We farm: “Sixty-nine acres in Cornafean, Arva, Co Cavan. I changed from a suckler beef herd to a dairy enterprise two years ago with the abolition of milk quotas. The trigger was that we were cleared out with TB, so it was a case of being now or never.”

The conversion: “We installed cubicles. I built the parlour myself after buying a secondhand one. It came to around €15,000. I have experience in industrial pipework so I built a heat recovery system for heating water. We get 88 litres of water up to 50 degrees for free.”

The figures: “We have a 28ha farm with 26 cows. The herd is British Friesians mostly, but there are a few Jersey, Norwegian Red and Shorthorn crosses. We are producing around 900 litres every two days with 3.3% protein and 4.2% fat.”

Feeding: “The cows are on an 18% dairy ration. The ration keeps heifers occupied for longer going through the parlour. We go through around 1.4t in a fortnight.”

Grass: “With grass management, we are still learning, but we have the room to do that with our numbers. We have the silage in the ground; it’s only a matter of the thing growing. I bought a silage wagon a number of years ago so we do it all ourselves. It has paid for itself in what we save annually.”

Family: “The transition was made a lot easier by my family. My wife Lorna and my five children Andrew, Alison, Danielle, James and Abby are a big help. If I was ever held up off-farm, I would often come home and the older ones would have the work started for me.”

Future plans: “We are working from Lorna’s home place, but I have 20 Texel Belclare ewes on an off-farm, where I’m from. The aim is to reduce them and free up that grass for silage.”

Quotable quote: “I would prefer it to be a case of trying it and seeing if it succeeded or failed rather than wishing I had tried. Dairy is the easiest way of turning grass into cash. If expenses are kept low, it doesn’t take much for it to be more profitable than sucklers.”