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Bees and cows as a business venture in Timoleague, West Cork
I began the week with an early morning call to a Charolais herd in Ballyheigue, Co Kerry. I got down there at first light. It was akin to coming up from the bed blankets to see the rolling waves of the Atlantic Ocean from both sides of the peninsula as I travelled up from Ballybunion.
This week was spent on call throughout the South of Ireland. A large number of calls entail small suckler herds with pedigree cows. Many of them have used embryo transfer to transfer genetics from their best cows. Farmers wait eagerly to know if the cows are in calf and secondly the sex of the calves.
Many calves are delivered by caesarean section following embryo transfer. This arises because the sires used are generally scored high on calving difficulty and the recipients are maiden heifers. However, I consistently find that the reproductive future of cows is destroyed following caesarean sections, This should not be the case.
On a far visit outside Roscrea, County Tipperary I met a beef farmer who produced both Charolais and Belgian Blue cattle using embryo transfer as tool. In the process of herd fertility management programme 15 cows were presented which had calves at foot following caesarean sections. In all of these cases there was no evidence of adhesions and 90% of the cows were cycling and fit for use as recipients again. These cows were Simmental Cross Friesian cows which produce a lot of milk for the calves at foot and are slow to put on weight post calving. These cows will make excellent recipients. I told the farmer to commend the veterinarian.
The highlight of my week was a visit to a dairy farm outside Timoleague. This farm has a business focused on both milk and honey production. Milk produced on the farm is supplied to Barryroe Co-Op. Grass growth is early in this part of Ireland. Cows are out by day. However, they are kept in by night as the farmer does not want the cows to loose excessive BCS. These cows have a genetic potential for 8,000 litres of milk. Spring calving cows with this type of genetic potential for milk production will loose excessive BCS.
The interesting part of this farm visit was the Bee Enterprise, which they had in place. They have 300 bee hives placed throughout West Cork. They harvest honey and sell it under the Molaga brand label.
Saint Molaga was the first Saint to bring honey to Ireland. He settled in Timoleague and beekeeping has been in the area ever since.
The production of honey as a business is also fraught with its own difficulties. The supply of honey to shops has to be on a year round basis. In order to meet the demand , honey has to be imported from Portugal. In the past they could catch 30 swarms annually but this has dropped to 10 swarms. The problem of viruses is one issue. This creates problems for fertility of the swarm. They are now considering the use of AI in bees to increase the number of swarms recovered.
Great ingenuity has been used on this farm to harvest the honey and pack same in jars for your breakfast table.
Regards
Dr.Dan and all the team @ www.cows365.com
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