Mayo Irish Farmer: “I’ve used the products for three years now and I’m very happy with the results”

My name is Peter Murphy and I’m a first generation farmer here. I am farming here with my wife Sheila and our three kids. We’re in Anfield Hollymount in the south of Mayo. So this is a 82 acre block and we’re a spring calving. We have a Holstein Friesian herd and we’re milking eighty-eight cows this year.

Alternative methods for udder health challenges

I heard of AHV from a representative, he just advised some alternative methods to use for udder issues for cows. So I used some of the AHV products and they worked brilliantly. I’ve continued to use them since, and I also use kind of proactive methods. This spring now I’ve pumped some cows after calving,  any cows that are low with the robot. If the conductivity goes high and rumination drops in the cow, I just go straight in and pump the cow and it just gets them back up and gets them at full tilt again. So there was a cow that had twins and I went in straight after calving and she’s doing perfect since.

It’s really a proactive approach here, because like we have been really looking after the dry cow diets for a long number of years so cows do calve well but it’s just to eliminate the little issues that can come. Where you might have 90% of the herd going well it’s just to get up to 98/99%, anything drops off with the cows, you just go straight in and threat them. We would look at the information on the robot, so in particular you’re looking at conductivity and again rumination. So we would monitor cow’s we’ve have treated and see the results from them. Any cow that goes into the red in 500 with cell, we go straight in with a Tablet and administer them and we find it brings it back down.

The service from AHV is great

It’s a great service from Gary. He’ll call if you need him and he gives you half an hour on the phone. We just do a herd health plan too and kind of keep everything in check. Any cows over a third lactation and over I just go in with Milk Start Tablets at calving and StartLac Paste. And also if they have a hard calving then I use Metri Tablets. It just helps them clean out. They’re milking very well so far.

Reducing chemical nitrogen

So we’ve started off reducing our chemical nitrogen. There’s 25% at the moment on zero chemical nitrogen. Within 5 years we want to get that to 90%, maybe even 100% all going well. So with the mixed species there we’ve 25% of it so now we’re really want to push on with that. What we’re growing in the field is producing the healthier cow and it’s eliminated a lot of the health issues that may come then for any issues do come that we do treat the cows with alternative methods and I suppose we’re going away from our reliance on the traditional methods that would have been used. So marrying the two together going forward I suppose is the big thing for me. In the next 5 to 10 years we’re hoping to drastically reduce chemical nitrogen here possibly eliminate it.

AHV is part of my future strategy

I’ve joined Base Ireland it’s a group of farmers all across Ireland. Tillage, dairy beef and we’re all looking at lot of methods and ways of reducing chemical nitrogen. So I’m continuing that route and that kind of feeds into what I’m then with as regards to AHV and their products. So to be using alternative treatments. It’s very rewarding and very good to be doing this because it’s just a better practice to use. I’ve used the products for three years now and I’m very happy with the results. It’s not all about being happy, but also seeing the results on the computer. The cows recover and they milk well so I suppose that’s the main thing.