Paddy O’Gorman is milking 140 cows on a 50ha milking block just outside Clonmel in Co Tipperary. Over the last few years, cow numbers have increased from 80 to 140 cows. In November 2014, Paddy started to demolish the farm’s old eight-unit parlour and begin constructing a new 26-unit milking parlour on the same site.

Nothing was left of the old parlour, so the new facility was effectively built on a greenfield site. The parlour was built with Paddy’s long-term vision in mind, which is to milk 180 cows in a labour friendly set-up, ideally, one man for most of the year.

The key thing in Paddy’s mind was getting cow flow right. Having seen the benefits of good cow flow on the Greenfield farm in Kilkenny and elsewhere, he built his own plans with this in mind. His initial plan was install a 20-unit machine without automatic cluster removers (ACRs) into a New Zealand-style parlour with good cow flow – circular collecting yard and the exit straight out the front.

On the day we called, Paddy was milking 140 cows and they were producing 18.5 litres of milk per cow at 3.81% protein and 4.14% fat.

To see more detail on this parlour and other parlours in the Irish Dairy Farmer parlour test you can buy the Irish Dairy Farmer magazine online or in your local newsagent for €4.99.