ABP Food Group's Advantage Beef Programme farm liaison officer Sean Cassidy recently visited the farm to hear how Carthy has been managing since cattle were turned out to grass for the summer.

The farm is one of the ABP Monitor Farms finishing cattle in a variety of systems and based across the country on a range of different land types.

Grass growth was slow on the farm this spring, but the recent spell of hot weather has greatly improved grass growth rates on the farm.

First cut bale silage was cut earlier this week and secured in good conditions.

Crops were light but Pat is hoping quality will be good. He said his aim is to secure high dry matter digestibility (DMD) silage in this cut as opposed to a bulky crop.

The suckler herd is all calved and out at grass. The calving season went well on the farm but there was some issues with scours in calves. Despite this, the calving season went well overall.

Breeding will be taken care of by the farm's Charolais stock bull, which will run with the suckler cows for the summer.

Last year's weanlings are out at grass since late April and were an average weight of 435kg at turnout.

The 2025-born suckler-bred bull calves on the farm were castrated last autumn and will be finished as steers rather than young bulls due to shed space.

The dairy-beef yearlings are thriving very well this year and are ahead of target weights.

They weighed an impressive average of 415kg at turnout on April 11.

This group of cattle were being fed concentrates as well as silage over the winter. Concentrate feed was removed from the diet in January ahead of the yearling cattle going out to grass.

This year's dairy-beef calves arrived recently on the farm and were sourced from a dairy farmer in Co. Cavan.

Carthy sourced the calves through the Advantage Beef Programme's farm liaison team, who linked the dairy farmer supplying suitable calves with Carthy who was seeking to purchase calves of this type.

Carthy has been sourcing calves from this farmer, facilitated through ABP, for a number of years and is happy with how the agreement works.

Before breeding season, he lets the dairy farmer supplying the calves know which sires are performing well and makes suggestions on the type of calves he wants for the following year.

This year's calves are a mix of Angus and Friesian.

Carthy recently planted 1,800 whitethorn plants as a new hedgerow on a part of the farm he is looking at improving.

The aim is that the whitethorn hedgerow will provide both shelter and act as habitat biodiversity.

The hedge will be double-fenced to ensure it is stockproof when the hedge is developing.

Carthy also recently joined the CliBeef project, which is an EU-funded project helping beef farmers in Northern Ireland and the border regions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions through practical solutions.