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Dairy farmer Edmond Geary will sell his herd of cows at 11.30am on Friday morning in Corrin Mart.
The Waterford man has been milking cows for 63 years in Lyrenaglough, Ballyduff Upper.
Fifty cows and 10 maiden heifers will go through the ring.
“I’ve no other choice, I have to get a back operation,” he told the Irish Farmers Journal. It will be his third back operation. Six weeks ago, he fell and broke four ribs.
“Milking the cows was excruciating,” he said.
Geary will not stop farming completely and plans to buy in some stock at the end of the year. He will sell his first-cut silage this year.
The cows are all milk recorded and are all AI-bred.
“They’re milking 600kg of milk solids and 7,600 litres [per cow],” he said.
Tough going
It is tough going in farming at the minute, he added, noting that the recent wet weather hasn’t affected him fodder-wise.
“I’ve always had plenty of silage. I never expanded. I always kept 50 good cows and fed them well.
“I’ll be sad in the morning, but there comes a time when you have to say goodbye. I hope they go to a good home,” he said.
Geary is just one of a number of dairy farmers who are selling their herds.
While Geary's reason for selling is health-related, other farmers have no successor in place to take over the farm or their children aren't interested in going into dairying.
Dispersals
Carlow auctioneer David Quinn is handling the dispersal of 10 complete dairy herds this year, twice the number he would normally expect.
He told the Irish Farmers Journal last month that aside from the formal sales, a number of farmers with smaller numbers have quietly sold their cows across a number of sales.
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