I farm: “250ac of dry land in south Kildare, of which 70ac are rented. I’m currently milking 215 high EBI Freisians supplying the Glanbia creamery in Ballitore just down the road.”

Family: “I’m the third generation on this farm. My grandmother ran the dairy with my father since he was 13 and I have been running it since 2003. I started with about 80 cows and have expanded the herd since then. I live with my wife Karen and daughters Lucy and the twins Amy and Sally”.

Calving: “I have two specific blocks for calving, I calve them for four to six weeks in the autumn and then 10 weeks in the spring. It’s tight, but the only way to be profitable is to be compact. About a third of the cows calve down in the autumn. I milk them all from the first week in April to the 1 September and then we dry off, so I’m milking 177 at the moment”.

Parlour: “It’s a 22-unit DeLaval herringbone parlour that I installed in 2008. I put on six units this year, so it went from 16 up to 22. When it’s fully up and running it will be about an hour and 20 minutes of milking, but with moving cows, it would be around the two-hour mark.”

This week: “I’m putting the finishing touches to the buildings that are going on, the scraper is being extended and the units in the parlour are being finished. We’ve been extending and upgrading existing sheds. I constructed a collecting yard as well, with a backing gate on it.”

Quotable quote: “If I see someone picking up a carton of Avonmore milk in the shop, I feel like going over and thanking them for doing it, because it’s so important to my business. I love to see them doing it.”

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