Fronted by Farmer of the Year award winner Fiachra Liston, Liston Family Dairy Farm is a progressive and forward-thinking third-generation dairy enterprise located in the heart of County Limerick. The productivity and efficiency of this increasingly streamlined operation was greatly enhanced by the recent installation of a game-changing 54-unit Dairymaster Swiftflo Rotary parlour.
The Liston family’s dairy farm in Banogue, County Limerick is a family-run operation with a proud history of growth and modernisation. Following in the footsteps of his grandfather Ned and father Aidan, Fiachra Liston is continuing a longstanding family tradition of progressive farming.
A third-generation dairy farmer, who amassed invaluable experience working on farms in the United States and New Zealand before returning home permanently in 2004, Fiachra today runs the ultra-efficient family farm with more than a little help from his wife Mary and their four children, Caitlin, Edward, Aidan, and Matthew.
Currently milking 300 Holstein Friesian cows on a spring calving, grass-based system, Fiachra has always had a very clear vision of how he believes a farm should operate, with the emphasis very much on modern breeding and grazing management, whilst embracing cutting-edge milking technology, animal health welfare and streamlined operations to maximise efficiency and herd performance as well as a good work-life balance.
To this end, Liston Family Dairy Farm’s ever-increasing productivity got a major upgrade with the installation of a magnificent 54-point Dairymaster Swiftflo Rotary parlour – the complete package including RoboSpray, MooMonitor+ and lots more besides. From having previously spent two and a half hours milking, the Limerick man can now breeze through 300 cows in just one hour!
The new parlour, which has been completed to the very highest standard, represents a massive investment but has been worth every cent. Not just is time being saved but the whole milking process is also much more enjoyable within this more relaxed and orderly environment.
“It’s probably the biggest investment I’ll make in my lifetime but it has futureproofed the whole enterprise and made it right for the next generation,” says Fiachra. “I see this as a 30-40-year project and expect the parlour to serve us for that timeframe. So, yes, a huge investment but also a necessary one and we’re reaping the benefits already.”
Critically, there’s an immeasurable degree of increased comfort for both the animal and the milker alike. “We first milked in the new parlour on April 1st, 2023,” Fiachra continues. “So we’re in there about two and a half years now and the cows have adapted well to it.
“They were fully settled in after two or three weeks. It was the right time of year to transfer them over from the herringbone because they were mad to be milked and all the heifers had calved.”
With no jockeying or scrummaging for position, with each cow allocated an individual stall, milking is a very comfortable and tidy process, much easier than before. The cow is auto ID’d as it enters, fed in the third stall, and voice activation gives the cow status. Notes can be included in the programme highlighting factors such as whether a cow needs antibiotics or has three teats.
“We’re milking 300 in an hour and you aren’t physically knackered after it,” says Fiachra. “The cow flow is very good and you go at the pace you want to go at. We milk them at 7 in the morning and again at 4 in the evening. Even though the milking takes an hour, it’s a three-hour process in total each time from the time you walk in, get the cows, bring them in, wash them, wash the plant, let them out again and leave yourself. Generally, washing up is about 40 minutes but it can be faster or slower, it depends…”
The fact that the cows are relaxed and comfortable, walking around at their own pace, rather than being rushed or pushed around on the concrete, is hugely beneficial and reduces the risk of lameness in the herd.
Meanwhile, Fiachra also sourced a cubicle bedder, which was another priceless acquisition in terms of speeding things up and adding efficiencies.
Embracing technology, the Liston Family Dairy Farm enterprise is lean and efficient as opposed to labour intensive. “Myself and Pat are here full time and my father is also with us part time,” Fiachra reveals. “There are just the three of us and we’re not under too much pressure. We can start at 7 in the morning and finish up by 6.
“It’s very important to have a healthy work-life balance. We have families too and a life outside the business and you like to be available as much as possible for hurling and football training, music and night classes after school. To be able to finish up at 6 the majority of the time and be gone to spend that quality time with your family, you can’t put a price on that.”
An obvious benefit of having just three wages to pay is that overheads will be reduced and profitability increases – not a bad place to be in? “Well, we also contract out all the silage, slurry, hedge cutting, hoof care, etc.,” Fiachra notes. “We do the rest of the day-to-day stuff ourselves, including power-washing the sheds, but there’s no overly busy time even during the spring or summer where we need a third man full-time.
“If I can get a night man for those six weeks of calving, that’s all the extra help we need. That’s down to the compact calving system we have in place. We calve in February/March and get it done and dusted during that time, then get them out to grass within four of five days, which makes life easier with less pressure on the sheds.”
Like the majority of dairy enterprises in Ireland, Liston Family Dairy Farm benefited massively from the overdue favourable weather that 2025 brought: “It’s been a great year. The weather has been kind to us and we haven’t fed them any silage up to now [October]. They’ve been all on grass, and meal in the parlour, with no buffer feeding.
“We were caught with buffer feeding for the previous two years and you have to make space for that. We didn’t have that option in 2022 but we have it now. Thank God we didn’t need it this year. I have to say it was a real pleasure to milk cows this year. When things go right like they did in 2025, then it’s very enjoyable and you get to invest more money into other aspects of the business, like finishing out the parlour,” Fiachra concludes.
“We have a space there fully-fitted out for the staff with showers and toilets, and it’s all about futureproofing the business because we won’t be around forever and you have to be thinking well into the future and all of that has to be catered for. You have to value your staff and treat them as part of a team, never ask them to do anything you wouldn’t like to do yourself. When a new lad comes in, don’t give him all the dirty jobs, because that’s insulting. Anyone who ever works here will be made to feel welcome and I’ll also do my best to make sure they are made to feel at home and fully integrated into the local community.”
Liston Family Dairy Farm,
Ballycullen,
Banogue,
Croom,
County Limerick.
Tel: 087 1226408
First published in Irish Tractor & Agri magazine Vol 13 No 3, Winter 2025
Featured, Liston Family Dairy Farm
