The history of our farm

Our farm has been in Alan's family since 1707. Three brothers emigrating from Germany were shipwrecked off New Ross. Two of the brothers ended up being employed by Stephen Ram in Gorey. The two were given houses a mile apart outside of Gorey. Both houses are still standing today, ours is one of them. It is incredible to think of how many generations of my children's ancestors have grown up here, stepped on the doorstep, trod on the stairs, walked and worked these fields and swam in this river.

An aerial photo of our farm ca 1950

In all the years that I had known Alan we had travelled back and forth to help out or to cover holidays. We had enjoyed all the time we spent on the farm, and one of the things we often did was to talk about what we would do if we were living here. Little did we know that the opportunity would in fact arrive whereby we would get to put our money where our mouth is so to speak.

When Alan and I met, we were both undergrads, studying in Galway. Alan never expected to end up here farming as he was the youngest of four and his brother had always been expected to farm. Alan and I both completed our undergrads, Alan in Environmental Science and I in Chemistry. We spent a couple of years working and travelling, and went back to college this time doing research PhDs, Alan in conservation zoology and I in research chemistry. We were two years in to them when Alan's brother decided to go a different route in life, than farming. We were then asked if we were interested.

An aerial photo of our farm taken in June 2015

As Alan grew up it was a mixed farm, with even some pigs and sheep around. Cows, dry stock, and a bit of tillage. By the time that I met Alan the main business was dairying. There would always be some cows in calf to beef, so there was a mix of young stock. Replacement heifers, and the few beef calves that were reared alongside. There was still a few acres of barley too. By the time that we took over the tillage was gone. When we took over we reared a few pedigree bulls and replacement heifers, but we sold most other calves at around 4 – 6 weeks. After a few years, when quotas were abolished we stopped rearing bulls, and kept a few more cows, settling on 72 cows as the ideal number. For several years now we have milked 72 cows rearing replacements, and focusing on high EBI (Economic Breeding Index), high solid (butterfat and protein) producing cows. We focus on health in breeding, to help increase our herd sustainability. Cows that we do not want to breed from, go in calf to beef breeds.

In 2018 we started a big farm redevelopment. We put in a new milking parlour and winter housing for all the animals. Where the cows live in the winter is all under the one roof, which has many benefits. We don’t have much of a job moving them around. We have a facilities for handling the cows, in this shed too, so even for vaccinations or anything they are all covered. This makes husbandry more comfortable in winter. It also means that all their waste is collected in the slatted tank. There is is no where where rain can dilute it. This means that we only have to collect what they produce. We don’t end up collecting rainwater too. The same applies for all the young stock they are 100% under a roof.

An aerial photo taken by a drone by Ken McCaw in 2024

This shows the new milking parlour and all the cow's winter housing above the house, with all the winter housing for young stock, and hay sheds etc to the right of the house.

You can clearly see that everything is roofed.

It was important to us to streamline our operation, for several different reasons;

Firstly, the farm is more labour efficient now. With 72 cows we can make a comfortable living, but this would be stretched if we had to employ others. On the same note, it means that it is straightforward to understand the system, so if we do need to employ farm relief, that can be easily done.

Secondly, it was important to us to be environmentally sustainable. We have plenty of slurry storage, so we can use our natural fertiliser in such a way as to maximise it’s utilisation. We spread using Low Emission Slurry Spreading techniques, and only spread when it will be taken up.

Thirdly, with the better efficiency comes the opportunity to create time for other things, family and hobbies. We have been able to put into reality, some of the dreams that we had 20 odd years, ago when we used to dream about what we would do if we were farming here!

From the start when we moved home we started to make small decisions in the direction that we wanted to go. Probably the first was to stop trimming the hedges into "neat rectangles". We left the tops to grow and trim the sides on a three year rotation. This has created amazing biodiverse habitats.

Since then we have taken opportunities that arise, and undertaken projects as we thought of them. Resulting in the present situation where we have several conservation projects, two ponds, additonal hedgerows, along with other initiatives. We now have well over 20% space for nature on the farm, as well as producing high quality milk, with a high nitrogen use efficiency.