Shane O’Loughlin, a dairy farmer from Aughrim, Co Wicklow, recently made a major investment in a new 16-unit milking parlour on a greenfield site.

“Sometimes you have to see the opportunity and just go for it, I could have spent the rest of my life regretting it otherwise,” he said.

Over the past year, Shane has taken on 60 acres of land on a long-term lease adjoining a 40ac owned block. He installed the new parlour on this block.

“On the home farm, we had pushed to 120 cows but we were stocked at six cows/ha and it wasn’t sustainable.

"We were milking through an eight-unit parlour which meant we were doing 15 rows,” Shane explained. This fed into the decision to move the milking facilities away from the home yard.

On top of the time spent in the parlour, due to the high stocking rate cows were being fed with a zero grazer. “I was spending six hours a day milking and another two hours feeding so it was leaving very little time to get other work done,” Shane said.

We still have the old eight-unit parlour at home and will milk there while cows are calving and then move over here in early March

He wanted to have a self-contained unit on this outside block so that cows could be buffer-fed or handled with ease. It means that cows will not have to be walked to the home block for routine tasks.

“We would be very dry here and while that does have its challenges, particularly in a year like last year, it means that we can get cows out to grass in the spring and they can stay out.

"We still have the old eight-unit parlour at home and will milk there while cows are calving and then move over here in early March,” Shane said.

Milking on the new block started on 17 July. The biggest problem has been getting grass up to speed when moving on to the block mid-year.

“We have moved back to a little over a cow to the acre which makes things much more manageable,” Shane said.

Grass growth has taken a real hit over the past six weeks with the lack of rainfall in this area

“It takes time to know what the land will do and what fields are performing better than others, no matter how much you try to plan.

“Grass growth has taken a real hit over the past six weeks with the lack of rainfall in this area. It has really only started growing in the past week.

"We were buffer-feeding cows with zero-grazed grass but we are just back on track again now so we will cut this out.”

Pictures one and two

The parlour itself is a 16-unit herringbone with the pit installed so that it could go to 20 units.

Picture one.

Automatic cluster removers have been fitted along with a dumpline but apart from that it is a relatively standard parlour, according to Shane.

Picture two.

Pearson feeders were also installed to allow individual cows to be targeted. “We had looked at putting in batch feeders but this means if we have a cow that we want to target with an extra few kilos of meal, then we can.”

Pictures three to five

Cows enter the collecting yard and are naturally facing the back of the parlour, which helps them flow through the unit. Once they exit the parlour, they move back over a 1.5m-wide slatted slurry channel which runs parallel to the parlour.

Picture three.

The slurry channel is 1.2m deep and feeds into the 14m long slatted tank which is in place in the collecting yard. Internally, the tank is 3.5m wide and 2.43m deep, giving storage capacity of 119m3.

To one side of the slatted passageway is a feeding rail to allow cows to be buffer-fed. This feeding rail is laid out in an L-shape around the parlour.

Picture four.

There is feeding space in place for 90 cows, according to Shane, but this can be easily extended in the future.

Between the slatted passage and the milking parlour is an impressive handling area. A drafting unit has been purchased and will be fitted onto the slatted passage.

Picture five.

Cows can be guided to a holding pen where they can be either guided to the batch AI crush or the standard crush.

Picture six

A footbath is also in place in the handling area.

Picture six.

Internally, the footbath is 3.1m long, 80cm wide and 15cm deep. It can be drained into the adjoining slurry channel.

Picture seven

For hot water on the farm, the decision was made to purchase a Dairy Geyser. “We had looked at other options such as gas but if something goes wrong, there are very few people who can fix it. This system is run off diesel and we have probably gone through 60 litres in the past six weeks, so it is not too expensive to run,” Shane said.

Picture seven.

The hot water is used to wash the plant every two to three days while it is also used to clean the bulk tank. This tank was brought up from the old yard, which helped to reduce costs.

The heater is capable of producing 20 litres of hot water per minute without the need to have water storage. The setup of the machine is simple, with the cold water inlet pipe attached to the machine and the hot water outlet attached to the milking equipment. The price of the unit was €2,700 including VAT.

Investment

The total cost of the development will come to between €140,000 and €150,000 excluding VAT. The slatted tank and the milking machine were both applied for through the Targeted Agricultural Modernisation Scheme (TAMS). The hope is that approximately €30,000 will be claimed back through the grant.

“Nobody knows what the future holds but my focus now is on getting the 120 cows going right. I did a lot of work for the parlour myself and other things on the farm slip when you are building. It is hard to balance everything but the new parlour should really give me more time,” Shane said.

Shane O'Loughlin.

The significant investment has been funded with the help of a Milkflex loan.

“The one thing that I really like is that it’s flexible. There are four full repayments during the four strong milk months, then four half payments. Then there are no payments for four months of the year. It just seems to be a good way of structuring it,” Shane said.

“It is termed out over eight years but if there is a bad milk price year you can go a period with no payments, while if milk price is over 33c/l then payments increase.”

A lot of the work for the project was completed by Alan Byrne, with the help of Shane. All steelwork and welding was completed by Alan, with the help of Donal Murphy. The parlour was supplied and fitted by Keadeen Dairy Services.