A large crowd turned out to the Lely open day on the farm of Michael and Enda Horgan in Fringestown, Co Meath today. The focus of the day was to celebrate the farms tenth year using Lely robots and show how robotic milking can fit in a well-run grass-based system.
The farm is currently milking 259 cows on an 80ha milking platform with four robots in place. Calving is 90% spring-calving with 10% of cows calved in autumn to fill a liquid-milk contract. All youngstock are currently reared on the block but the long-term plan is to grow cow numbers up to 300 and move youngstock off the block.
The main focus on the farm at present, is driving milk solids output through grass production and excellent genetics. The herd is black and white with some jersey breeding and cows produced 539kg of milk solids on average in 2024 with an EBI of €240 across the herd. The farm grew 13.1 tonne/DM/ha in 2024 and fed 1.3t of meal per cow.
Somatic Cell Count
SCC was a big talking point on the day, with cows on this farm averaging an SCC of 96 in 2024. This is expected to be lower again in 2025, with Enda putting the excellent results down to the daily monitoring of the robot. “Cows are monitored daily for yield, fat, protein and SCC with the technology on the Lely. This allows us to identify any individual cows that are rising and treat them early, as opposed to relying on the results of six milk recordings a year,” said Enda.
The farm is using selective dry cow therapy, with 75% of the cows dried off using teat-sealer only last year.
Lely speakers.
Breeding
All animals are wearing heat detection collars that work in co-ordination with the robot and are drafted out when bulling. Enda does all the AI on farm with sexed semen used for the first three weeks of the breeding season.
Conception rates to first service are excellent on farm with 72% of cows keeping to sexed semen in the first service and 80% of heifers in 2024. They are very happy with how things are going this year and expect similar results.
Costs
Running costs were discussed on the day with overall running of the robots coming to 1.9c/l on the farm or €6,870 per robot/year. The Horgan’s installed solar panels on the farm in recent years to help with electricity costs. €52/day was the cost of electricity on the farm with the solar panels saving 20-25% of this per year.
A large crowd turned out to the Lely open day on the farm of Michael and Enda Horgan in Fringestown, Co Meath today. The focus of the day was to celebrate the farms tenth year using Lely robots and show how robotic milking can fit in a well-run grass-based system.
The farm is currently milking 259 cows on an 80ha milking platform with four robots in place. Calving is 90% spring-calving with 10% of cows calved in autumn to fill a liquid-milk contract. All youngstock are currently reared on the block but the long-term plan is to grow cow numbers up to 300 and move youngstock off the block.
The main focus on the farm at present, is driving milk solids output through grass production and excellent genetics. The herd is black and white with some jersey breeding and cows produced 539kg of milk solids on average in 2024 with an EBI of €240 across the herd. The farm grew 13.1 tonne/DM/ha in 2024 and fed 1.3t of meal per cow.
Somatic Cell Count
SCC was a big talking point on the day, with cows on this farm averaging an SCC of 96 in 2024. This is expected to be lower again in 2025, with Enda putting the excellent results down to the daily monitoring of the robot. “Cows are monitored daily for yield, fat, protein and SCC with the technology on the Lely. This allows us to identify any individual cows that are rising and treat them early, as opposed to relying on the results of six milk recordings a year,” said Enda.
The farm is using selective dry cow therapy, with 75% of the cows dried off using teat-sealer only last year.
Lely speakers.
Breeding
All animals are wearing heat detection collars that work in co-ordination with the robot and are drafted out when bulling. Enda does all the AI on farm with sexed semen used for the first three weeks of the breeding season.
Conception rates to first service are excellent on farm with 72% of cows keeping to sexed semen in the first service and 80% of heifers in 2024. They are very happy with how things are going this year and expect similar results.
Costs
Running costs were discussed on the day with overall running of the robots coming to 1.9c/l on the farm or €6,870 per robot/year. The Horgan’s installed solar panels on the farm in recent years to help with electricity costs. €52/day was the cost of electricity on the farm with the solar panels saving 20-25% of this per year.
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