I farm: “100ac owned and 55ac rented with my son, Michael John. I’ve 45 sucklers at the moment, mostly Limousin and Charolais with a few bought-in Angus. We finish everything to beef.”

Sucklers: “I used to keep more sucklers but we’re down a bit now. We calve them in April and May, a bit unusual for suckler farming. They’re calved in the sheds and let out straight away. We’ve a Limousin stock bull and we use a bit of AI for Charolais breeding. The calves are thriving well but it’s been a difficult year in a wet area like Leitrim. We dosed the calves four weeks ago to keep them right.”

Slurry: “The fertiliser is all over and done with. Slurry is the problem now. We’re agitating it this evening and we’ll be spreading it over the next few days. We spread with the tanker and we get a chap in to agitate. We still have plenty of grass but the substance just wasn’t in it. The aftergrass was poor; it just didn’t come as expected.”

TB: “It’s been a difficult time since we’d a breakdown in February. TB was picked up in the factory in cattle we killed. I’m testing next week and it’ll be then before we know what the situation is. We’d one cow [down] 12 months ago and I’d two clear tests since.”

Finishing: “The heifers are killed under 24 months. We’ve cut back on bulls and do mostly bullocks now, generally under 30 months. We supply Dawn Meats Ballyhaunis. We put in 10 cattle a fortnight ago and we’re feeding them at the moment, getting 5kg per day. We’ll put more forward cattle in shortly. They’ll have to be killed by the end of December.”

ACRES: “We’re in the scheme. With the acreage we have, I didn’t tie up any of these meadows. I was in the schemes all along, for the income.”

Young farmers: “Michael John is farming with me and he has two boys and two girls. I think there’s a future in good continental cattle because there’ll be less of them around.”