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Jimmy O'Rourke
Owners: Jimmy and Siobhan O'Rourke
Milking system: DeLaval Herringbone 50°with Midiline milking system
Number of milkings per day: Two
Our story
Jimmy and Siobhan O'Rourke farm near Tullyco in Co. Cavan. They have 4 young children -two boys and two girls aged from 3 to 14 years of age and his wife Siobhan works off farm. Jimmy is a busy farmer with a sizable herd of high yielding spring calving cows. In the old 6 unit plant it was taking 6 hours per day to milk 20 less cows. "The old parlour was 30 years old so it was time to invest for the future. Incidentally the old plant cost £1,100 so it was what one call a good long term investment".
Last year investment was made in a 20 x 40 DeLaval 50° midiline parlour with cranked rump rail stalls and feeding mangers. The parlour has swing over arms with MC31 clusters and automatic cluster removal which are operated by simple easy to use control boxes. "We are delighted with the ACR system - no problem with different operators and cows are never over milked in fact cows are milked by one person in one hour" says Jimmy.
Plant washing is taken care of by a C200 plant washer. Of which Jimmy is particularly pleased "It is very thorough and very consistent". They use DeLaval detergents - a hot wash in the morning and cold in the afternoon plus a descaler once a week. "Press a button, walk away, have your tea and it's all spotless when you return" says this very relaxed looking Cavan farmer.
DeLaval service
The new DeLaval parlour was commissioned in May 2005 from Paddy Marron of M & S Dairy Services the local DeLaval dealer. Jimmy says, "His men did an excellent job installing the new plant - I give them 100% for the work done".
As regards the expenditure on the new parlour he says it was the "best investment we made in years compared with tractors, loaders etc" So roll on 2007 - the O'Rourke family can face the future with quiet optimism as they gaze on a contented herd of healthy and high yielding cows.
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