My Farming Week: Morty O’Sullivan, Dunshaughlin, Co Meath

I farm: “70ha with my wife Lorraine and our four kids Eoin, Cormac, Aoife and Dáire and they all give a hand.”

Milking platform: “The milking platform consists of 32ha and the balance is outblocks kept for silage and heifer rearing. We milk 128 cows, mainly Friesians that are high EBI and we have a few crossbreeds too. We rear our own replacements.”

This week: “We were tight on grass all year. This week, we are putting silage in the diet feeder but hopefully this will only last a week or so. It’s the first time we’ve had to feed silage all year. We are in the process of putting up a new handling unit on one of the outfarms with a crush and gates.”

Milk prices: “Prices are going in the right direction. We supply milk to Lakeland Dairies. Cows are milking well; they are roughly doing 19 litres at about 4.60% fat and 3.77% protein. The high input costs are still eroding the prices.”

Fodder: “Grass growth is well behind all year, because of the late spring. The biggest challenge is trying to get enough fodder. We have done a fodder budget with our Teagasc adviser so we should be OK for the winter. We held up about 20ac for the third cut which should get us across the line.”

Weather: “We have been in a drought situation for the last three weeks, the rain over the weekend before last was a major help. It has greened up the grass and it has started to grow. Growth rates were down to about 30kg DM/ha last week and the week before but you can see it picking up to around 50kg DM/ha now.”

Angus competition: “Eoin, who has just done his Leaving Cert, won the 2024 Angus beef competition and the final was held in Croke Park in March. He bought a welder with the winnings. He is very good at welding and has a flare for it. He uses the welder for different projects on the farm and it has come in handy.”