UCD Lyons Dairy Calf Education and Research Facility: Development Completed.
The UCD Lyons Dairy Calf Education and Research Facility has been built to provide a state-of-the-art platform for high-quality education and research on dairy calf health, welfare, and development. Fully completed, the facility will be fully operational in Spring 2025, with the arrival of the first dairy calves. This world-class resource is designed to address critical challenges in dairy calf rearing and support the sustainability of the Irish dairy and beef sectors.
The facility has the capacity to rear 180 calves from birth up to five months of age, covering early life, pre-weaning, and post-weaning production stages. Designed using the best national and international knowledge in calf housing, it incorporates state-of-the-art infrastructure and precision agriculture technologies. These advancements allow researchers to continuously monitor and assess calf growth, feed intake, efficiency, health, welfare, behavior, and overall performance.
The development of the facility is thanks to a consortium of industry partners on Dairy-Calf education and research, ABP, Dairy Research Ireland, FBD Trust, JFC, MSD and Ornua. Our partners demonstrate best practices and support a high-quality research program on dairy calves helping to boost our national research capacity and expand educational and outreach activities in dairy calf-rearing.
The research program will focus on key areas such as calf health, welfare, behavior, dairy heifer replacement strategies, dairy male calf management, and dairy calf-to-beef production systems. Uniquely, this facility is fully integrated into the existing whole-farm research systems at UCD Lyons Farm, enabling researchers to measure the long-term impacts of early-life interventions on animal productivity, farm profitability, and environmental sustainability.
By demonstrating best practices in calf rearing and applying cutting-edge technologies, this facility highlights UCD’s commitment to advancing agricultural research and education. The UCD Lyons Dairy Calf Education and Research Facility will play a critical role in ensuring the future success of Irish dairy and beef production while addressing current challenges with innovative solutions.