David Cullinane and his family decided to install a 20 unit Dairymaster Swiftflo Swingover Milking system on their farm in Rearour, Ballinahassig in County Cork. The building is an existing building and was done by the Cullinane's. The main reason for investing in a new parlour was to speed up the milking process, in the old plant it took over 2 hours to milk their 90 cows whereas now it takes approx 50 mins to milk the same number of cows. The plant was installed in June 2008 and already the Cullinane family are seeing major improvements because of the investment.

David farms with his father Noel and the herd are made up of Holstein Friesian cows with the name of the herd "Rear Hill Holstein Friesian". The Cullinane family farm on approx 160 acres of land. The dairy business was established a number of generations ago by the family. The herd is milked twice a day at 7am and again at 5.30pm with one person managing milking and then both David and his father Noel managing the farm.  

The Cullinane's reasons for choosing Dairymaster for the plant were as per David "Dairymaster are the best - the performance of the equipment is fantastic and Dairymaster have the best pulsation system". The Dairymaster milking system allows high B phase milking vacuum and low D phase rest vacuum. The milking system has been designed based on scientific data in order to give better milk yield performance. With the Dairymaster system, teat end vacuum profile is more natural as it closely mimics the way a calf suckles. The Dairymaster milking system has the lowest levels of liner slips, gives shortest milking time and promotes good teat end condition.

On the plant David & Noel decided to go for Milk Meters as they find them to be a big advantage over jars in that they are neat & tidy and are extremely accurate. They went with Automatic Cluster Removers, they are very happy having gone with the ACR's as he comments "it's like having a second person milking, they are also very accurate - you can leave the parlour happy in the knowledge that none of the cows have been under or over milked. The ACR's are also very consistent and you don't have to worry if there is a replacement milker brought in - the cows will still be milked the same way".  He also decided on a diversion line, the reasoning for this was to eliminate the need to be hauling around buckets of milk.

Dairymaster automatic feeders are "very easy to use, they are also extremely accurate and you can control the amount of feed for each cow". The Cullinane's also have Dairymaster Automatic Scrapers installed on their farm with over 7 years and they find them very good.

The Dairymaster Jetstream was installed on the parlour - the Jetstream is a very efficient method of washing milk lines. The Jetstream accumulates a quantity of water and discharges a bullet of water at speeds of up to 12 m/s into the milk line. This high-speed jet cleans out the milk lines in a highly efficient manner with the least quantity of wash water. After milking purified air is pushed through the system, completely emptying the delivery line, from the milk pump right through to the milk tank.

Food quality air purge is a device that helps reduce the amount of milk left in lines at the end of milking, when used in conjunction with the AutoWasher it may also reduce the amount of residual water in the system between wash cycles. There could be as much as 20-25 litres of milk in the line depending on the distance between the receiver and the tank. Any water in the line before milking is cleared out in the same way.

The Culinane family also went with the Dairymaster AutoWasher, which David comments is great in that "I can go away feeding calves and come back and the parlour is clean" the Dairymaster AutoWasher ensures that consistent plant cleaning can be achieved day after day. The AutoWasher takes over the work of washing the milking plant, which can typically reduce labour by up to an hour per day. When an automatic washer is installed it functions as a complete control console for the milking machine. It has the ability to start and stop the milking plant as required. The AutoWasher fully integrates and controls the parlour washing cycle. It communicates with equipment in the parlour including milk meters and ACR's to ensure the best cleaning sequence. An optional water recovery unit may be fitted which allows recycling some wash water for other operations on the farm.

The AutoWasher allows for different wash cycles to be selected at the push of a button. Wash sequences are fully programmable and can be easily user adjusted. A pre-milking rinse can be programmed to commence automatically. With an operator's time becoming more valuable every day, the time saving can be extremely beneficial and optimisation of chemical usage and water utilisation have obvious financial advantages.

The average herd yield is 7,400 litres which gives the Cullinane's a total annual output of 614,000 litres of milk. This David can see increasing through additional cows however like many farmers in Ireland land is the limiting factor. The diet of cows on the farm is made up of grass, silage & top up amounts of ration fed in the parlour.  

Dairygold Co-op is supplied with the milk and it is collected every 2nd day. The herd is spring calving and they sell the bull calves and keep the replacement heifer calves.

When dealing with Dairymaster David comments that from day one, he found "Dairymaster were very easy to deal with, there was no hassle, we got a lot of help with the plans for the parlour which was complicated and they tailor made a solution to cater for what our needs were. On top of that if there ever is a problem the service is fantastic - there is always someone at the end of a phone at any hour".