Plan of Action

TPF2012 · 01-10-2014 12:52am #1

Hi, Due to circumstances, i've become more involved in the farm at home with the auld man, he's retired but still young enough and I'll be there just at weekends and evenings. Its a suckler setup with no clear aim, there are 30 cattle of all age and description on 120 acres, of which 20 were cut once for silage this year,returning 180 bales.This land is middling, getting fertiliser each spring. Another 10 acre field is good grazing quality. The remaining 90 acres is rough ground, due to cattle being left on it in winter, with rushes everwhere and gorse rapidly filling in fields. Alot of this in the past was used as meadows for hay but now tractor access is impossible, well with our tractors anyway. What would you do first? Build a shed? Fight the rushes and gorse? Drainage and access? Sort out Animal age profile/plan? Run-Away?

I said · 01-10-2014 1:16am

Shed straight away it will give you the impedance for all other matters.
Look around your locality and see what other suckler men are at and use what works for them yourself shed wise.
That's my twopence worth.
Or runaway as ya say yourself and lease it.

ganmo · 01-10-2014 5:26am

Walk the land with a lighter in your pocket for the furze

keep going · 01-10-2014 6:59am

First things first , buy a calculator and then educate yourself and do lots of research. My own personal veiw is land first, animals next and lastly concrete

Zoo4m8 · 01-10-2014 7:32am

keep going wrote: »

First things first , buy a calculator and then educate yourself and do lots of research. My own personal veiw is land first, animals next and lastly concrete

Absolutely!

_Brian · 01-10-2014 7:54am

keep going wrote: »

First things first , buy a calculator and then educate yourself and do lots of research. My own personal veiw is land first, animals next and lastly concrete

Well this would depend on location and land type. If te land has gone to pot from tramping overwinter there would be little value in spending more money for it to be trampled over the following winter.
30 cattle is very little stock for 120 acres but allot of stock to out winter if ground is wet.

I'd be thinking shed first, but when machine is coming in to do digging have him price scrubbing out gorse and cleaning any drains needing attention.

on the river · 01-10-2014 10:54am

Like Brian said do the essentials first. Get the land in manageable order and perhaps build a dry shed .
Try breeding from stock you own with proven Ai bulls .
I think small amounts of money in essential area's will gain long term advantages.
Every farm has potential. Investment and hard work is key to achieving your aim.
However be frugal with your finance for the first five years before expanding.

stanflt · 01-10-2014 11:15am

Half of your land would accom the numbers you have

- set half of it cheaply to a neighbour for 5-7 years and let him clean it up for you in return for cheap rent

It will give you cash flow to help improve your ground and you could see how he operates which will be a great experience and education

Make sure you get someone who is willing to improve your ground

cristeoir · 01-10-2014 11:15am

I would start with the land, you can continue to outwinter but keep them on a reducing area each year as you get it fixed up field by field If you had the money maybe buy the digger and do the reclamation works yourself .
I presume there is a reasonable sfp so I would hang on and see if the grants for slatted sheds are re-introduced and then think about building a shed.
Doing up the land should be the first priority as it will leave more options open to you to increase income- letting some or making silage or hay to sell.

Username John · 01-10-2014 11:38am

TPF2012 wrote: »

Hi, Due to circumstances, i've become more involved in the farm at home with the auld man, he's retired but still young enough and I'll be there just at weekends and evenings. Its a suckler setup with no clear aim, there are 30 cattle of all age and description on 120 acres, of which 20 were cut once for silage this year,returning 180 bales.This land is middling, getting fertiliser each spring. Another 10 acre field is good grazing quality. The remaining 90 acres is rough ground, due to cattle being left on it in winter, with rushes everwhere and gorse rapidly filling in fields. Alot of this in the past was used as meadows for hay but now tractor access is impossible, well with our tractors anyway. What would you do first? Build a shed? Fight the rushes and gorse? Drainage and access? Sort out Animal age profile/plan? Run-Away?

I'm not sure if I'm reading it correctly - but this is what I read.

Your ould fella has a farm
You would like to get more involved, and will be there evenings and weekends

My advice, for what its worth

1) sit down with your old man and chat with him about what he wants to do.
2) work out what ye both want from the place (not much use in you wanting to build a shed, only for the ould man to not use it, cos he prefers the cattle outwintered

)
3) Go through the accounts. Understand what money is coming in, going out. What money the ould fella will take out as wages, etc. It may that it this review throw out areas to tackle first...
4) Work out a plan together

Best o luck with it.

foxylock · 01-10-2014 12:21pm

Username John wrote: »

I'm not sure if I'm reading it correctly - but this is what I read.

Your ould fella has a farm
You would like to get more involved, and will be there evenings and weekends

My advice, for what its worth
1) sit down with your old man and chat with him about what he wants to do.
2) work out what ye both want from the place (not much use in you wanting to build a shed, only for the ould man to not use it, cos he prefers the cattle outwintered )
3) Go through the accounts. Understand what money is coming in, going out. What money the ould fella will take out as wages, etc. It may that it this review throw out areas to tackle first...
4) Work out a plan together

Best o luck with it.

also no point on breaking your nads sorting the place out if it eventually goes elsewhere, a frank discussion is needed so everyone knows where they stand. All the best

Username John · 01-10-2014 12:31pm

Building a shed is prob one of the first things I did, along with reclaiming, fencing... the usual... money is easy to spend

I wont say the shed wasn't useful.

But... in hindsight - the smart play would have been to buy SFP entitlements, and put off building the shed... The return here would have been much greater...

Not sure this applies to the OP in their situation, but it might be something to bear in mind...

Gard1 · 01-10-2014 12:53pm

its most important to create a business plan/model
Critical issues will be:
How much time you have to invest in the farm
How you intend to finance the investment in the farm own funds or bank??
If you have 20k available to invest you need to decide how to spend it
You could spend the full 20k on a shed and yard and make life easy for winter but then you wont have enough money to do anything else and could end up short of silage etc
I would think that a mix of reseeding/reclaiming the land over the next few years until its all be done and trying to temporarily adjust the stock mix. Try to keep cows to the rough areas and sell off calves as weanlings in October.
The other option is to talk to the bank manager, I have clients who have received farm investment loans at favourable rates. If you have the right business model they will lend - Just be careful not to get in over your head but with a 120a run you should have good potential

onyerbikepat · 01-10-2014 8:06pm

I would tend to go the stock, land, concrete route too, but starting off with a proper shed will make life a lot easier for you, especially if you are off farm a lot. Would it be possible to rent a slatted shed locally?

Miname · 01-10-2014 8:49pm

If i was in your position a little bit of everything would be my own approach. A small two bay open faced shed with a couple of dry pens with a feed area to the front, it can always be used for storing machinery and such down the road if you put up a slatted unit. id try to organise the animals into two maybe three groups. il presume he has a few cows so id try and get them calving in a batch and buy in another 10-15 bucket reared heifers. sell all bull weanlings for a couple of years and put what they give you back into the farm. Your stock needs to be increased bring in the return to repair the land. 120 of the worst of land should rear a fair bit more than 30 head. reseed a bit increase a bit and so on. if you get a plan and stick to it you should be ok, a slatted unit down the road would be beneficial but for now you should be able to manage without. Just dont expect to pull anything out of it for a few years. in time there will be days you'll really question what the hell your at but you'll slowly see progress and get serious satisfaction out of it.

welton john · 01-10-2014 11:25pm

TPF2012 wrote: »

Hi, Due to circumstances, i've become more involved in the farm at home with the auld man, he's retired but still young enough and I'll be there just at weekends and evenings. Its a suckler setup with no clear aim, there are 30 cattle of all age and description on 120 acres, of which 20 were cut once for silage this year,returning 180 bales.This land is middling, getting fertiliser each spring. Another 10 acre field is good grazing quality. The remaining 90 acres is rough ground, due to cattle being left on it in winter, with rushes everwhere and gorse rapidly filling in fields. Alot of this in the past was used as meadows for hay but now tractor access is impossible, well with our tractors anyway. What would you do first? Build a shed? Fight the rushes and gorse? Drainage and access? Sort out Animal age profile/plan? Run-Away?

in a similar situation to you regarding land.we have similar size farm with a block of about 35 acres of poor to middeling land which was neglected over the last few years(mainly due to weather and poor managment)we started this summer with the two fields closest to the house. we unblocked and put in drains where needed cleaned dykes ect...plan is to do 5-7 acres each year at a low cost but still not doing too much that the quality of work suffers.e2000 will be put aside each year for this. it may take 5 years or so but wont break the bank.as regards a shed something simple you can always extend it after

Farmer Pudsey · 02-10-2014 12:52am

Are you self employed or a PAYE worker. Where to start is the big thing. Not sure if I go down the dry shed route etc. Grant there next year is tempting alot depends if you can write off farming losses against high rate of income tax. However you need to straighten out what your father wants and what happen sdown the line.

A lot also depends on land is it dryish and in an area of low rain fall. To reduce wintering area you could consider planting kale 4-5 acres of it will out winter a good few cattle with silage. Not sure if I go the suckler route if only there weekends. If you want to reclaim the land you need to be able to keep cattle off parts you reclaim. If you pay a lot of tax at the high rate I nearly start with a shed. A 6 bay shed with with a run back after grant might leave you with 30K in capital allowances. Stock the place with Friesians and run a low cost system finishing at 30ish months.

ON reclaiming land with scrub there are shredders that will break this down roots in all. This will keep P&K in the land. I think depending on amount of scrub 4-700/acre is the charge however land will be ready for reseeding. As you reclaim paddock, fence and set up water.

It is not easyit will consume time and energy but if you know and understand the business in ten years time you will not know the place and it will be making you a nice few bob.

Good loser · 02-10-2014 1:07am

I would recommend you become a client of Teagasc first off. Get them out to view and make out a plan. They should have good knowledge of costings. schemes etc. Have your father in on this.

TPF2012 · 02-10-2014 11:39pm

Thanks for all the suggestions. As some of ye mentioned, its a case of chicken and egg, what to do first, without enough indoor foddering space,the land is badly poached and difficult to restore.I didn't mention in the first post that the father has a small slatted shed-2bay- but is reluctant to house too many, i think the most was ever in it, was 5 cows and 4-5 yearlings. I think a 4 bay slatted house would be 5 years down the line,but as some of ye mentioned, reclaiming 5-10 acres a year and then fence it off, would be a good idea. I seen the seppi mutiforest/soil machine on youtube that can mulch nearly any vegatation and then till soil, leaving it ready for reseeding, what a machine! Any of them in Ireland for hire? A week would do some job here.

Greengrass1 · 03-10-2014 12:02am

TPF2012 wrote: »

Thanks for all the suggestions. As some of ye mentioned, its a case of chicken and egg, what to do first, without enough indoor foddering space,the land is badly poached and difficult to restore.I didn't mention in the first post that the father has a small slatted shed-2bay- but is reluctant to house too many, i think the most was ever in it, was 5 cows and 4-5 yearlings. I think a 4 bay slatted house would be 5 years down the line,but as some of ye mentioned, reclaiming 5-10 acres a year and then fence it off, would be a good idea. I seen the seppi mutiforest/soil machine on youtube that can mulch nearly any vegatation and then till soil, leaving it ready for reseeding, what a machine! Any of them in Ireland for hire? A week would do some job here.

Yes there is. Type in mulcher into done deal. There's a lad not to far from me has one. Does a supper supper job. 180e/hr and usually does ac/hr and ready to reseed behind him.
Is there any way you could build a straw bedded shed with a scraped passage and straw lie back that you scrap dung into existing tank?
Ye could build a 4 bay lean 2 very cheap and house a decent amount of animals.
Ye could use your lean two for cows and then slats for any cattle.

Farmer · 03-10-2014 12:02am

Edit:Oops, crossed with last few posts (too slow on smartphone) so some of this is nonsense now but here FWIW

I think you've got pretty good advice so it's just a case of getting maximum 'bang for buck'......

Watch the scrub as it takes over unknown to you and the spy in the sky will subtract if from your SFP

You'd be surprised how much a fairly dry rushy field will improve by cutting and spraying the rushes, spreading a bit of 10-10-20 and some gran lime and, most importantly, avoiding poaching. We have a million threads here on rushes

The same can go for a wet rushy field if water can be got off it just by cleaning or opening an open drain. Even the drainage on it's own will see such fields greening up a bit

Keep away from the more expensive forms of drainage until you get the cheap stuff all sorted

Shed will certainly give a big 'bang' - it's like another half farm at least and will give you both a new life during the winter and will allow you carry the stock that the farm is capable of. However, you don't need me to tell you about the bucks it costs. Perhaps a father, seeing a genuine interest in farming by one of his offspring, might throw in a few bob if a grant was available down the road. That's one for the conversation as suggested earlier and we 'll be looking forward to you starting that thread down the road

A basic 4wd tractor fits in there somewhere if land is hilly but I had shed 15 yrs before getting as far as the 4wd

Of course you could change the whole thing around and go for sheep

Best of luck to the two of you

Greengrass1 · 03-10-2014 12:07am

http://www.donedeal.ie/otherfarmmachinery-for-sale/stones-bushes-stumps-rushes/5110671

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