Farmer tells the secret of award-winning cows
The Ballyconnell farmer who retained the top prize in the Irish Holstein Friesian Association herds competition puts the secret of his success down to hard working cows on a high energy diet. "Basically the success is a reflection of a combination of the performance of the cow and a visual inspection from a judge who comes from outside the country," Damian Wynne of the Breffni Oriel IHFA club told The Anglo-Celt.
"My input into that is to try to manage the cows in such a way that I get optimum performance, production wise. I like moderately big cows with aggressive appetites, capable of converting feed to milk easily."
Their ferocious appetites demand a lot of grass during the day. Thus Damian's 60 strong Rowantree herd is intentionally set at a lower stocking level than his 120 acre Ballyconnell farm can carry. Crucially he supplements their diet by buffer feeding, with haylage and maize, at night.
"The idea is to get a high level of energy into the cows at all times," explains Damian, who suppiles milk for Lakeland Dairies in Bailieborough.
As his milk production levels show, Damian is getting optimum performance out of his cows which he says have "predominantly Canadian genetics". The national average is somewhere around the 7,000kg of milk per cow per year mark, and Damian achieves over 12,000kg.
"The downside to that," says Damian, "is it takes a huge commitment to have those cows healthy every day, because they're working so hard they are very vulnerable around times of calving and times of stress. So it is my job to ensure that these hiccups don't become problems - that's a very big part of my job."
He's doing his job well, as the top award in successive years prove.
"It's a reflection of all the efforts that go on behind the scenes every day when you're working when you're wondering if it's all worth it."
Damian is very optimistic about the future of Irish dairy farming.
"I think there is a great attitude out there at the moment amongst younger people in the business," enthused Damian. "They are all becoming better trained and more cost efficient, trying to bring the business in line with every other way of life - it hasn't always been that way. It has to be made work - it has to make money. It is about educating people to achieve that."
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