I farm: “20 suckler cattle, mostly Simmental crosses, along with 60 ewes and six pedigree Simmental cows on 85ac.”

Busy spring: “Our ewes lamb in the spring and the majority of the cattle calve in the spring as well, with a few in the autumn. We house all cattle on slats and they move to cubicles after calving. The ewes are put on mesh one month prior to lambing.”

Twins: “One of our pedigree cattle has just had a set of twins, her third set of twins in a row. Ashland Rosy is a daughter of Raceview King. She had two heifers by Raceview Nigel in 2015 and two bulls by Raceview Nigel in 2016. This year, she had a bull and a heifer by Clonagh Frosty King.

Family interest: “I’m farming on my own but my two sons Adrian and Darren have a keen interest in agriculture, with Adrian working on a dairy farm in Tyrone and Darren is attending Greenmount Agricultural College.”

Shows: “We do most of the shows in Northern Ireland; we won prizes in Clogher and Enniskillen last year.”

Turn out: “Our soil type is very heavy clay soil. We generally don’t get stock out until the second or third week in May and, unless a miracle happens, this year will be no different.”

Fodder: “Like everybody else we are extremely tight for fodder, as we had most of our cattle housed last August, so we are looking at a 10-month winter. We are trying to stretch what’s left of it with straw and meal. Currently we have enough silage to last until mid-April. I’ve been farming for 30 years and this is one of the worst years I’ve ever seen.”

Straw: “We were lucky that we bought straw before September, before conditions went really bad and the price went through the roof.”

Quotable quote: “I hope 2018 is a better year than 2017 was, otherwise a lot of people will be getting out of farming.”

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