Our Agricultural Science students enjoyed a highly informative and engaging visit to Liam and Dolores O’Donovan's dairy farm. This is a progressive spring-calving farm that demonstrates best practice in modern Irish milk production.
Students learned about excellent calving and calf-rearing husbandry, including cow care around calving, the importance of colostrum, calf health, nutrition, and high welfare standards.
The farm operates a leader–follower grazing system, where calves graze paddocks first, followed by the milking cows. This ensures young stock receive the highest-quality grass while cows efficiently clean out paddocks afterwards, improving overall grass utilisation and performance.
A strong focus of the visit was the importance of grass as the primary feed source on Irish dairy farms. Students learned how grass quality directly affects milk yield, milk solids, and milk quality, and why good grazing management is central to profitable and sustainable dairy production.
Students were particularly interested in the wide range of modern technologies used on the farm, including a rotary milking parlour which allows for efficient and calm milking, automatic drafting gates to assist with easy cow management, and activity meters that support accurate heat detection and ongoing herd health monitoring. Animal welfare was further enhanced through the use of rotary brushes, while automatic scrapers helped maintain clean and hygienic housing conditions. The students also learned about the benefits of automatic calf feeders, which ensure consistent nutrition for young calves, and Low Emission Slurry Spreading technology, which plays an important role in reducing environmental impact and improving nutrient efficiency.
Students were highly engaged throughout the visit, asked great questions, and really enjoyed seeing Agricultural Science in action on a working dairy farm. It was a valuable and enjoyable learning experience.
A huge thank you to Liam and Dolores O’Donovan for their time, hospitality, and for sharing their expertise, passion and knowledge with our students.
