Now in his sixth season managing the 350-cow dairy herd at Beechgrove Farm in Kilkenny, David oversees operations on the Phelan family farm, conveniently situated just off the motorway.
The Phelan’s provide great support to David by rearing all youngstock
and handling some of the machinery work, such as fertiliser application and reseeding. David has full autonomy over the dairy enterprise, including grass management, staffing, and all breeding decisions.
Consistently performing to a high standard, David was recently recognised when he was awarded the 2024 Young Farm Manager of the year. In addition
to himself, the farm employs one other full-time staff member, and during the spring, relief milkers and part-time workers support the operation – including a student from UCC.
The farm has excellent facilities for managing the large herd. A state-of-the-art 350 cow cubicle shed with ample slurry storage is situated adjacent to the 30-unit milking parlour. Roadways, fencing and water in the paddocks are all well set up. This all contributes to David being able to keep his focus on what matters.
Simplicity and attention to detail are key for the Co. Clare man. “To run a simple system, you must be very clear on what you prioritise. For this farm, it’s grass and cows and making sure everything is streamlined so we can focus our attention where it matters most.”
High solids focus
David is consistently achieving very high milk solids production from the herd. So far in 2025, the cows seem to be at a level of production the farm hasn’t seen before. The cows peaked at 2.65 kg milk solids per day in April which came from 32 litres of milk at 4.8% fat and over 3.7% protein. David thinks that he can continue this for the rest of the year with the right management.
“Last year, we produced 525 kg milk solids. While that was obviously very good, we’re still aiming to gradually increase that to 575 kg milk solids. I believe the herd has a good chance of achieving this in 2025, if we keep going the way it is and keep the right grass in front of them.”
When it comes to his breeding decisions, David has learned that the crossbred cow suits the way he wants to farm. He adds, “The 60% Friesian, 40% Jersey animal is what works best on a farm of this scale trying to do high kg milk solids from grass. They’re a nice handy sized cow but can still generate the volume of milk needed to produce high kg milk solids. They are a seriously robust animal, and we find them extremely easy to manage as they’re also very docile.”
But production is only part of the story. David needs his system to be repeatable year after year. The New Zealand cow works well in his system for a variety of reasons.
Crossbred efficiency
David explains, “I want cows with big capacity to consume plenty of grazed grass. We target to feed less than a tonne of concentrate depending on weather. In 2024 we fed 950 kg of concentrates in what was a very challenging year for weather.
We expect to feed a lot less this year with how the start of the year has panned out for 2025. We grow about 15t/DM grass each year, so our priority is to get that into the cows and import as little feed as possible.”
While David’s excellent management skills are crucial, it’s the herd’s genetics that truly enable its performance. Each year, David focuses on selecting the right genetics for his herd – something he considers a top priority.
“LIC visited the farm last summer and held a cross-share event, where they analysed the herd to see what cows were performing best. Over the years, different genetics have been introduced by different managers running the farm.
David remarks, “I already had confidence that LIC genetics were delivering what I wanted on the ground. But to have the evidence from that comparison work to back that up, really gave me more confidence.”
As shown in Table 1, cows with a higher proportion of New Zealand genetics and more than 40% Jersey influence outperformed other groups in the herd. Across all lactations, they produced more kilograms of milk solids per kilogram of liveweight. These findings align with similar analyses LIC has conducted on other herds.
“It’s nice to have your own farm data used to validate your decisions on what you’re doing every day. I’m managing the cows here for the
full year and want to make sure I’m milking cows that I enjoy milking, he adds.”
David’s breeding strategy with the cows involves the extensive use of sexed semen to get his replacement heifers and then high CBV beef sires on the rest of his cows and repeats. The replacement heifers all get one serve of conventional NZ Holstein Friesian dairy semen and then a bull is used to clean up the rest. This year 130 sexed straws were used on the cows and 80 conventional straws were used on the heifers.
“We are seeing that by carefully selecting the right beef sires, we are generating high quality beef calves to sell from the herd each spring. Sexed semen is not compromising on our calving spread as we achieved 92% six-week calving rate this year.
“We do place an emphasis on calving ease and short gestation length on our beef bulls but think we can chase higher quality calves with better carcass traits along with this with careful selection.”
Going forward, David wants to fine tune the dairy enterprise to become as efficient as possible. He believes there’s more to get out of the cows, both through management and genetics. However, he stresses that any boost in performance cannot come at the expense of making the farm more complicated or harder to run.
“Work-life balance is key, if we’re not enjoying it, then why are we doing it at all?”
