The move away from blanket dry cow therapy in a bid to reduce antibiotic use on Irish dairy farms, was the focal point of a conference hosted by Animal Health Ireland (AHI) last Wednesday.

Dairy farmers Mella Briscoe from east Galway and John O’Shaughnessy from Co Limerick, both spoke about their journey through milk recording and selective dry cow therapy. O’Shaughnessy is milking 98 cows and won a Cell Check award for the sixth time in 2023. He milk-records five times a year and over 65% of his cows are dried off with a teat sealer only.

O’Shaughnessy told the conference that the most important thing when milk-recording is to do the last one as close to drying off as possible – this allows him to see which cows are suitable for selective dry cow therapy.

“When it comes to drying them off, I use methylated spirits and take your time – pick out your cows, don’t be in any rush and do half batches if you have to. If you’ve 14 coming in at the one time – do seven,” O’Shaughnessy said.

Briscoe went into partnership with her husband Kevin Muldoon, and converted her sheep and beef farm to dairy in 2015. They’re currently milking across two platforms.

“I remember 2017 was the first year that we started selective dry cow therapy. From the milk recording results that were in front of me, to me it was a sin to be using blanket dry cow therapy,” Briscoe said.

She advised farmers who are not doing selective dry cow therapy to “take the plunge”.

“Just start off with 10% or a small number of cows and get a bit of confidence. Try a small amount and see how you get on,” she said.