I farm: “In partnership with my wife, Aisling, and we have three kids, Anna (nine), Charlie (eight) and Tom (seven). We’re farming 236ac in total – 152ac is owned and 84ac is rented.”

Beef: “I either fatten or sell 180 forward stores every year. They are bought in as runners or yearlings and they’d be mainly Angus or Hereford. I buy them wherever I can get value – which is going to be hard this year. The price is great, but I wonder am I going to have any more in my pocket by the time expenses are paid and cattle are bought back.”

Selling: ”Generally, anything that is being killed is sold for the Christmas market and the forward stores are sold at the end of January to a feedlot.”

Tillage: ”I have some organic land also. Last year I had 20ac of organic oats for Flahavan’s and I’ll have 35ac going into the ground again around 20 March this year. I have 75ac of [conventional] winter crops – 30ac of winter rye and 45ac of winter barley. They’re looking well, the frost crowned them. I’ll definitely increase the organic area because it suits me with my job AI-ing. Last year I got €410/t for the oats and the yield was 2.3t/ac. Now that was fresh ground and the first time being sown so it won’t be as good this year.”

AI technician: “I’m AI-ing now full time for the last seven years with Dovea. I also do sales for the north Tipperary area where I call into farmers, talk to them about their herd and help them select the right bulls to keep them in the right nitrates band.”

Sexed semen: “It has got very popular, the results are good this year and to me one of the biggest contributing factors to successful AI in heifers is that they have good weight for age. There’s no point synchronising them if the bundle of heifers aren’t in good order.”