{"id":10824,"date":"2020-10-20T13:55:48","date_gmt":"2020-10-20T13:55:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/test.herdwatch.com\/case-studies\/farm-smart-technology-driving-efficiency-on-a-suckler-to-dairy-conversion\/"},"modified":"2026-04-14T15:48:40","modified_gmt":"2026-04-14T15:48:40","slug":"farm-smart-technology-driving-efficiency-on-a-suckler-to-dairy-conversion","status":"publish","type":"case-studies","link":"https:\/\/herdwatch.com\/en-ie\/case-studies\/farm-smart-technology-driving-efficiency-on-a-suckler-to-dairy-conversion\/","title":{"rendered":"Farm Smart: Technology driving efficiency on a suckler to dairy conversion"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"hw-case-study\">\n  <style>\n    .hw-case-study {\n      --hw-blue: #007dbf;\n      --hw-green: #b5c428;\n      --hw-navy: #001738;\n      --hw-card: #ffffff;\n      --hw-text: #1f2d2a;\n      --hw-border: #e3e9e6;\n      --hw-quote-bg: #f7faea;\n\n      font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, \"Segoe UI\", 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<\/style>\n\n  <div class=\"hw-wrap\">\n\n    <!-- Hero -->\n    <div class=\"hw-hero\">\n      <div class=\"hw-hero-inner\">\n        <div class=\"hw-kicker\">Farmer Case Study<\/div>\n        <p class=\"hw-subhead\">\n          Tipperary dairy farmer <strong>John Fennelly<\/strong> switched from\n          sucklers to dairying in 2014 \u2014 and has grown from 90 cows in year one\n          to 170 milking cows today, using Herdwatch to manage breeding,\n          compliance, and records along the way.\n        <\/p>\n        <div class=\"hw-meta\">\n          <span class=\"hw-pill\">Ballingarry, Co. Tipperary<\/span>\n          <span class=\"hw-pill\">170 Milking Cows<\/span>\n          <span class=\"hw-pill\">New Dairy Entrant 2014<\/span>\n          <span class=\"hw-pill\">Glanbia Supplier<\/span>\n        <\/div>\n      <\/div>\n    <\/div>\n\n    <!-- Content -->\n    <div class=\"hw-content\">\n\n      <p>\n        John Fennelly and his wife Ciara farm on the Tipperary and Kilkenny\n        border in Ballingarry, Co. Tipperary. Up until 2014, John was running\n        a suckler enterprise alongside a hedge-cutting and slurry contracting\n        business \u2014 working mostly off-farm. That all changed when his father\n        retired and his local Teagasc advisor encouraged him to consider dairying.\n      <\/p>\n\n      <p>\n        John farms <strong>155 acres of owned land<\/strong> and leases a further\n        60 acres of adjoining ground. Since starting with 90 animals in 2015,\n        he has grown his dairy herd steadily. Today, he milks\n        <strong>170 cows<\/strong> and produces <strong>520kg of milk solids\n        per cow<\/strong> on around 750kg of concentrate \u2014 a strong performance\n        from a grass-based system.\n      <\/p>\n\n      <div class=\"hw-stat-grid\">\n        <div class=\"hw-stat-card\">\n          <div class=\"hw-stat-number\">170<\/div>\n          <div class=\"hw-stat-label\">Milking cows today<\/div>\n        <\/div>\n        <div class=\"hw-stat-card\">\n          <div class=\"hw-stat-number\">90<\/div>\n          <div class=\"hw-stat-label\">Cows in year one<\/div>\n        <\/div>\n        <div class=\"hw-stat-card\">\n          <div class=\"hw-stat-number\">8%<\/div>\n          <div class=\"hw-stat-label\">Empty rate achieved<\/div>\n        <\/div>\n        <div class=\"hw-stat-card\">\n          <div class=\"hw-stat-number\">520kg<\/div>\n          <div class=\"hw-stat-label\">Milk solids per cow<\/div>\n        <\/div>\n      <\/div>\n\n      <div class=\"hw-image\">\n        <img decoding=\"async\"\n          src=\"https:\/\/cdn.agriland.ie\/uploads\/2020\/10\/Image-source-Herdwatch-9.jpg\"\n          alt=\"John Fennelly dairy farmer Ballingarry Co Tipperary new dairy entrant Herdwatch\"\n        \/>\n        <div class=\"hw-caption\">John Fennelly on his dairy farm in Ballingarry, Co. Tipperary.<\/div>\n      <\/div>\n\n      <h2>Building the herd from the ground up \u2014 stock, genetics, and grass<\/h2>\n\n      <p>\n        When John made the switch to dairying, his first priority was getting\n        the stock right. He purchased mainly\n        <strong>high-EBI Jersey-Friesian crossbred heifers<\/strong> \u2014 chosen\n        specifically for their suitability to a lower-cost, grass-based system.\n        His two primary goals were clear from the start: grow and utilise as\n        much grass as possible, and maintain a strong six-week calving interval.\n      <\/p>\n\n      <div class=\"hw-quote\">\n        &#8220;The first port of call was stock. I tried to get this as right as I could because it was going to be the building block of the whole lot. As a new entrant, we wanted to produce as high a solid as we could off grass and keep concentrates to a minimum.&#8221;\n      <\/div>\n\n      <p>\n        To support that grass-based approach, John drained 80 acres and reseeded\n        the whole farm over the first ten years. Soil fertility was the main\n        focus in the early years. As a result, the farm is now growing\n        16 tonnes of grass per year and is approaching capacity at its current\n        stocking rate.\n      <\/p>\n\n      <h2>Managing breeding with Herdwatch \u2014 and cutting the empty rate to 8%<\/h2>\n\n      <div class=\"hw-inline\">\n        <div class=\"hw-inline-text\">\n          <p>\n            Breeding management is central to John&#8217;s system. He records all\n            serves directly in Herdwatch, which then alerts him when cows are\n            due to repeat and when they are due to calve. Before Herdwatch, a\n            lost AI slip meant guesswork. Now, all the information is in his\n            hand at all times.\n          <\/p>\n          <p>\n            Furthermore, Herdwatch syncs breeding data directly with the\n            <strong>Irish Cattle Breeding Federation (ICBF)<\/strong>. In 2019,\n            John achieved a 9% empty rate. The following year, he improved that\n            further to <strong>8%<\/strong> \u2014 a result he attributes directly to\n            better data and timely reminders from the app.\n          <\/p>\n        <\/div>\n        <img decoding=\"async\"\n          src=\"https:\/\/cdn.agriland.ie\/uploads\/2020\/10\/Image-source-Herdwatch-2.jpg\"\n          alt=\"John Fennelly dairy herd Tipperary Herdwatch breeding records ICBF\"\n        \/>\n      <\/div>\n\n      <div class=\"hw-quote\">\n        &#8220;Before Herdwatch, if I lost an AI slip it was a guessing game as to when that cow was due to calve. Now it&#8217;s all in Herdwatch \u2014 I can quickly check which cows are due next. Any information I need is in my hand at all times, and I save money on AI straws as well as getting handy reminders on my phone when cows are due to calf.&#8221;\n      <\/div>\n\n      <h2>Replacing the diary, the blue book, and the scraps of paper<\/h2>\n\n      <p>\n        Before Herdwatch, John used a written diary to record all Bord Bia\n        paperwork \u2014 medicines, feeds, and treatments. It worked after a fashion,\n        but it was time-consuming and inconsistent. Any time spent on paperwork,\n        he felt, was time he could be doing something more productive on the farm.\n      <\/p>\n\n      <div class=\"hw-quote\">\n        &#8220;Since I started using Herdwatch, I record all purchases and treatments on the app quickly and easily. Registering calves takes less than 30 seconds on the spot as they are born \u2014 and the card is then sent out in the post a few days after. No need to use the laptop that night. This frees up a lot of valuable time during the busy calving period.&#8221;\n      <\/div>\n\n      <p>John now uses Herdwatch daily across the full range of farm tasks:<\/p>\n\n      <ul class=\"hw-feature-list\">\n        <li>Breeding records \u2014 serves, heat observations, repeat alerts, and calving reminders<\/li>\n        <li>ICBF sync \u2014 breeding data transferred automatically<\/li>\n        <li>Calf registration \u2014 completed in under 30 seconds at the calf&#8217;s side<\/li>\n        <li>Medicine purchases and treatment records \u2014 logged as they happen<\/li>\n        <li>Bord Bia inspection reports \u2014 generated instantly from the app<\/li>\n      <\/ul>\n\n      <h2>Bord Bia inspection \u2014 done in seconds, not hours<\/h2>\n\n      <p>\n        John&#8217;s Bord Bia inspection arrived during a particularly busy silage\n        week. Previously, that combination would have meant hours of searching\n        through diaries and scraps of paper to piece together 18 months of\n        records. Instead, everything was already in the app \u2014 ready to go.\n      <\/p>\n\n      <div class=\"hw-quote\">\n        &#8220;Instead of spending hours transcribing from different diaries and bits of paper, it was all there in Herdwatch on my phone. It was just a matter of running the reports in seconds and handing them to the inspector. Having all the medicine purchases and treatments recorded meant I wasn&#8217;t trying to go back over the past 18 months looking for scraps of paper \u2014 it was all there at the touch of a button.&#8221;\n      <\/div>\n\n      <div class=\"hw-quote\">\n        &#8220;For me, the biggest benefit of this app is the ease of use and the time it saves. When I get home in the evening, it has eliminated hours of sitting in front of a laptop.&#8221;\n      <\/div>\n\n      <p>\n        John also found the customer care team helpful when he was getting\n        started. As a first-time app user, he rang with a few queries in the\n        early weeks. In his experience, they always had the answer he needed.\n      <\/p>\n\n      <p>\n        You can read more real farmer stories on our\n        <a href=\"\/case-studies\/\">farm case studies page<\/a>.\n      <\/p>\n\n      <!-- CTA -->\n      <div class=\"hw-cta\">\n        <h3>From 90 cows to 170 \u2014 with better records every step of the way<\/h3>\n\n        <p class=\"hw-cta-main\">\n          For John, Herdwatch has been part of building a\n          <strong>high-performance dairy farm from scratch<\/strong> \u2014 making\n          breeding management more accurate, compliance effortless, and\n          paperwork something he no longer dreads.\n        <\/p>\n\n        <p class=\"hw-cta-quote\">\n          &#8220;Since I started using Herdwatch, I&#8217;ve recommended it to a lot of farmers \u2014 I really think it will benefit farmers going forward and help grow their businesses.&#8221;\n        <\/p>\n\n        <p class=\"hw-cta-join\">\n          Join John and over 22,000 farmers using Herdwatch to simplify\n          farm records, improve breeding performance, and make every\n          inspection stress-free.\n        <\/p>\n\n        <div class=\"hw-cta-buttons\">\n          <a class=\"hw-btn hw-btn-primary\" href=\"https:\/\/herdwatchng.app.link\/MeKoA6VaqKb\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\n            Download the Free App\n          <\/a>\n          <a class=\"hw-btn hw-btn-secondary\" href=\"https:\/\/www.herdwatch.com\/en-ie\/price\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\n            Request an Instant Quote\n          <\/a>\n        <\/div>\n      <\/div>\n\n    <\/div>\n  <\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>John currently farms 155ac of owned land and leases 60ac of adjoining land. 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