This article is from page 51 of the 2007-03-20 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 51 JPG
THE Farm Relief Services has this week announced a major addition to their service team in East Clare with the arrival of Dutch born hoof care operator Roland Dross.
Mr Dross, who now lives in Bod- yke, brings with him a state of the art hoof care crush with is believed to be the only one of its kind in Ireland.
Born in Holland, Dross perfected his trade in Denmark before return- ing to Ireland recently with his Irish wife and four children. He will most- ly cover the East Clare area.
Roland comes from a long line of dairy farmers in the Drenthe region of Holland, his father has a Holstein Friesian herd of 110 cows and a poul- try farm of around 14,000 chickens, so farming has always been a way of life for him.
After agricultural college, he traveled to Canada to broaden his knowledge and gain dairy manage- ment experience. He then travelled to New Zealand to round off his dairy experience before meeting his Irish wife in Holland in 1994.
In 1997 he moved to Denmark Where he bought a dairy farm of
70 Holstein Friesian cows and 120 acres. Over the next 9 years, he suc- cessfully managed, modernised and expanded the farm to 360 acres and a milking herd of 165 Jerseys.
He switched to a computerised feeding system using transponders on the herd and built a new dairy and free stall in 2002. He also carried out the entire hoof trimming on his herd, using his own crush and found this enjoyable and interesting and an area in which he would like to spe- cialise.
Late last year however, he sold the farm following a family decision to
return to Ireland and pursue a future in hoof care. The next three months were spent gaining intensive hoof trimming experience with a Dutch expert Gerwin Cnossen in Germany and Denmark.
Roland will now work for the Farm Relief Service and he will mainly be based in east Clare as well as in parts of Galway, Limerick and North Tip- oe Nae
To view a video of his unique cattle crush check out www.klovbeskaeren. dk/sider/main_video.htm or for more details contact Liam O’ Rourke, Farm Services Manager at 063 90666.