My Farming Week: Niamh Keane, Killegar, Enniskerry, Co Wicklow

I farm: “With my brother William and his girlfriend Chloe, on the Wicklow-Dublin border. We own 50ac of the farm and rent 80 to 100ac, some of it bordering our farm but all of it within 10 minutes of us.”

Family farm: “William took over the farm from my grandfather Richard Reddin, who passed away four years ago. My mother was reared on the farm but wasn’t interested in farming herself so William took it on bit by bit when he finished college. We work well together. William is the main farmer but it’s a joint operation.”

Part-time farming: “I’m in my final year in UCD, William works full-time as an agronomist with Grassland Agro and Chloe teaches in the local primary school.”

Sucklers: “We keep 40 suckler cows, mainly Limousin crosses. We keep a Charolais stock bull and use AI on the heifers, usually a Limousin with a focus on easy calving.”

Sheep: “We have 250 Cheviot-Suffolk ewes. We run five rams with them – three Charollais as the terminal sires and then a Suffolk and Belclare too. The first batch of 40 will lamb down in late February and the rest at the end of March.”

Dairy-cross calves: “This year we bought in 30 dairy-beef cross heifer calves, mainly Limousin crosses and few Blue crosses. We buy them in at three or four weeks old, bucket rear them on milk powder and then out-winter them on redstart or kale. We sell them as bulling heifers around 16 months but we will keep the best of them as replacements for ourselves.”

Lockdown lectures: “I’m in fourth year, studying animal and crop production in UCD. It’s all remote lectures except for practicals at Lyons farm. This year is not comparable to any other year.”

Work experience: “I worked with Future Pigs, a 3,000-sow unit in Kildare before I went to New Zealand in June to work on a 1,300-cow dairy farm for five months. After isolating when I came home in June I worked at Teagasc Oakpark on crop variety trials.”

Quotable quote: “I feel bad for the first years. They are missing out on not going to the common room and meeting people. At least I had my friends made.”