I farm: “With my wife Julie, my son Brian and my daughter Teresa, who runs a cheese-making business on the farm that we supply with our milk. We farm about 73ha of grassland which is a mixture of both owned and rented land and 17ha of forestry.”

Cows: ”We have 90 cows at the moment as it suits my system. I had around 105 but I culled a bit harder this year. They’re mostly pedigree Holstein Friesian cows and they’re yielding 30l/day at the moment. We’re on 3.60kg fat and 3.48kg protein also. On average, they do about 7,700l or 7,800l per year.”

Calving: “We are completely spring calving and we supply Arrabawn in Nenagh. We’d start to calve down in the first few days of February and we’d be wrapped up around the end of April.”

Breeding: “We used all sexed semen on the heifers this year. I do all the AI myself and I’m delighted with the way it went. I usually AI for five weeks and then mop up with a Limousin and Hereford bull.”

Grass:”We’re OK for grass at the moment but things are still pretty dry. We’re supposed to get rain this weekend so hopefully that comes because we need it. This week, I actually put out a bale with the heifers and the calves.”

ACRES:”I have looked into it but I’d be very concerned about all the trees you have to sow. It seems to be an excessive amount.”

Milk price: “You’d have to be happy with the milk price this year. I’ve never seen it as high in my life. Costs in general are up this year, about 12c/l, but you’d have to say we are 20c/l ahead on price. It meant that we could do bits of building that needed to be done around the place.”