We Farm: “About 360 acres (160 rented) between Mullagh, Cavan, and Wilkinstown, Meath. We have dairy, beef and poultry enterprises between the two farms but Mullagh is our home.”

Year round housing: “We made the decision in 2012 to keep all the dairy cows inside the full year round. We found that when we let them out in the new year, there was hopping up and down of milk production from the 100-cow herd. We said if we had them inside at all times, we could control the output. At the minute, the cows are averaging 7,728 litres and solids of 642kg – we’re delighted with that. We use zero grazing as some of the fields are a couple of miles from the parlour. We have no plans to expand the herd post quotas as we want to grow the herd organically and make sure prices are there for expansion. We are budgeting using a base milk price of 30c/l.”

Beef: “We finish 270 Aberdeen Angus cattle in three batches of 90. We supply the Angus cattle to Kepak in Clonee and ABP in Bandon. Beef isn’t the most lucrative of businesses so it’s all about farming smart and making the best of what you have.”

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Poultry: “We also have a free-range, organic broiler business with a capacity for 320,000 birds a year. We, along with a few other farmers, have set up the Farmers to Market brand. It’s only developing but we are supplying Musgraves and it’s going well so far.”

Business: “We took over the farm in 1992 from our parents. We love farming. We are so enthusiastic about it but when we started we wanted to make sure that we could make a few pound out of it, make it a business as well as having a decent standard of living from it too.”

Quotable quote: “Farmers give out plenty about processors not paying enough, and they probably don’t, but first and foremost you need to control the costs inside the farm gate. Our philosophy is to get the right efficiencies on our farm as we can control them, you can’t control what a processor is doing.”