Final year project about preventative methods used to prevent the harmful disease, Cryptosporidium parvum in dairy calves wins Aisling Dairymaster Award 2018
Aisling Neville hails from Ballydaly, a townland just outside Tullamore in County Offaly. She previously studied in the Sacred Heart Secondary School, Tullamore, before receiving enough CAO points in order to pursue her studies in WIT.
Aisling was one of ten 4th year Agricultural Science students that were shortlisted for the Dairymaster Award. This award is given to two students from the group who give the best presentation on their final year project. Aisling was lucky enough to receive the award alongside classmate, Ellen Fitzpatrick. 9 students were shortlisted to present their projects to Dairymaster at a later date. On the 24 of May, 2 representatives of Dairymaster travelled to WIT to watch the 9 presentations and they chose 2 winners.
Project
Aisling’s final year project was about preventative methods used to prevent the harmful disease, Cryptosporidium parvum in dairy calves. The project was carried out over an 8 month period in which she monitored the growth rates of 4 groups of calves. The project used both autumn and spring-born calves, 40 calves in total. The study compared two different C. parvum preventative treatments, Halocur and Auranta.
Aisling was inspired to carry out this project as she has a keen interest in dairy farming, with calf rearing being her speciality. On her home farm, Aisling’s family milk 250 cows in a split calving system, of which she’s the chief calf rearer. Aisling was also the head calf rearer on an 800 cow farm in South West Victoria, Australia where she reared 400 calves on her 6-month work placement for 2nd semester of third year.
She is currently working on her family farm alongside her brother and parents as well as working part-time on a neighbouring farm milking 200 cows.
Aisling’s main goal is to own her own herd of commercial dairy cows by the time she’s thirty, with the establishment of her own farm business. She wishes to continue to excel in the dairy industry in future years.
Aisling has recently passed her final year exams and is set to graduate in November with a First Class Honours Degree in Agricultural Science.
Industry Sponsored Awards
The Department of Science at WIT held its Industry Sponsored Awards Ceremony 2018 which was sponsored by Sanofi, Society of Foresters, Eurofins, Dawn Meats, Comeragh Veterinary practice, Dairymaster and AIB.
Dairymaster “Dairymaster Student Award” 2018: The award is to recognise the achievements of BSc (Hons) in Agricultural Science degree students with the best final year project presentation. The two winners were Aishling Neville and Ellen Fitzpatrick.
The award helps students realise the relevance of their final year projects to a world beyond college. The bursary is very welcome in helping our students make the transition to the workplace following their studies. It also gives them an opportunity to excel and showcase their research to industry.
The awards were presented by Niall O`Hanlon and Pat Ryan from Dairymaster.
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