Farm Campaign

Judy O’Toole is a progressive female beef and sheep farmer from Kilmacanogue Co. Wicklow. Earlier this year Judy graduated from IADT with a Business Management degree. Judy also hopes to complete the Green Cert in the coming months. The Co. Wicklow holding is run primarily by her father Eoin along with help from Judy and her brother. The O’ Tooles run a beef operation which is currently home to 220 beef cattle. Calves are bought in during the winter months and reared on the holding for approx. 24 months before they are either sold at the local mart or sent to the factory.

Trust in Technology

The O’ Tooles saw a need to make a few changes on their farm in order to promote productivity and efficiency. It was a no brainer that these changes would yield to eventually introducing more and more technology on the farm.

‘Coming from a farming background, I now understand how much of an increase there is in farming technology in Ireland.’

Most recently the Co. Wicklow beef farm introduced automatic calf feeders to the holding. The time saving advantage from this has been extremely beneficial for the operation who generally rear calves in house til they are approx. 8 weeks old before moving out the field.

In hopes to make further improvements on the farm Judy suggested the family farm also get set up on Herdwatch. That was about a year and half ago and it’s been kinda vital ever since.

‘Before I decided to sign up and pay a yearly registration fee they gave me a thirty-day free trial.’