I farm: “Dairy cows on 275ac. I run that by myself with a bit of help from my parents. I also employ one full-time farm worker and I have a student from University College Cork in the spring.”

Cows: “There’s 220 milking cows and 45 calving heifers, with replacements all kept on the farm. We’ve been breeding Jersey crosses at home since the early 2000s so it’s all I’ve ever known. I’m getting about 480kg of milk solids out of them for the last two years; we’d be looking for more. I started with a lot of heifers back then but we have a mature herd now so getting above the 500kg mark is what we’re aiming for.”

Young farmers: “I think the landscape for young farmers in Ireland is very good; there’s lots of support out there. I did the Munster Technological University agriculture course, graduated in 2020 and then started leasing the farm. The first two years I didn’t leave the farm much, which was handy during COVID-19 [lockdown]. It’s running more smoothly now. We were approached to take on a UCC student when that course started and we’ve had one every year since.”

Grass: “We’ll stick with [protected urea] this year, we hope the issues last year were weather-related. I’ve about 70% of the farm in clover so we try to reduce our nitrogen as best we can. I spread about 150-170kg/ha and we’re growing about 14t of grass.”

This week: “There’s slurry going out and I’ve three heifers getting close to calving so there’s a good bit of maintenance to do.”

Breeding: “They were AI bred for nine weeks and then stock bulls for two weeks after that. We use a lot of Angus and some Wagyu straws. We have a man that tells us what Wagyu straws to use and then he buys them from us when they reach a certain weight. It takes the stress out of selling a few calves in the spring anyway.”