I farm:”172ac with my wife Alice and my daughter Lisa who’ll be taking over when I retire – she’s a sergeant in Limerick. There’d be about 35ac of good green land and around 137ac of mountain grazing.

"The 35ac would be good land, we’d reseed it every of couple of years. It gets fertiliser and slurry while the winterage isn’t touched at all – you could say it’s the very same as being organic. "I’ve an off-farm income as well, I value cattle with the Department.”

Cows: “I have around 30 suckler cows and they’re a mixture of Limousin, Charolais and Belgian Blues. They calve from the middle of February until the end of March and stay up on the winterage until about a week before they calve.”

Calving:”I haven’t had a caesarean in years; my stock bull is a Limousin but he’s very easy calving. I have the jack left inside in the shed for three years, it’s nearly gone rusted.

"In saying that, my cows are not fat and they’re fierce fit from being up on the winterage, they’re constantly walking to graze. They could have to go half a mile for water.”

Winterage:”The cows go up to the winterage from around now until the middle of February or so. They come down then to the shed to calve and stay in until they go out on grass around the middle of April.

"Around 120 bales of silage gets me out during this time. That winterage is left idle during the summer then, and there’ll be nothing only a cover of flowers and the smells are unreal – it would remind you of a pharmacy.

"We need no dosing or nothing for the cattle, they’re so healthy because of all the herbs.”

Weanling sales: ”I sold six weanlings on Monday in Kilfenora Mart and they averaged €1,160 but I got €1,500 for a 390kg Limousin heifer.

Future:”I’m very lucky; my costs are very low but I don’t see a huge future in sucklers really. The money just isn’t in it.”