivering for farmers
Áine Murray, Donal Patton, Philip Creighton and Brian McCarthy tell us how switching to protected urea reduces greenhouse gas and ammonia emissions, with plot experiments showing no significant difference in grass production between protected urea and conventional fertilizers.
19 February 2024
Putting a stamp on the family’s dairy with milk vending
Having milked cows in Donegal since the early 1990s, the Porter family have not only grown their dairy farming business from 30 to 450 cows, but they’ve added an element of diversification through the commissioning of a milk vending machine.
18 February 2024
Spring Grass Series: Grass10 grazing management update
On this week’s Grass10 grazing management update, Joseph Dunphy discusses PastureBase data, Dry Matter % and Predicted grass growth, rainfall & soil temperatures.
16 February 2024
Maximising grazed grass on the Teagasc/Tirlán Future Farms
Farmers participating in the Teagasc/Tirlán Future Farm Programme have set their sights on maximising the proportion of grazed grass in the diet of their dairy cows this year.
15 February 2024
Statistics point to stabilisation of national dairy cow numbers
After more than a decade of growth, data released by the Central Statistics Office (CSO) have pointed to a stabilisation in the Irish national dairy cow herd.
13 February 2024
Managing SCC in freshly-calved cows
Elevated Somatic Cell Count (SCC) is a hidden cost on dairy farms, writes Teagasc Dairy Specialist, James Dunne. Unless a clinical case of mastitis is seen and treated, raised SCC levels are rarely acted upon but high SCC levels are costly.
12 February 2024
Taking control of SCC in the early stages of lactation
Don Crowley, Teagasc Milk Quality Specialist, joins Stuart Childs on this week’s episode of the Dairy Edge to talk about how to take control of SCC in the early stages of lactation.
12 February 2024
Farmers selected for Aurivo/Teagasc joint Farm Profitability Programme
Five farmers have been selected to participate in the fourth phase of the Aurivo/Teagasc joint Farm Profitability Programme, which aims to improve farm profitability and environmental practices.
11 February 2024
The January happenings on the Tipperary Dairy Calf to Beef Farm
Chloe Millar writes on the happenings on the Tipperary Dairy Calf to Beef Demonstration Farm over the month of January.
11 February 2024
Listen: Early February grazing tips from Grass10
The Teagasc Grass10 team has introduced a new, weekly Grass10 update via podcast format. For this week’s grazing management update, Joseph Dunphy discusses PastureBase data, dry matter percentages, predicted grass growth, and rainfall and soil temperatures.
09 February 2024
Teagasc Walsh Scholar wins prestigious prize from the Royal Irish Academy
Dr William McCarthy from Teagasc has been announced as the winner of the Kathleen Lonsdale RIA Chemistry Prize 2024. This prestigious prize is awarded for outstanding doctoral research in the chemical sciences carried out on the island of Ireland.
09 February 2024
Reduce milking workload in early lactation
Once-a-day (OAD) milking in early lactation can help reduce workload during spring calving.
09 February 2024
Leading the development of more sustainable European livestock production systems
STEP UP is a four year research project funded under Horizon Europe, the EU’s flagship funding programme for research and innovation. The Teagasc-led project aims to support the development of more economically, environmentally and socially sustainable European livestock production systems (ELPS).
08 February 2024
Dairy heifers behind target on a lot of farms
John McCabe, Teagasc – Aurivo Farm Profitability Programme, has seen many bunches of heifers weighed in the past few weeks and their progress is worrying in many cases. 2023 was a hard year on replacement heifers. July was wet and so was the autumn. 2nd cut silage was poor in a lot of cases.
06 February 2024
The priority tasks for setting up the farm for the grazing season
On this week’s episode of the Dairy Edge, dairy advisor Kay O’Connell joins Emma-Louise Coffey to address priority tasks from supporting cow and calf health to setting up the farm for the grazing season of 2024.
05 February 2024