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.