As UTV's Rare Breed continues we meet the Byers family from Co Fermanagh

Busy husband and wife team, Dale and Vicki, are living the bucolic dream near Ballinamallard, along with their three children, Poppy, 8, Charlie, 6, and Ina-Grace, 3.

All members of this hard-working family (even little Ina-Grace...especially Ina-Grace!) are all hands-on looking after the cattle (about 300 in total) and sheep, of which there are four pets, Cotton, Candy, Elsa and Anna.

TV viewers will meet the Byers on the second episode of UTV’s ever-popular series Rare Breed.

The farming series is not what you would call high octane television, rather it putters along to a soothing beat of hard work, family connections and the daily lives of farmers, that hard-working breed of people so integral to the life of Northern Ireland.

And the Byers are no exception. Vicki and Dale’s day starts at 5am. Dale does the milking and feeding, whilst Vicki helps out on the farm and gets the kids ready for school.

“Once I get home, me and Ina-Grace will go out and we’ll feed heifers, bed them, clean, whatever crops up,” said Vicki.

Non-farmers will shudder at waking up at such an ungodly hour, and Vicki admits it can be tough on frosty, cold days, but mostly she loves it.

"It’s just so peaceful in the early morning. I just pull on my working clothes and off I go.”

Dale and Vicki, both 32, met at school Enniskillen High School (now Devenish College), when they were 15 years old.

Vicki, who grew up in Enniskillen and describes herself as a ‘townie’, not only fell for Dale, but also farming.

“With Dale being a farmer, if I wanted to see him I either had to go in the milking parlour with him or sit in a tractor with him or whatever. That’s how I learnt about farming and that’s how I just really felt in love with it.

"My teacher has been Dale, so anything I know is through him.”

Dale, on the other hand, is a third generation farmer.

His grandfather bought the farm in 1988, concentrating on beef and sheep, but Dale’s father “took the plunge” to move into dairy in 2004.

Dale and Vicki work brilliantly as a team and each has their own defined role.

Dale does the milking, the AI and the breeding.

“Three times a day milking helps more with family life. I can be redd up at 5pm, then we have night milkers come in in the evening to do the milking at 9pm,” said Dale.

Vicki’s main responsibility on the farm is rearing the calves when they’re born in the autumn. She absolutely loves this job and looks forward to it every year.

This indefatigable woman also works two days a week for an agricultural EPOS provider for farm shops, restaurants and delis.

“I used to work full-time, five days a week and then when I was on maternity leave with Ina-Grace, I saw what life was like on the farm full-time and I made the decision to keep my own job for me, for my own sanity.

"I work there Mondays and Tuesdays and that’s my getaway, because the rest of the week it’s farming.

“It’s tough going (the family hasn’t ever had a foreign family holiday), to farm and be a wife and have three children and keep a house, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. I absolutely love it.

“If you gave me the option to be in an office full-time or be on the farm, I would straight away be out the door, because I love it out here.”

And who could blame her? The family farm is surrounded by beautiful scenery and lush green fields; add in lungfuls of fresh Fermanagh country air and it’s an undeniably enticing environment.

During the pandemic Vicki said the family made the most of their surroundings.

"The Ballinamallard river runs through our land, so when the weather was lovely, we’d take the kids down there.

"It was like their own private swimming pool.”

When we first meet the Byers they are all hard at work looking after their herd – little Ina-Grace is cute as button, following her mum around with a bucket and getting stuck in.

"Ina-Grace is the biggest farmer out of all of them,” said Vicki.

“I don’t push the farming on the kids, they either want to do it, or they don’t – but Ina-Grace just loves it.

"When she was a baby I had her in a carrier on my back whilst I milked the cows.”

Vicki is well-known on social media for her TikTok videos (under the username @vbyers) and Instagram account (The LegenDAIRY Holsteins), which she set up to connect with other women in agriculture and show the realities of working on the farm whilst also raising three children.

“When I set up the Instagram account, I really was amazed that there were so many women out there like me actively involved in farming – not just married to farmers. I wish it had been there when I got into farming.

"A woman came up to me in a shop in Enniskillen the other day and said she had seen it (the Instagram account) and really enjoys it.

"I suppose it just makes women feel less alone.”

One of the TikTok videos featuring a then two-year-old video of Ina-Grace, tending to the cows on the family farm went viral on TikTok, with the toddler dubbed the 'UK's youngest dairy farmer'.

The Byers will celebrate their 10th wedding anniversary in March.

Whether or not they’ll get away to celebrate is open to debate, but for Vicki, the townie-turned-farmer, it’s possible she’d be just as happy at home.

*Rare Breed – A Farming Year is on Thursday, January 26 on UTV at 8.30pm.