I milk: “104 cows on a 42 ha grazing platform. I rent another 22 ha for silage. Protein is currently at 3.51%, butterfat at 3.87% and SCC at 58. The cows are yielding almost 28 litres a day. The milking platform is in a long narrow strip along the main road and is very wet soil, we had 50mm of rain in the last week alone.”

This week: “I had to put the cows back in after the rain on Saturday last. It’s been an exceptional year this year, we had double the normal amount of rain over the last number of months. It has messed up the rotation completely, we’re now zero grazing and feeding the cows 6kg meal a day.”

Breeding: “Out of the 25 maiden heifers 16 have been AI’d and are out with the bull, the rest are housed with a vasectomised bull. 50 cows have been AI’d since the 1st May, all with easy calving, Holstein Friesian, high EBI bulls. I have only four crossbred Jerseys that were second calvers this year. They’ve worked out fine so far but I’m still on the fence about them.”

EBI: “I was always pushing for protein in the past but when EBI came in I started focusing on that. The heifers coming into the herd this year had a 200+ EBI. I’m a new entrant on the top 200 HerdPlus herds ranked on EBI for May 2014. I also won a regional EBI competition in the Muster/Connacht area a few years ago.”

Silage: “I’ve spread fertiliser and watery slurry on all the silage ground. I had 27 acres taken out to bale but it’s so wet now I might have to zero graze it. I plan to cut the silage in the second week in June as usual; at that point the manure will have been out eight weeks.”

Family: “My wife, Yvonne, and mother, Maura, help out on the farm. We’ve a son Cody (two) and another one due in July.”

Quotable Quote: “On heavy land it is important to have good infrastructure and to be flexible, I’m constantly looking up at the sky!”