Running a 60-cow dairy farm and a full-time off farm job

Dairy farmer Jeremiah Daly joins Emma-Louise Coffey on this week’s Dairy Edge to explain how he finds the balance of running a 60-cow dairy farm and a full-time off farm job. The total labour input is 44 hours which includes 24 hours own labour and 20 hours of family labour completed by his wife Maria and his children. Additionally, Jeremiah completes a full-time off farm job and Jeremiah measured his labour input from February to July with specialist Martina Gormley as part of the Labour Efficiency Focus Farms. Jeremiah identified once-a-day milking, a high 6-week calving rate of >80% and a long grazing season as the key drivers of labour efficiency on his farm. He also acknowledges investment in an underpass this spring as a time saver as well as a measure to connect the whole milking platform which improves the safety of the farm. Jeremiah also explains that OAD milking has worked to reduce the labour required on the farm and is satisfied with the performance where in year 3, milk solids production returned to the same performance as when he milked twice-a-day. For more information: https://www.teagasc.ie/animals/dairy/labour/labour-efficiency-focus-farms/jeremiah-daly/ For more episodes from the Dairy Edge podcast visit the show page at: https://www.teagasc.ie/animals/dairy/the-dairy-edge-podcast/