Agriland Visited Shane and Kate’s farm Fitzgerald in Portlaw, County Waterford Let’s see how the award-winning herd balances sustainability and production.
The couple, who milk 200 Holstein cows, live by the motto “Leave the farm better than you got it.”
This has led Shane and Kate to incorporate a range of sustainable practices without compromising production.
Shane began farming full-time alongside his father John in 2016, and Kate was quickly integrated into the farm system a few years later after meeting Shane.
The herd produced an average of 530 kg of milk solids (MS) in 2025.
The farm raises its own calves until they are one year old, then they are shipped as youngsters to be contract-bred and returned as virgin calves.
breeding
The Fitzgeralds’ breeding season begins in April, with select cows introduced to long-gestation beef bulls via artificial insemination (AI).
Dairy farming begins the following week, with a shorter gestation period allowing the farm to begin calving in late January and maintain a compact calving season.
When breeding, the farm focuses on habits – milk solids, fertility, and health traits.
However, they began crossbreeding in an attempt to reduce the physical size of animals, and improve efficiency by using less feed. Shane believes a 520kg cow producing 520kg of milk solids is a good target.
To achieve this, sexed semen is used on the farm, with cows between their second and sixth lactations being hand-selected for that hay.
Shane feels that first lactation cows are under a little more stress and don’t handle sex semen as well as older, more robust animals in the herd.
Breeding takes place on the farm for 12 weeks, and the Fitzgeralds aim for an emptying rate of less than 10%.
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The family farm places a strong emphasis on good grassland management, with more than 40 grass measurements taken throughout the year.
Kate walks the farm at least once a week, if not every five days, using a grass hopper, GPS mapping each paddock and automatically uploading it to Pasturebase from those walks.
This allows the farm to make informed decisions, ensuring cows enter pasture with pre-grazing yields of up to 1400kg DM/ha, ultimately enhancing milk solids.
The grass walks also highlight under-performing pastures, which will then be nominated for part of the annual reseeding programme, where 10% of the farm is reseeded on an annual basis.
The farm has placed significant emphasis on grazing infrastructure over the past years, with quality roads, multiple access points and adequate water basins.
This eventually led to the family farm turning the cows out in March. However, the couple also praised the multi-species, saying the deep roots had improved soil structure and drainage on the farm.
With up to 20% of the farm in multiple varieties at one stage, and incorporating clover into each seed, the family has been able to reduce chemical nitrogen from 250kg/ha to 160kg/ha in recent years.
The cows now graze for 24 hours, with rotation every 17-18 days or so.
Sustainability
Kate said Agriland They are very concerned with the biodiversity on the farm, with a number of practices in place.
They planted new hedges this year, and hedgerows were planted on another section of the farm three years ago.
The farm has owl boxes and a tree-planted pasture, as well as an on-site lake.
They have fenced the farm in such a way as to leave 3/4m buffer zones from water courses and edges.
They don’t use any pesticides on the farm, and only spread the slurry using low-emission slurry spreading techniques like drip tape.
This allowed them to maximize the amount of their farmland without going too extreme and compromising milk production or grasslands.
However, the couple pointed out that sustainability does not just mean biodiversity. They believe in three pillars:
- Economics – farm profitability;
- Environment – the above practices;
- Work – An attractive workplace and work-life balance.
The farm takes pride in the labor side of things, saying it aims to create an environment where people enjoy working.
Shane believes it’s no good having a profitable, high-producing herd if he can’t get away from the farm and enjoy time with friends and family as well.
Award winning farm
The farm recently won the Terlan Farm Ambassador Award, before being named Terlan’s Milk Supplier of the Year for 2026.
Kate said it was an emotional day to be there with the whole family, but she also stressed that they don’t do all the work they do to win prizes.
But at the same time I agreed that it’s always nice to get that appreciation.
According to Shin, it is great to highlight the positive aspects of agriculture, especially because of some of the negatives that have recently emerged in the industry due to various protests.
“We take great pride in what we do and are proud to be Irish dairy farmers,” he said.
“It’s nice for us to showcase that, we always say we just want to leave the farm a better place than we got it, and that’s the legacy we want to leave behind.”
