Feb 11th 2013 New Experiences

Since the UK is pretty close to Ireland, I decided to pop over to the land of the Leprechauns and catch up with Shane Fitzgerald. I traveled with Shane on my Nuffield “Global Focus Programme”. Shane is an Irish dairy farmer with a real go get-em attitude. He manages the 200 plus head family Dairy near Cork in the South of Ireland.

Cork Countryside

Shane in his milking Parlor

 Shane gave me the opportunity to have a go at a few things I had never done before. These included Curling (A national sport in Ireland), milking dairy cows in a modern milking parlor, delivering calves, checking pregnant cows, and of course drinking a couple of pints of the Genuine Irish stout “Guinness”. 

Helping a cow having difficulty calving

Management systems that Shane uses in his business include decision support tools to help him manage his pasture production. He regularly takes measurements of pasture growth and feeds these into a programme which tells him how many days stocking he can get out of a paddock and also estimates production from each paddock over the year. This allows him to work out which paddocks are least productive and are in need of renovation. I was fascinated by the technology in use in Shanes milking parlor. Each cow is tagged with an electronic ear tag. As it enters the parlor to be milked the operator is alerted if the cows milk needs to be excluded from the main milk line due to a withholding period. The operator is also informed and can record if a cow is sick or needs medication, as the cows leave the parlor an electronic draft, drafts off sick cows to enable their care or isolation. Shane also has a large map of the farm in the parlor which helps when explaining which paddock the cows are to be moved to after they are milked.

Shane showed me this little beauty in one of the sheds