I farm: “70 acres of good, dry land, with another 30 rented at 600ft above sea level.”

Family: “I farm with my wife, Sarah. We have entered into a partnership with our son, who is in full-time employment.”

Ewes: “We reduced our flock from 125 to 65 last November. The ewes are all pedigree Suffolk and Charollais. My father was in pedigree Suffolks before I was born. He ran a flock of 20 or 25 ewes.”

Breeding: “We have been using laparoscopic AI for the last number of years. We bought two new rams this year, one Charollais and one Suffolk, which we use for AI.”

Lambing: “We started lambing on 3 January. The first repeats have lambed and we have nine ewes left to lamb next week. We had an average of 1.65 lambs/ewe so far. The singles and doubles go outside from two days of age onwards. We foster as many of the triplet lambs as we can, and the surplus lambs are sold to pedigree breeders.”

Shows: “We go to as many of the local shows as possible. We went to the national championships last year, which is always brilliant as you get to see all the different breeds. It’s a nice day out, you get to meet other breeders and have a laugh.”

Calves: “We buy 30 or 40 calves every year. Previously we bought all heifer calves, which we finished off grass. Now we are moving more towards bullocks, which we finish around April.”

Fodder: “We grow 40 acres of fodder rape every year, which we graze the cattle and ewes on. The cattle are currently going out onto the fodder rape in the morning and are brought in at night. They are fed fodder beet, meal and straw as well. We also grow 50 acres of barley and 10 acres of beans.”

Quotable quote: “Unless sheep farmers can get €100/lamb they are not going to stay in this enterprise. We’ve seen a lot of our customers for pedigree rams cutting back or getting out of sheep.”