I farm: "With my father Jarlath near Knock in Co, Mayo. For the last two years we have been grazing one of our outfarms with a second herd of milking cows. The article features in the current issue of the Irish Farmers Journal's Dairy Farmer magazine which goes on sale this week."

Still milking: "We are milking 55 cows this week from the 120 cows we milked at peak. I’d expect all cows will be dried off within the week. On average, I’d say the cows will have delivered 400kg of milk solids per cow."

Cows out: "No – the milkers are in now. With all the rain the ground has simply become too wet. Grazing has finished up quicker than we would have expected however we have had a great year. We still have some dry cows and weanlings out."

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Much grass left: "I estimate the cover of about 700kg and we only have one or two heavy covers so I’m not too bothered."

Fertility: "We ended up with about 6% empty in 14 weeks of breeding. Our herd fertility is improving. We start calving 5 February and mean calving date in the 1 March."

Quota problems: "We won’t sell much milk to the co-op next February but like others we’ll have lots of milk for March."

Silage quality: "We are feeding bales at moment – the worst ones for the freshly dried cows. We’ve kept the good bales for the spring. The pit has tested low in dry matter but we’ll wait and see what its like."

Quotable quote: "This year has been some difference to last year – super year for grass and we have reduced meal fed from 1.2 tonnes per cow down to about 600kg per cow fed."