- NEWS
10% tax on junk food to tackle obesityA 10% tax on fizzy drinks, sweets, biscuits, crisps, and chocolate is to be recommended to the health minister as a way of tackling the country's soaring obesity problem.
Prayer vigil for fine weather as farmers queue for fodderA 24-hour prayer vigil for fine weather has been held on the Kerry-Cork border.
- WORLD
It’s technology, Jim, but not as we know it WHEN Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry first dreamed up the concept of a television show based in the unexplored universe of Outer Space in 1964, the world was a very different place.
Berlusconi’s party girls dressed as nuns, Obama Silvio Berlusconi's private disco featured women dressed not just as sexy nuns and nurses, but also as President Barack Obama and a prominent Milan prosecutor that the former Italian premier has accused of persecuting him.
- BUSINESS
IBRC delays loan valuations, saleThe valuation and sale of IBRC loans has been pushed out by six months to November and December of this year.
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- SPORT
The Terry Reilly Interview: The Godfather of GalwayOver the course of almost half a century, Liam Sammon has been in service to Galway football. Now he hopes a new generation can restore county pride.
Super Blues keep double in sightsJoe Schmidt's side won their third European trophy in successive years and gave Connacht reason to celebrate also as the Westerners gained entry to next season's Heineken Cup courtesy of their neighbours to the east.
- LIFESTYLE
Let in the seasonal lightYOUR wardrobe isn't the only thing that needs updating once the barometer starts to rise.
It’s a guy thingDid you cry with your buddy while watching Fergie say farewell at Old Trafford?
10-13C
Breaking stories
One thing farmers can do is become more efficient with work practices
By Mike Donovan
Nearly 3,000 dairy farmers attended the recent SOS Milk Summit in London to express their frustration and anger over milk prices.
With the Dairy Crest UK giant here in the UK posting a first quarter financial loss on its processing activities, and other dairy companies faring no better, there’s a squeeze on farm gate milk prices, and pain for dairy farmers.In London, they laid into the minister, Jim Paice. He used to be a farm manager, and he knows the problems from the farmer viewpoint, but his hands are tied by the competing forces of food costs and inflation versus the demands and needs of farmers. So he said what he thought was sensible, encouraging the farmers to look at costs and herd management.
This was greeted with a howl of derision from the crowd, which was then whipped to their feet by chairman Meurig Raymond, the NFU’s deputy president, who shouted that “enough was enough”, pointing the finger of blame at the hapless government minister. Interesting that in this mood of anger nobody asked what the union had been doing.
Yet, the one thing that farmers can do is get more efficient. It requires no legislation or public investment.
Reducing farm costs also happens to be the working brief of Practical Farm Ideas, where I can show dairy farmers how one man has contained the mastitis problem in his commercial herd of 130 cows.
Mastitis incidence has been zero, and a cell count of 130 is achieved, by cluster rinsing with a home-made back-flush system which involved spending £1,300.
Mastitis hits 25% of cows each year, bringing a heavy cost on some dairy farms.
The Northern Ireland Department of Agriculture reports that 25% of milking cows get clinical mastitis each year, and each new case costs £180, or £5,000 for a 1,000-cow herd.
What would you say to a 130-cow farmer who has zero cases a year? Ten years ago, Wyn Williams introduced cluster dipping between cows, because he was convinced mastitis was largely transmitted by the milk liner.
He dipped and soaked clusters between cows in a 2% dilute hypochlorite solution. Mastitis and cell counts dropped dramatically, so he kept doing it for five or more years. He then built a new parlour, and believed the dipping was no longer necessary, because the parlour was new, but cases and cell count started to rise, so the routine was resumed, and mastitis declined again.
As herd size increased, the need to get cows through the parlour faster became more important, so Wyn designed and built a back-flush system which does all the units on one side of the parlour at the time.
He had the system up and running after spending £1,300.
His average cell count is 120, and in 2010 he had no cases of mastitis. If you want to see his National Milk Records (NMR) annual summary showing zero mastitis, and learn how the back-flush machine was built and fitted into the parlour, you’ll need to see Practical Farm Ideas Vol 18, issue 4. You can access the report at http://www.farmideas.co.uk/articles/home-made-cluster-back-flush-controls-mastitis/14367 for just 99p. Or buy Vol 18 issue 4 from the www.farmideas.co.uk website.
The machine uses a standard workshop air compressor that propels a slug of dilute 5% paracetic acid back through the clusters. He back-flushes with a single lever which he activates for just five seconds. The rinsing solution is made up using a Dosatron proportional dispenser, used widely in industry and medicine.
Using the compressor means there is no added strain on the vacuum pump, and the manual control means the milker is in charge.
The question is — how many farmers at the London meeting had mastitis control as good as this?