Since taking over the family farm 20 years ago, David and Paul Hyland in Ballacolla, Co Laois are still doing what they love and milking all year round. Irish Tractor & Agri caught up David to learn more about the second generation family business.
They say success breeds success. It seems to be the case when you consider the background brother David and Paul Hyland came from to get where they are now.
Today the pair farm in partnership with their mother Lucy on the outskirts of the village of Clough beside Ballacolla in Co Laois. Carrying on what their father Frank (RIP) had started before they were even born, David and Paul started out working together in 1996 and following the passing of their late father in 2010 they assumed control of their farm, along with their mother in what is still today a three-way partnership.
It saw them taking over a farm of 130 British Friesian cows for an all year round milking platform and since that time the numbers have more than doubled, as David goes on to explain in this feature.
Both brothers spent time on kiwi dairy farms in New Zealand before returning home in ’96 and for David the experience was one that he’ll never forget.
The herd at Hylands is now made up of a Holstein-Kiwi cross breed, with the decision having been taken to introduce New Zealand genetics in order to have lower EBIs than the top Irish bulls available through Gene Ireland.
Kiwi genetics have been used on the herd at Hylands for 12 years now, as David went on to give us some detail on the business.
“My father Frank Hyland started milking cows back in the late 60’s,” he outlined.
“So basically, my brother Paul and I were born into the business. We’ve been farming all of our lives, in different parts of the world on some occasions, and now we’re running the family farm here and we’ve two employed with us full-time.”
Expansion of the business to the present time has seen herd numbers swell up to 400, with a second milking unit having had to be put in in order to keep up with demand.
All of the milk produced at the Hyland farm goes to one mega company and there’s no prizes for guessing which one.
“We milk 400 cows, predominantly for spring milk, and we produce milk 12 months of the year here and all of it goes to Glanbia,” said David.
“Since ‘Day One’ we’ve been working with Glanbia, even since before they were Glanbia – in the days of Avonmore Milk and all that.”
So how’s business right now?
Given the current state of milk prices, it’s no surprise to see the Hylands facing some challenges in their chosen industry.
However, coming through the tough times has become somewhat of a family trait down through the decades and David sees the positive side of things, as well as the negative.
“Business right now is hard to describe, to be honest,” he stated. “It’s okay and it’s not okay, if you know what I mean. It has been a reasonably good weather period for growing grass but milk prices have been very poor, as everyone knows.”
Over the past couple of years, production at Hylands averaged 430kg milk solids per cow from a predominantly crossbred herd at a whole farm stocking rate of 2.8 LU/ha (3.2 LU/ha on the milking platforms).
Currently, the Hylands continue in winter milk feeling that it has served them well as a tool to retain cows in the herd while expanding.
After reseeding most of the milking platforms over the past 12 years, an average of 16 t DM/ha grew there last year, with approximately 800 kg meal fed per cow.
David also gave us a breakdown on the numbers when it comes to the acres that they’re operating on in Bordwell.
“We’re farming 118 hectors on our milking block and our silage block would be around 215 acres,” he stated.
“The herd here is a Holstein-Kiwi cross breed and those acres for silage are supplying our young stock. We also rent a bit for silage which we mow ourselves.
“We’ve a 10-foot Kroner Mower, a Massey Ferguson tractor, JCB loader, slurry tanker and fertiliser, along with a bit of other machinery.”
In the past, David has described the Kiwi as “a good, hardy cow that just gets on with it” and still goes with that assessment.
He also estimates that they’ve spent €2,600 per cow for every extra cow that they added to their system down through the years, so the expansion has certainly been a costly one.
Couple this with the fact that long hours are required, with one of their full-time employees employed to carry out 11 milkings each and every week, and one might wonder of it’s all worth it.
2014 saw the Hylands hitting 430kg of milk solids from their herd and some 12 months later they were right up there at close to 470kg per cow, and when you take that into consideration it does seem to be worth the slog.
For David and Paul Hyland they know nothing else, having been born into a business that they’ve both come to love while managing to keep it family, with their mother still very much part of the day-to-day running of the company which her husband started.
“I started farming full-time in 1995 and prior to that I’d have taken a course in agri, so you could say that I was very keen on working in this industry,” said David.
“My brother is farming longer than I am, maybe since 1990 when he started with my father.”
He concluded: “We’re second generation farmers. We were both born into it here and we love it.”
Hyland Dairy
Ballacoola
Co. Laois
Taken from Irish Tractor & Agri magazine Vol 4 No 7, September 2016
