I am Rosarie Maher and I live, with my husband Tom, in Tipperary, not too far from the Devil’s Bit.
Myself and Tom run the farm ourselves alongside my daughter.
From the first of January to the end of April is our busy time. The cows start calving in the first week in January and then the sheep come in and start lambing in the first week in March. We try to have the cattle finished before St Patrick’s day, and by then the sheep are in full swing, it is a hectic few months.
Tom and I look after the calves and my daughter looks after the cows.
We house the ewes for the winter and once they have lambed in March they are let out with their lambs. We use the slurry and the dung from the sheep sheds to fertilise the grass. Some of the fields are used for silage and the whole farm is fenced for sheep, so that means that once the silage is cut, we can run the cattle and sheep together and rotate them all around.
We run a mixed farm here, with dairy, beef and sheep.
We’ve found that running them together is great for the grass, the cows eat what the sheep don’t eat, and the sheep eat what the cows don’t eat, it keeps the grass in good condition, and they thrive off it. It helps to reduce our artificial fertilizer use across the whole farm; all the nutrients are put back into the ground naturally. We think that it works really well for us and we’re happy to say that we’re doing OK.
We give the calves milk for 12 weeks and I think this gives them a really good foundation and it is the secret to bringing them on to what they are today – big healthy cattle.
