January 3, 2021 6:00 am
Last up in our ‘Back In Focus’ series is a 150-cubicle house on the farm of Joe and Karen Smyth – a husband-and-wife team – from Dunkerrin, Co. Offaly, who milk a herd of 145 British-cross Holstein Friesian cows.
The duo, along with their children, full-time employee Roddy Teehan and relief milker Eoin England, operate a spring-calving herd on a milking platform of 220ac.
Since Joe went back milking full-time in 1999, after a couple of years running a suckler enterprise and a contracting business – he has grown the milking herd gradually over a 20-year period.
In 1999, Joe wiped the dust off the old six-unit herringbone parlour that was installed back in the late 1970s by his late father, Paddy, and mother, Mary, and started back milking 30 cows.
Part nine of the ‘Back In Focus’ series sees us go back to last March where
AgriLand spoke to Liam Delaney who had, back then, recently gone down the route of dairy farming, alongside his father Jim.
The father-and-son duo originally ran a herd of 80 suckler cows, with all progeny brought through to slaughter.
However, over the last 18 months, unhappy with the return from the beef enterprise, Liam felt it was time to change systems.
Speaking to
AgriLand, he said: “I was very disappointed and sad to leave behind the herd of cows that we had built up since 1988. My father and I have a great passion for beef farming, but at the moment it is a vulnerable business to be in and the returns are just not there to make it viable.