I want to be a farmer

EScifo

Hi,

I was hoping you kind folks here could help me.

I would like to produce cheese from my own herd of goats. Unfortunately I have no experience of farming. I have always been interested in farming & livestock. Now at present I work in an office job so I realise that it will be a major upheaval. I have put a number of questions down that I hope you can help me answer (in no particular order).

1. I would like a residential farm as my wife is an artist so it would suit both of us. How are banks with mortgages etc on farms? I could sell my house in dublin for 300,000 plus hopefully voluntary redundancy from my job -maybe circa 30,000. So, say 300,000 capital. How many acres would a viable goat farm need?

Organic vs Normal farming? Is it a good idea to start off as organic if that is what you plan to do or is it better to start normally, see how it goes and then perhaps change to organic

Dairy Goat Farmers? Any around that would be interested in mentoring me? or is dairy fairly similar goat or cow?

What area / type of land is best for goats? Do goats prosper on a certain type of land? perhaps they are better suited to well drained mountainous terrain - which I imagine would be cheaper than flat land

Thanks for the help! I am only starting to explore the possibilities and realise education / experience is a must.

Also, I imagine with the type of cheese I want to produce / distribuition / etc, cash flows will be a big problem at the start. How are banks with this? I am an excellent cook, so perhaps I can do some b'n'b~ing or some of those meals in peoples home that seem very popular now

Thanks!:)

bogman_bass

I would advise that you find a goat farm and see if you can work saturdays and sundays for minimum wage.
you will a) learn about farming
learn how litlle money there is to be made
C) see if you are happy giving up you weekends to working the land.

If after a few months you still want in,then look at it a little closer

djmc

I dont know anything about goats other than they have 2 teats instead of 4
land is making around 10000 an acre but can vary a lot depending on quality
Look at land under commercial at www.daft.ie to give you some idea
you might see a house with some land attached
keep a look outin the http://www.farmersjournal.ie/classifieds/listing.php?cat=LIVESTOCK&subcat=OTHER LIVESTOCK&class=GOATS
and maybe talk to a goat farmer about milking goats.
I dont think the banks are great to lend anything at the moment
Good luck with it but I dont see you would make a living from a few goats if
you had repayments could be a nice hobby though.

EScifo

thanks for the info.

I certainly would not be under any illusions of it being a money making scheme!

Are there many goat farms close to dublin? I would need to go somewhere close to Dublin for the weekends.

mossfort

EScifo wrote: »

Hi,

I was hoping you kind folks here could help me.

I would like to produce cheese from my own herd of goats. Unfortunately I have no experience of farming. I have always been interested in farming & livestock. Now at present I work in an office job so I realise that it will be a major upheaval. I have put a number of questions down that I hope you can help me answer (in no particular order).

1. I would like a residential farm as my wife is an artist so it would suit both of us. How are banks with mortgages etc on farms? I could sell my house in dublin for 300,000 plus hopefully voluntary redundancy from my job -maybe circa 30,000. So, say 300,000 capital. How many acres would a viable goat farm need?

Organic vs Normal farming? Is it a good idea to start off as organic if that is what you plan to do or is it better to start normally, see how it goes and then perhaps change to organic

Dairy Goat Farmers? Any around that would be interested in mentoring me? or is dairy fairly similar goat or cow?

What area / type of land is best for goats? Do goats prosper on a certain type of land? perhaps they are better suited to well drained mountainous terrain - which I imagine would be cheaper than flat land

Thanks for the help! I am only starting to explore the possibilities and realise education / experience is a must.

Also, I imagine with the type of cheese I want to produce / distribuition / etc, cash flows will be a big problem at the start. How are banks with this? I am an excellent cook, so perhaps I can do some b'n'b~ing or some of those meals in peoples home that seem very popular now

Thanks!:)

im sure there would be plenty of goat farmers who would be willing to trade places with you.
if you want to get away from busy city life it might be a nice hobby but i would consider some other business as a regular income.
if you spend the 300,000 on a house and some land the 30,000 wont last that long if you dont have a steady income coming in.
best of luck with it.

bogman_bass

EScifo wrote: »

thanks for the info.

I certainly would not be under any illusions of it being a money making scheme!

Are there many goat farms close to dublin? I would need to go somewhere close to Dublin for the weekends.

I think there is a guy milking goats somewhere around slane. perhaps give teagasc or the department of Ag a shout?

galwayhillbilly

I looked into this about 2 years ago, John Twomey is the ag adviser in teagasc who is taksed with goats but I think he has retired.

Goats are generally kept indoors which means you need sheds if you are buying a farm try to buy one with good sheds. you will need at least 30 acres for organic nitrogen waste for 200 goats. At the time the figures that teagasc were endorsing was around a 200 goat herd to make a decent living, biggest outlay was the milking parlour. which would eat up your 20,000 capital straight away. You could manage with less goats if you were doing cheese and selling direct the teagasc model involves selling to a Dairy. The biggest problem with the cheese is the recession, the big premiums that fellahs were getting at farmers markets arent there anymore, but dont let that discourage you if you can produce a product at the right price it will sell.

The reason I dint go ahead was because my job wouldnt allow me the time to do the marketing side of things, I wanted to sell direct to a dairy but they werent interested in you if you wanted to start off small, they wanted you to be big straight away, borrowing is a mugs game in farming as you will barely make the money to pay back the loan. With my mortgage I couldnt afford to take the time off to go to farmers markets 2 3 days a week. its on ice. If you can do it without borrowing it might be worth having a go. If you can buy a house on about 10 acres, dont be afraid to go well outside dublin, you would only need to go to the big smoke once a week to sell your wares. Stay away from west cork as the place is bloated with artisan producers. Most important is that you have loads of sheds check www.agriculture.ie for specs on goat housing, you'll need a small shed adjacent to the main shed suitable for convering to a milking parlour, you'll need electric power on site and you'll need a few smaller sheds for isolation pens, rearing replacements, keeping pucks away from females and your cheesmaking plant. You will need a 50hp tractor a hay mower and a trailer, the goats dont go on the land you bring the grass to them. The land must be suitable for mowing, bog rough grazing wont do
If you want to get bigger you will need to get a less labour intensive way of gathering the grass like a zero graze machine. Also when you expand in the future if you want to go bigger you can start of by renting land, the land owner will be delighted to get someone who will not be bringing big bulls onto land where his kids might be playing or wild sheep that are always in the neighbours corn, I know that an old relative of mine who rented out her land would have jumped at the chance of a tenant who had no stock and who would not be ploughing up the ground.

To my mind the two keys to this are buying a farm with really good outbuildings and not borrowing any money.
You will need to be happy that your lifestyle will change, 24/7 on call especially at kidding time. Aslo your disposable income will be less. If you are dependent solely on the farm you will definitley qualify for farm assist which is the equivalent of the dole if you get the full payment. Dont forget most of us who have mortgages and loan repayments are probably living on something equivalent to the dole. I'm taking home 850 a week and paying out about 400 in various repayments if I was on the dole with a wife and 3 kids I'd get over 400 per week, so if I was debt free and on the dole, I'd have loads of free time to work on the farming enterprise and I'd be financially no worse off.
The key is debt free, If I was you and I could start this with no debts I'd be there in a flash

pakalasa

I would still go with the recomendation giving above, about getting some work expereince first before you go head first into something you know nothing about. Farming is a tough life, even for those born into it.;)

Indubitable

pakalasa wrote: »

I would still go with the recomendation giving above, about getting some work expereince first before you go head first into something you know nothing about. Farming is a tough life, even for those born into it.;)

Yeah it is tough but can be very enjoyable

galwayhillbilly

pakalasa wrote: »

I would still go with the recomendation giving above, about getting some work expereince first before you go head first into something you know nothing about. Farming is a tough life, even for those born into it.;)

I agree with this also, I was reared in farming and I know the work it involves, always going always something to do, if the weather is fine have to save hay instead of going to the beach, cant go to the pub in spring because you dont want to get caught for drink driving bringing a sheep to the vet that has had trouble lambing at 4am. Worked hard all year with a potato crop that ends up in a total loss because of blight because you didnt get a chance to spray before your wedding and honeymoon.
Filling stupid endless forms

Not only do you need to be able to do it but your spouse needs to be able to cope as well and this is one thing you will need to be sure of

The pay back is you are always there when your kids come in from school, if your missus needs to go to town to meet the girls or do some shopping your are around to watch the kids, you can even get some small jobs done with their help. You can drop them off and collect them from school. If you have a family tragedy or some other emergency, you dont have to ring in sick or use up your holidays or look for compassionate leave, usually a neighbour will keep things ticking over until you get sorted in exchange for a similar service when he gets stuck sometime.

There are loads of other drawbacks, but from where I'm sitting in my little cube not doing what I'm supposed to be doing because i hate it, but stuck here because I have a mortgage and my wage isnt big enough to make that go away anytime soon, it looks to be not such a bad life.

dunsandin

Have you tried hypnotism? I hear it can even remove the craving to smoke.

Its funny how people want to get into farming, and all us farmers spend our time thinking of somthing else we could get into.