can a living be made on fifty good dairy cows

beardy_smith

im thinking of getting into dairying , i grew up on a dairy farm but my brother has the home farm , i made some money on stocks this past three years and own a forty seven acre farm ( forty five adjusted ) , i currently have thirty sucklers but their is no money in it , i have to slatted sheds , two three links , one has 14 ft 6 slats , the other 10 ft 6 , i could put 22 cubicles in between both of them without changing anything

that would mean building a few links onto the newer shed and putting in a scraper and fifteen cubicles each side , i have a very large hay shed which i could turn into a milking parlour , would mean ripping out the concrete floor however

my land is great for growing grass though its not a dry farm like the ones in west cork etc , its not a wet one either ( average ) , get a fair bit of rain however and its high up ( though flat ) , renting land for silage and keeping young heifers should not be too difficult , in fact their is seventeen acres for sale less than a half a KM from my farm

id like to produce 300,000 litres from 50 cows and would hope to be able to earn around 50 k per year , i have a single payment of 24 k per year presently

i have a 200 k stock portfolio and an investment property which i dont owe a penny on which brings in 12 k per year , the only borrowings i have is a 30 k loan which im finished the first year of , effectively i would not need to borrow money to become a dairy farmer


im thirty six , ive milked cows in new zealand , i like cows and think dairying will be as good as most careers for making a living going forward

apart from putting in a milking parlour and buying a milk tank , i would need to buy fifty cows or maiden heifers but i have thirty decent sucklers to sell


any ideas welcome about my proposition

kevthegaff

Sounds like something you want to do, your starting on a good base with your financial situation, SFP, good interest. Is there land beside you that could be available in the future?

ellewood

kevthegaff wrote: »

Sounds like something you want to do, your starting on a good base with your financial situation, SFP, good interest. Is there land beside you that could be available in the future?

1 good farmer can make money from 50 cows
1 bad farmer prob couldn't make money with 150 be they good or bad cows

Id start there

Id start

kevthegaff

The good farmer with 50 cows is normally well established with low debt, the question is it worth it in the longterm switching to dairying with the costs involved. Also the poster seems a very good investor and would he make more money from investments, rent, SFP than switching to dairying and using his funds for a dairy system.

beardy_smith

kevthegaff wrote: »

The good farmer with 50 cows is normally well established with low debt, the question is it worth it in the longterm switching to dairying with the costs involved. Also the poster seems a very good investor and would he make more money from investments, rent, SFP than switching to dairying and using his funds for a dairy system.

im not being glib when i say any idiot could have made money with stocks from 2010 to the end of last year , im in the red this year ( though well up over a four year period ) as 2014 is proving difficult for equities , a really good investor can make money even during bad times , i would not view myself as a good investor , not clueless by any means but good stock investors are few and far between if your talking about making big money

a correction in stocks of the kind we had in 2008 would halve my asset value , therefore i would perfer stick the money in dairying and have direct control of my means of income , i realise i would still be at the mercy of dairy markets worldwide but relatively speaking , investing in oneself allows more control

id love if i could milk one hundred cows as the investment required is less per cow than a fifty cow herd in my opinion , not really on the cards however , would mean moving somewhere else and my other half would not really fancy the idea

lucky john

Beardy, I have question for you with a comparison that I know you will understand. What income would you make from milk if the price per lt dropped from its present high of 38c to a distinct possibility of 24.5c? Once quotes goes in europe next year its the equivalent of our favourite bank having a massive unlimited rights issue. We know what result that would have for the price.

Timmaay

beardy_smith wrote: »

id like to produce 300,000 litres from 50 cows and would hope to be able to earn around 50 k per year , i have a single payment of 24 k per year presently

What will the SFP drop to next year? A good rule of thumb would be 10c/l profit on average for an efficient enough farmer. Some years this might be zero and other it could be 20c! So excluding the SFP 300kL would really only give 30k a year. I personally think 50 is just too low a number to make it worth while, 60 would be the utter minimum, more like 80. And there is almost zero extra work in 80 spring milkers over 50.

Panch18

If it was me I'd keep the property - the 12k along with the SFP will give you an income of 36k before you milk a cow

allow for say a 6k drop in SFP over next few years you are still pulling in 30k before you start - that's as good as an additional 40 cows - better in fact because its income with no link to milk price.

Personally I'd use the shares to buy that 17 acres down the road from you, a couple of reasons

1) importing fodder, renting ground or contract rearing calves is going to be a very very expensive game in the future and will have a major impact on profits - better to own it than have to buy/rent
2) if it is only half KM away you could walk cows to it - allowing you to milk 70 cows or so - which will give you a fair increase in income from the cows
3) I, personally, would prefer to transfer cash from assets like shares into land and not milking parlour and sheds etc. While these are necessary to milk cows it is the land which is your asset that generates money - more land means more chance to make money. And if it all goes tits up in 5, 10 or 20 years time for you sell the 17 acres - hard to get anything back from the parlour and shed

Greengrass1

Panch18 wrote: »

If it was me I'd keep the property - the 12k along with the SFP will give you an income of 36k before you milk a cow

allow for say a 6k drop in SFP over next few years you are still pulling in 30k before you start - that's as good as an additional 40 cows - better in fact because its income with no link to milk price.

Personally I'd use the shares to buy that 17 acres down the road from you, a couple of reasons

1) importing fodder, renting ground or contract rearing calves is going to be a very very expensive game in the future and will have a major impact on profits - better to own it than have to buy/rent
2) if it is only half KM away you could walk cows to it - allowing you to milk 70 cows or so - which will give you a fair increase in income from the cows
3) I, personally, would prefer to transfer cash from assets like shares into land and not milking parlour and sheds etc. While these are necessary to milk cows it is the land which is your asset that generates money - more land means more chance to make money. And if it all goes tits up in 5, 10 or 20 years time for you sell the 17 acres - hard to get anything back from the parlour and shed

+1. One and only time panch !

beardy_smith

Timmaay wrote: »

What will the SFP drop to next year? A good rule of thumb would be 10c/l profit on average for an efficient enough farmer. Some years this might be zero and other it could be 20c! So excluding the SFP 300kL would really only give 30k a year. I personally think 50 is just too low a number to make it worth while, 60 would be the utter minimum, more like 80. And there is almost zero extra work in 80 spring milkers over 50.

i agree there is almost no extra work involved in eighty cows over fifty , the only way i could milk eighty cows is if i kept the cows indoors all year round and went the zero grazing route

beardy_smith

Panch18 wrote: »

If it was me I'd keep the property - the 12k along with the SFP will give you an income of 36k before you milk a cow

allow for say a 6k drop in SFP over next few years you are still pulling in 30k before you start - that's as good as an additional 40 cows - better in fact because its income with no link to milk price.

Personally I'd use the shares to buy that 17 acres down the road from you, a couple of reasons

1) importing fodder, renting ground or contract rearing calves is going to be a very very expensive game in the future and will have a major impact on profits - better to own it than have to buy/rent
2) if it is only half KM away you could walk cows to it - allowing you to milk 70 cows or so - which will give you a fair increase in income from the cows
3) I, personally, would prefer to transfer cash from assets like shares into land and not milking parlour and sheds etc. While these are necessary to milk cows it is the land which is your asset that generates money - more land means more chance to make money. And if it all goes tits up in 5, 10 or 20 years time for you sell the 17 acres - hard to get anything back from the parlour and shed

i would not need to sell my rental property to finance what i wish to do , i would only need to sell all my stocks , the rental property would only need to be sold if i bought more land

the land is good value although word has it their is issue with title not yet resolved , one party already pulled out

i think their would be little point in buying the land unless i get into milk , i could simply use my 200 k portfolio to buy an appartment in dublin which could generate another 10 k per year but frankly im pretty bored at the moment , thirty suckler cows wont make any more than 6 k per year max and their isnt much work involved with them most of the time , i spend more hours per day analysing stocks

plus despite what people think , rental properties are not the goldmine many view them to be , your talking no more than 7% yield per anum in a reasonably decent area , a dairy farm should make more than 7% per year on average

Damo810

If its what you want to do then go for it!

You know whats involved with your brother having a farm, growing up on one and working in NZ.

Your obviously a smart lad too, with the financial backing to do it and i doubt anyone who has done as well as you have with money hasn't looked at the finances for this project.

Is all your 47 acre farm in one block? And are things like reseeding/drainage etc taken care of?

Panch18

Greengrass1 wrote: »

+1. One and only time panch !

First time for everything - you'd never know it could become a regular occurrence!!

bennyineire

Hey peps, I'm a complete noob when it comes to farming, however there is a possibility that I could be in part possession of a farm in the not to distant future. I have no interest in tilling or cattle dealing.
However milking seems to be an easier route into farming (I appreciate I could be completely wrong here).
How much work would be involved in milking 50-80 cattle and how much land would you need (the land is reasonably dry and of good quality, we are in north Offaly)

Timmaay

Hmm 45acres of grassland, if this was all working at maximum efficiency (ie knocking out 14tons+ of grass per year), then you could certainly get away with stocking that at the likes of 60cows (3.4LU/HA). Go with a cowtype who can give out decent solids (550kg+/year, likes of a 7.5kL high EBI HO), and this would be a milk output of 450kLs which would be capable of generating alot more income than 300kL (assuming you do get your 14ton+ of grass/HA). You would need ground else where for silage and the heifers, and the cows would need buffer feeding of the likes of nuts, maize, wholecrop or 80+dmd silage on the shoulders and during periods of poor growth.

Shorter term aiming for the 50cows and 300kL output would be more reasonable and less pressure on a novice dairyfarmer like yourself. But long term, that 60cows and 450kL would be about the min I'd aim for in terms of production.

Panch18

beardy_smith wrote: »

i would not need to sell my rental property to finance what i wish to do , i would only need to sell all my stocks , the rental property would only need to be sold if i bought more land

the land is good value although word has it their is issue with title not yet resolved , one party already pulled out

i think their would be little point in buying the land unless i get into milk , i could simply use my 200 k portfolio to buy an appartment in dublin which could generate another 10 k per year but frankly im pretty bored at the moment , thirty suckler cows wont make any more than 6 k per year max and their isnt much work involved with them most of the time , i spend more hours per day analysing stocks

plus despite what people think , rental properties are not the goldmine many view them to be , your talking no more than 7% yield per anum in a reasonably decent area , a dairy farm should make more than 7% per year on average

Yep I was saying to buy the land on the basis of you being/getting into dairy

Land for sale close to a fellas milking parlour is rare enough - certainly where I'm from - I'd say give it serious consideration

beardy_smith

Damo810 wrote: »

If its what you want to do then go for it!

You know whats involved with your brother having a farm, growing up on one and working in NZ.

Your obviously a smart lad too, with the financial backing to do it and i doubt anyone who has done as well as you have with money hasn't looked at the finances for this project.

Is all your 47 acre farm in one block? And are things like reseeding/drainage etc taken care of?

its all in one block , no waste , 80% of it reseeded in the past two years

i could try a wintering pad as i have enough feeding space between both sheds for fifty cows no bother but the impression i get is that attitudes towards them have soured

lakill Farm

I have a client making a living on 35 cows. No land rental, no major repayments and no major capital expenditure

Simple easy system

Timmaay

bennyineire wrote: »

How much work would be involved in milking 50-80 cattle and how much land would you need (the land is reasonably dry and of good quality, we are in north Offaly)

Feb/March, every waking hour of the day. Aside from that there is no reason the one man milking 80cows cannot get away with mostly 7am-6pm the rest of the year, and large parts of the summer he will be ticking over with only 4/5hours work.

2nd question, 1 LU/acre on the overall farm is a reason target if you want to produce all your silage etc, so for 80 cows and say 20 followers (100LU), thats 100acres.

beardy_smith

i wouldnt go for the new zealand type cow as winters are too long , if cows are in on silage for three months of the milking season , you need something which will reward you , solids will be down regardless if they are not on grass

lower yield cows are only for places like west cork IMO

bennyineire

Timmaay wrote: »

Hmm 45acres of grassland, if this was all working at maximum efficiency (ie knocking out 14tons+ of grass per year), then you could certainly get away with stocking that at the likes of 60cows (3.4LU/HA). Go with a cowtype who can give out decent solids (550kg+/year, likes of a 7.5kL high EBI HO), and this would be a milk output of 450kLs which would be capable of generating alot more income than 300kL (assuming you do get your 14ton+ of grass/HA). You would need ground else where for silage and the heifers, and the cows would need buffer feeding of the likes of nuts, maize, wholecrop or 80+dmd silage on the shoulders and during periods of poor growth.

Shorter term aiming for the 50cows and 300kL output would be more reasonable and less pressure on a novice dairyfarmer like yourself. But long term, that 60cows and 450kL would be about the min I'd aim for in terms of production.

Great reply, thanks. Also wondering if this could be done part time between 2 people, how many man hours approx would you be looking at per week

49801

beardy_smith wrote: »

its all in one block , no waste , 80% of it reseeded in the past two years

i could try a wintering pad as i have enough feeding space between both sheds for fifty cows no bother but the impression i get is that attitudes towards them have soured

Ah what you need is outdoor cubiles!

You have the smarts and the finance.
So long as you you don't mind being married to the milking pit go for it!

Timmaay

bennyineire wrote: »

Great reply, thanks. Also wondering if this could be done part time between 2 people, how many man hours approx would you be looking at per week

Hmm good question, 14hours a day feb/march, say 6.5days a week, or 91hours. Rest of the year you should be able to get it back to 7am-6pm 5days a week (call it 10hours work), and say 5hours work sat and sun. Thats 60hours. Obviously some periods will be harder than others (wet weather, breeding season, silage season etc), but I think on average it would be a fair enough estimate? That's all for a compact calving spring system, if its anything else, be prepared for closer to the 14hours/day for alot more of the year, or else the farm will suffer.

caseman

Timmaay wrote: »

Hmm good question, 14hours a day feb/march, say 6.5days a week, or 91hours. Rest of the year you should be able to get it back to 7am-6pm 5days a week (call it 10hours work), and say 5hours work sat and sun. Thats 60hours. Obviously some periods will be harder than others (wet weather, breeding season, silage season etc), but I think on average it would be a fair enough estimate? That's all for a compact calving spring system, if its anything else, be prepared for closer to the 14hours/day for alot more of the year, or else the farm will suffer.

Not a dairy farmer but thinking of it.
Those hour's seem a bit an the high side if the setup was good.
For 60 cows would 4 hours not cover you in the parlour and feeding calves.

kevthegaff

caseman wrote: »

Not a dairy farmer but thinking of it.
Those hour's seem a bit an the high side if the setup was good.
For 60 cows would 4 hours not cover you in the parlour and feeding calves.

It should but add in slurry, fertilliser, reseeding, fencing, herding, ai, feeding, dosing, sick calves, transportation, spraying, cleaning, fixing things, calving, bedding, paperwork and it adds up!

Damo810

kevthegaff wrote: »

It should but add in slurry, fertilliser, reseeding, fencing, herding, ai, feeding, dosing, sick calves, transportation, spraying, cleaning, fixing things, calving, bedding, paperwork and it adds up!

And add in a few hours worrying about quota Kev!

caseman

kevthegaff wrote: »

It should but add in slurry, fertilliser, reseeding, fencing, herding, ai, feeding, dosing, sick calves, transportation, spraying, cleaning, fixing things, calving, bedding, paperwork and it adds up!

All those things take time but i don't think it would come to 10 hours.
At certain times like calving, silage, i could see hours like these but if you were doing these every week i'd think you be doing something wrong.

Timmaay

Yep as Kev said it all adds up, this is why 50cows ultimately just doesn't cut it if you want any sort of quality of life. As well as paying yourself enough of a wage, a one man show needs to pay for milk relief, a goodfew of the fulltime dairyfarmers I know aim to escape for 1 milking a week on average, throw in say 2wks of holidays also, thats 80milkings which will cost 3/4grand, then throw in abit of casual labour, it all adds up. If it wasn't for family labour (both teenagers or your dad), I'd say we would have a hell of alot of less dairyfarms in Ireland today!

munkus

Jesus,

Between Gordon geeko here and the 90k lad, I wonder what have I been doing for the last few years! Too much drink for a start.

Best of luck whatever you decide, great to have your own future in your hands. Hope it works out.

beardy_smith

49801 wrote: »

Ah what you need is outdoor cubiles!

You have the smarts and the finance.
So long as you you don't mind being married to the milking pit go for it!

a cow lieing on a cubicle with no roof over her , seems pretty cruel ? , sure the cubicle would be wet all the time

beardy_smith

Timmaay wrote: »

Yep as Kev said it all adds up, this is why 50cows ultimately just doesn't cut it if you want any sort of quality of life. As well as paying yourself enough of a wage, a one man show needs to pay for milk relief, a goodfew of the fulltime dairyfarmers I know aim to escape for 1 milking a week on average, throw in say 2wks of holidays also, thats 80milkings which will cost 3/4grand, then throw in abit of casual labour, it all adds up. If it wasn't for family labour (both teenagers or your dad), I'd say we would have a hell of alot of less dairyfarms in Ireland today!

the alternative is enormous scale for to make a living from tillage or no money at all from beef

Bleating Lamb

Jaysus lads the world and his mother are going into dairying;)....people need to look at the long term picture and allow for the very real possibility that just like house prices the price of milk can go up and DOWN!

milkprofit

d like to produce 300,000 litres from 50 cows and would hope to be able to earn around 50 k per year
budjet on 30 cents =90k then deduct all expences meal fert esb etc for 50 cows then reply to us

farmersfriend

Bleating Lamb wrote: »

Jaysus lads the world and his mother are going into dairying;)....people need to look at the long term picture and allow for the very real possibility that just like house prices the price of milk can go up and DOWN!

With u on that one

Markcheese

beardy_smith wrote: »

a cow lieing on a cubicle with no roof over her , seems pretty cruel ? , sure the cubicle would be wet all the time

Nearly as bad as lying on wet grass

Why is everyone still obsessed with cow numbers ,milking 50 or 80 to be worth it,
There's a huge difference between a Nz freisan or jersey,a commercial Holstein freisan and a high yielding Canadian style Holstein... 50 small frame animals almost exclusively off grass may be low cost,but also maybe low income , 100 high maintenance Holstein on zero graze and you'd be working to to pay the feed bill and bank...

Farmer Pudsey

47 acres is a bit small for a dairy farm. Even with the 17 acres added into the milking platform you are only hitting 64 acres so 60 ish cows. If they were producing 7.5KL/cow( about 1650 gallons) you be hitting 450K litres you would be turn over 155K in sales(at 32c/L) with calf and cull sales. You would have to take costs out of that.

However your investment property would be gone. Including share portfolio and property minus loan you have about 350K at a wild guess to invest. However beware of capital gains tax if 100K of that is capital gain that is 33K in tax to be paid.

At present you have 24K in SFP that is about 1350/HA sounds a bit strange. That will got to 700/HA in 2019. So cut in half. TBH the land bank is too small to be viable and you need to be a good operator to milk 7.5K L/cow. If the SFP was not going to get cut so much it would be a bit of a cushion.

THe other option is to change your investment strategy, not sure what part of the country you are from but rural property is relative value 200K would buy 2 houses yielding another 12K/year in rental income. Get rid of the cows and buy 45 store a year and finish @ 250/head gives another 11K in income. Get into GLAS (potential 5K) another 2-3K in income.

After that get a job an average job will return 25K/year that with the farm and the 3-4 rental property will get rid of the boredom. You have about 50-55K in income/year.

How did you end up with a SFP of 1350/HA