Balancing Family Life, Entrepreneurship & Farming with Automation
Jonathan Owens
On this Killavullen farm, tradition meets technology on a family-run dairy farm, milking 60 cows. The farm is operated by Jonathan Owens alongside his wife, Niamh and Jonathan’s parents, Gerard and Deirdre. Jonathan and Niamh also welcomed their baby daughter Alva, last September.
The Owens farm is also home to Greenfield Yogurts, a premium line of natural yogurt made from milk produced on-site.
The Lely A5 robotic milking system, was installed in 2023, and a Lely Discovery Collector 120—tools that allow flexibility in the working day and precision in herd health. Whether Jonathan is teaching, delivering yogurt or tending to his herd, the system ensures consistency, welfare, and efficiency.
Since installing the Astronaut A5, "it's been a game changer" for the Owens family. "Flexibility is the big thing, you're not tied to morning and evening milking. It's still a busy farm but if there's anything on at 5 o clock, it dosen't matter"
"Every night I can check the app on my phone to see if any cows need attention, has the health report flagged any, so I can set them to draft automatically when they come into the robot and I can treat them or even for AI we just set them to autodraft when heats are detected, so, I'm not running looking for and hunting in cows."
"What we find very useful with the robot and treating mastitis , is setting that cow to milk more—up to 6 times—and draw the milk out, which we find cures it up quicker."
Jonathan and his dad previously would have spent up to 4.5 hours a day milking in the parlour, which is now reduced to 0.75 hours per day.
“Milk quality testing on the robot is excellent, every milking it will do a cell count and conductivity per quarter, which I can then individually treat or check. For us it has meant being able to detect mastitis a day or two before it's visible and nip that in the bud."
