I farm: ”In partnership with my mother and father, John and Bernie, here in Kildavin. We farm 160ha, 115ha is owned and the rest is rented. The land would be a mix of dry and wet. The last week was a great relief from all the rain, we recorded 230ml of rain here in February.”

Calving 2021: “We started calving on 1 February and 90% of the cows have calved so far. We have 120 Friesian cows calving this year in total. I did an AI course with Progressive Genetics a couple of years ago, so it’s handy for me to AI the cows that are in heat after milking.”

Sire choice: For the first round, we use all Friesian straws and we use Belgian Blue or Simmental if they come in heat again. We rear the calves to beef and kill them from 22-26 months.”

Cows out: “Cows have been out full-time for the past 12 days. When they head out to grass, you would see a big jump in milk solids.”

Sheep: “This month, the second batch of ewes are getting ready to lamb. We lamb 170 Suffolk x Texel ewes indoors and rear the lambs for the factory. Hopefully, some of the early lambs will be ready for the Easter market. At the moment, sheep are a right price, please God it will last.”

Tillage: “We grow about 40ac of barley every year and 12ac of sugar beet, it is all used to feed our own stock. The beet is all pulled and I was cleaning out sheds earlier in the week to get dung ready to spread on the tillage fields. Hopefully, once the rain passes this week, our local contractor Alfie Byrne will sow the barley.”

GAA: ”I play football with Kildavin/Clonegal, the GAA club is straight across the road from the farm. We were supposed to be playing Ballinabrannagh in the intermediate county final, so hopefully that match will go ahead sometime in the summer.”

Quotable quote: “I would advise anyone getting into dairy to invest in a decent parlour at the beginning. But the money is made outside the parlour, doing the likes of grass measuring.”