Farm Smart: Technology driving efficiency on a suckler to dairy conversion

John Fennelly and his wife Ciara farm on the Tipperary and Kilkenny border in Ballingarry, Co. Tipperary. Up until 2014, John was running a suckler enterprise alongside a hedge-cutting and slurry contracting business — working mostly off-farm. That all changed when his father retired and his local Teagasc advisor encouraged him to consider dairying.

John farms 155 acres of owned land and leases a further 60 acres of adjoining ground. Since starting with 90 animals in 2015, he has grown his dairy herd steadily. Today, he milks 170 cows and produces 520kg of milk solids per cow on around 750kg of concentrate — a strong performance from a grass-based system.

John Fennelly on his dairy farm in Ballingarry, Co. Tipperary.

Building the herd from the ground up — stock, genetics, and grass

When John made the switch to dairying, his first priority was getting the stock right. He purchased mainly high-EBI Jersey-Friesian crossbred heifers — chosen specifically for their suitability to a lower-cost, grass-based system. His two primary goals were clear from the start: grow and utilise as much grass as possible, and maintain a strong six-week calving interval.

To support that grass-based approach, John drained 80 acres and reseeded the whole farm over the first ten years. Soil fertility was the main focus in the early years. As a result, the farm is now growing 16 tonnes of grass per year and is approaching capacity at its current stocking rate.

Managing breeding with Herdwatch — and cutting the empty rate to 8%

Breeding management is central to John’s system. He records all serves directly in Herdwatch, which then alerts him when cows are due to repeat and when they are due to calve. Before Herdwatch, a lost AI slip meant guesswork. Now, all the information is in his hand at all times.

Furthermore, Herdwatch syncs breeding data directly with the Irish Cattle Breeding Federation (ICBF). In 2019, John achieved a 9% empty rate. The following year, he improved that further to 8% — a result he attributes directly to better data and timely reminders from the app.

Replacing the diary, the blue book, and the scraps of paper

Before Herdwatch, John used a written diary to record all Bord Bia paperwork — medicines, feeds, and treatments. It worked after a fashion, but it was time-consuming and inconsistent. Any time spent on paperwork, he felt, was time he could be doing something more productive on the farm.

John now uses Herdwatch daily across the full range of farm tasks:

• Breeding records — serves, heat observations, repeat alerts, and calving reminders
• ICBF sync — breeding data transferred automatically
• Calf registration — completed in under 30 seconds at the calf’s side
• Medicine purchases and treatment records — logged as they happen
• Bord Bia inspection reports — generated instantly from the app

Bord Bia inspection — done in seconds, not hours

John’s Bord Bia inspection arrived during a particularly busy silage week. Previously, that combination would have meant hours of searching through diaries and scraps of paper to piece together 18 months of records. Instead, everything was already in the app — ready to go.

John also found the customer care team helpful when he was getting started. As a first-time app user, he rang with a few queries in the early weeks. In his experience, they always had the answer he needed.

You can read more real farmer stories on our farm case studies page.