I’m managing: “A 260ac dairy farm since January of this year, owned by Seán O’Mahony. Before this, I was with Crinagree Dairies for three years and did loads of relief milking before that.

"I’m not from a farm, but I’ve known for a long time that this was what I wanted. Seán is still involved, but has taken a step back and I’m in charge of the day-to-day running of the farm. I’ve full responsibility, but not ownership.”

Cows: "There are 250 cows calving down this spring. We’ve our first milk recording (of 10) done already and they’re doing 2.36kg of milk solids and 30 litres. They’re getting 6kg of an 18% nut alongside high-quality silage. Once they go out on grass, we’ll cut back.”

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Calving: ”Started on 25 January and around 130 have calved at this stage. We aim to be finished by early April.”

Breeding: ”We’ll start breeding on 25 April and we’ll do three weeks of selective Friesian AI on our best performing cows and then we’ll do two weeks of beef AI. Then I’ll mop up with Angus and Hereford bulls in June after five weeks of AI.

"The heifers are on an out-farm and they’ll be synced and AI’d to sexed semen around 4 May. I’ll do a week of pre-breeding with tail paint and any cows not cycling will get examined.”

Calves: ”We rear them ourselves and they get whole milk for the first few days and then onto milk replacer. We keep them to 18 months and then they go to Gortatlea Mart.”

Contracting: "First-cut fertiliser will be contracted out and we’ll follow the cows ourselves then after each paddock and do all our own mowing for surplus paddocks. We try to contract out as much machinery work as we can and focus on cow performance.”

Farm apprenticeship: ”I did Teagasc’s Farm Technician Apprenticeship with Crinagree Dairies and it really set me up to run a dairy farm. I won the grassland award for 2025/2026. We were the first lot of land-based apprentices.”