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Farm/dairy name: Mount Rush Farm
Owners: Eugene and Philomena Gilmore
No Dairy cows: 70
Breed of cows: Holstein cross
Housing: cubical building
Milking system: DeLaval Herringbone 50°with Midiline milking
Number of milkings per day: 2
Eugene and Philomena farm 195 acres at Ardee in the county of Louth on the east coast of Ireland. They are progressive dairy farmers who believe passionately in the industry. Eugene said; “I have a wee girl of 2 years and of course I would like her to follow us in the farm. I believe for us to do this we have to be more professional, get rid of all these subsidies and get a proper price structure for the industry” Eugene is already making moves towards his goals by planning to increase his herd to 100 cows and has enlarged his milking parlour to take care of the expansion.
The Gilmore family believe in cow comfort. All cows have cubicles with rubber mats which are covered with sawdust twice daily. 68 cubicles have a scraped passage and a further 48 are on a slatted passage system. Eugene likes the slatted passages as they keep the cows cleaner.
Winter at Mount Rush farm is about 4½ months with the cows coming in early for winter and out early in spring. In order for this to work there are excellent cow tracks which are all well made for ease and comfort for the cows.
The cows are fed grass and maize silage with 21% protein meal from the local compounder. There is no in parlour feeding. A feed fence is used which has head locks so that the herd can be treated in an easy way without the usual rodeo method. Feed is distributed with a complete diet feeder. Eugene feels that in a one man operation it is imperative to have a simple system to keep efficient.
At the end of 2004 the old 8 x 16 competitive parlour was replaced by a 14 x 28 DeLaval midiline system. Eugene said: “It used to take me 1½ hours to milk 40 cows but now with the new parlour I can milk 52 cows in 25 minutes” as you can imagine he’s very well pleased.
The parlour is equipped with an EP100 electronic pulsation system, MM31 milking clusters and swing over arms with the milk going through large bore pipes to the stainless steel receiver unit where it is pumped into the dairy. A dump line with separate receiver is also present for rejected milk. In the dairy there is a DeLaval C200 cleaning unit which takes care of the circulation cleaning and gives a first class wash every time.
Local dealer Marron Farm Services are about to fit DeLaval automatic cluster removal to the installation to prevent any possibility of over milking
The cows are calved in spring and autumn with the majority of the herd being 3rd calvers or younger. Eugene has 25 maiden heifers which he will calve at 28 months The herd is currently averaging 6,400 litres per cow with the milk passing through a plate cooler which draws its water from a new bore hole to gain the benefits of the cold water cooling. Milk is stored in an 8,100 litre closed tank. Collection is by Glanbia every other day.
The installation was performed to a high standard by DeLaval dealer Marron Farm Services at Carrickmacross. They have the expertise and are equipped to help Eugene and Philomena well into the future.
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