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Maeve O’Keeffe from Conna, pictured with her Mum Linda and Dad Eddie at the Tullamore Show in August. Their invention was runner up in the NPA/Toplink Innovation Awards at the National Ploughing Championships last week, narrowly missing out on the top award.

It was worth young Conna woman Maeve O'Keeffe's while going to the National Ploughing Championships in Co Laois last week. She took a stand at the popular event to showcase and demonstrate her and her Dad's new invention - a turnover hoof inspection crate, 'Inspect 4'.

Maeve saw such a crate for hoof paring of cattle in operation when she worked on a dairy farm in New Zealand as part of her agricultural college degree course with WIT. When she returned home, the 23-year-old told her Dad Eddie about it. Eddie has his own agri services business, Ballynoe Agri Services, doing steel and fabrication work in addition to working the family farm. Between them, they came up with the turnover hoof paring crate which operates by hydraulics and allows all four hooves to be inspected at once.

Maeve approached her local LEADER group, Avondhu Blackwater Partnership to discuss their invention. She and her father had already built a prototype and confirmed that it worked by using the device on their own farm. However, to bring Inspect 4 into production, they needed to make the product marketable and efficient.

They presented their business plan and had their application for a LEADER grant approved. Maeve and her Dad won the prestigious Innovation award for her Inspect 4 crate at the Tullamore Show in August.

Inspect 4 is now in production, testament to the innovation, hard work and dedication of Maeve and her family. 

"Avondhu Blackwater Partnership is delighted to have been in a position to provide support for this product at a critical stage in its development, and to support Ballynoe Agri Services as they continue to survive and thrive like many small businesses in the SME and wider rural economy," said Valerie Murphy, CEO of ABP, this week.

The mobile unit for the professional user is unique in that it is self propelled allowing the operator to drive it into place on the farmyard, including manoeuvring it into narrow passageways and on slats. The fixed unit is ideally situated near the milking parlour so that any cow seen to be lame can be drafted out and seen to straight away.

Maeve reports plenty of interest from those attending the Ploughing Championships last week. They had one of the units working and also showed a video of the crate in operation so people could see the benefits. Maeve explained to them how it gives the farmer more control over his or her herd health. It makes it easier, safer and quicker for farmers to pare their own herds, she pointed out.

Maeve also got some valuable national media coverage from her attendance at the Ploughing Championships, being interviewed by veteran broadcaster Sean O'Rourke for his new morning radio programme on RTE 1. And she was named runner up in the NPA/Toplink Innovation Awards, just missing out on the prize which went to another north Cork farmer - Neilus Murphy of nearby Coolagown - who won for his 'GrazeMate Drover' fence opening device.

A video demonstration of the Inspect 4 Hoof Paring Crate can be viewed on www.ballynoeagriservices.com and Ballynoe Agri Services can be contacted on 058-59366 or 087-9539581.

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