Calving in Donegal: John and Gerard Grieve had some fine Charolais calves hitting the ground this spring. All in all, it was a good spring, calving-wise, across all of the BETTER farms with little to no problems to report.

Measuring in Offaly: the spring also marked the beginning of the grazing season. Here are John and James Dunne going through grass measuring with adviser John Greaney. It turned out to be an excellent spring grass-wise.

Grazing in Wicklow: Brian Doran was one of the first out of the traps this spring. He adopted an early turn out policy after joining the BETTER Farm Programme to combat calf health issues. Even though the cattle had to come back in for a brief time, he still credits getting cattle out early.

Walks in Waterford: The spring walks were hosted by Ricky Milligan in Kildare and Maurice Hearne in Waterford. Here is Maurice with his son Patrick standing in the reseeding demo field.

Expanding in Offaly: John Dunne was picking out heifers for the upcoming breeding season. He picked out almost 40 heifers to breed in an effort to grow his herd.

Breeding in Cavan: Garreth McCormack took back out the MooCall collars in Cavan to begin the breeding season. More and more farmers have been operating AI since the programme began.

A crowd in Monaghan: Wesley Browne played host for one of the BETTER Farm open days this summer. Harry and Joe Lalor in Laois hosted the second of the two well-attended events.

Touring in Kilkenny and Sligo: John Phelan and Trevor Boland (below) generously hosted BETTER farm technical visits on their respective farms in Kilkenny and Sligo.

A trip to Kerry: The BETTER Farm Programme took in Kerry and Mayo as John and James Flaherty and Tommy Holmes hosted the BETTER farm autumn walks in early September.

Weaning in Sligo: As the back end rolled around, weanlings were the talked about topic. Feeding, health and management all came under the microscope. Glen McDermott's weanlings certainly looked in good form in October.

The Italian job: As part of this year's study tour, the programme participants were taken to Turin in Italy. Five farms - a combination of suckler and beef - were visited over the course of the three-day trip.

Winter chores: the last month has been a quiet one on the BETTER farms but some key management tasks were being completed. Silage budgeting and soil sampling (below) were two key tasks.