All year round milking

dungfly

Is it worth it? Pros and cons?

whelan2

dungfly wrote: »

Is it worth it? Pros and cons?

no

dungfly

whelan2 wrote: »

no

Flesh it out a bit........

Greengrass1

whelan2 wrote: »

no

Nope. Not for the work involved. Main feed of silage is double the price of grazed grass plus factor in it has to be top notch stuff or your either packing heaps of nuts or buying maize or growing maize.

Timmaay

Yes if you have 500/1000 cows, a good liquid milk contract for an all year around supply, and some seriously deep pockets for the capital investment. For most farmers down south with the likes of 20/30autumn calvers mixed in with their spring operation, I think they are wasting their time and would be better off putting the effort into a full spring system.

whelan2

dungfly wrote: »

Flesh it out a bit........

its just not, greengrass mentioned a few of the points. Pure hardship in the middle of winter when the spring calving farmers are on their holidays

Greengrass1

whelan2 wrote: »

its just not, greengrass mentioned a few of the points. Pure hardship in the middle of winter when the spring calving farmers are on their holidays

Yep. Ye don't get excited about spring calving as other lads do and ye haven't the energy built up like spring calving farmers do. Your worn out after getting up at 7 on cold wet mornings

Timmaay

Greengrass1 wrote: »

Yep. Ye don't get excited about spring calving as other lads do and ye haven't the energy built up like spring calving farmers do. Your worn out after getting up at 7 on cold wet mornings

Or jacking out bb bull calves at the end of may! (Like I just did 10mins ago ha!)

frazzledhome

Totally disagree with other posters. In it as long as I'm in cows no intention of getting out. I would not dream of doing it without a bonus of some description. We are in the Glanbia Winter Milk Scheme with a cottact.

Cons the usual suspects milking 365, cold mornings, calf feeding in Nov and Dec. An extra group of calves, maidens and springers.

Pluses profitable so long as you don't get carried away. We have a real simple system of silage and 5 kg nuts in the parlour for the winter ladies. It also means all cows get milked 305 days or to within 6 wks of calving. Our Spril calvers aren't dried till late Jan so they fill a good % of the contract.

Used be into TMR, maize, beet and all the work that entails. Since that was cut out its s lot easier.

I have no experience of Liquid but they're always giving out about it. Don't know if its price or their costs are the problem, bit of both I'd say.

My view is cubicles, feeding etc need to be done and if you're getting a bonus you may aswell milk as all fixed costs are there.

Milked out

dungfly wrote: »

Is it worth it? Pros and cons?

It depends on the situation really. It would be essential to be a part of a winter scheme, etc. in order to to get the extra c/l to cover the extra cost involved.
Pro's; Can increase milk sales, this milk can be produced at a profit but it may be less of a profit than spring production,
Can split the calving pressure by having x amount calved in autumn and then have a lower amount calving in spring ( block calving should be rigidly stuck to if at all possible) If labour is an issue,
No need to dry off later calving cows early allowing full lactations to be completed getting more from all cows,
Possible stock sales in both autumn and spring

Cons; No break from milking,
Can make it difficult to get other work done when calving breeding and milking are on going ,
If milk price collapses and poor wather for silage making/ forage growing and harvesting combine it becomes seriously expensive.
More exposed to meal prices,
Fedding calves for a longer time frame, more work etc.,
feeding different groups of cows heifers etc.,
Capital requirements, feeding space cubicles etc.

Prob more pros and cons there but being able to get everyday tasks done efficiently really makes it easier for when extra jobs need doing. Also family requiements need to be considered also. Then again alot of this is done anyway so much of a muchness. being at a scale to employ someone makes a big difference too

Frazzle beat me to it

dungfly

how does profit compare to spring Calving?

Timmaay

dungfly wrote: »

how does profit compare to spring Calving?

Not a huge amount in the difference I gather, which makes it all the less appealing considering the extra labour required.

I have a liquid supply contract, and last month we were paid 3c/l less than the manufacturing milk price, I know this will probably change when the milk price eases back off, but I'm struggling to justify hanging onto that liquid contract.

mahoney_j

frazzledhome wrote: »

Totally disagree with other posters. In it as long as I'm in cows no intention of getting out. I would not dream of doing it without a bonus of some description. We are in the Glanbia Winter Milk Scheme with a cottact.

Cons the usual suspects milking 365, cold mornings, calf feeding in Nov and Dec. An extra group of calves, maidens and springers.

Pluses profitable so long as you don't get carried away. We have a real simple system of silage and 5 kg nuts in the parlour for the winter ladies. It also means all cows get milked 305 days or to within 6 wks of calving. Our Spril calvers aren't dried till late Jan so they fill a good % of the contract.

Used be into TMR, maize, beet and all the work that entails. Since that was cut out its s lot easier.

I have no experience of Liquid but they're always giving out about it. Don't know if its price or their costs are the problem, bit of both I'd say.

My view is cubicles, feeding etc need to be done and if you're getting a bonus you may aswell milk as all fixed costs are there.

Yeadh I agree with that,keep it simple,onecquestion though re cubicles,with or without a roof!!!!!!!

st1979

I am in all year round production mostly spring calving with a few in autumn get liquid and winter bonuses. Surely after quota goes if milk price is good people will milk on. Why dry off the whole herd. Lactose can be a problem but if cows are well fed lactose is normally ok. The big cost of extended calving is drying off cows early so if you milk on you reduce some of yhat cost. My milking takes 40 mins at the shortest point of the year. I will still need to feed the cows silage even if they are dry

frazzledhome

mahoney_j wrote: »

Yeadh I agree with that,keep it simple,onecquestion though re cubicles,with or without a roof!!!!!!!

Ha, OWP!!

royalmeath

Wasnt in the journal there not long back a comparison of both systems. It turned out that while the costs were slightly higher the winter producers were making more profit per cow than the spring only milkman. When a cow calves say in october realistically she could still be milking well until july the following year.

mf240

Sure if ya werent milking for the winter youd only be looking at fair city or some rubbish.

Cant understand lads drying off may calvers for six months just to get a week or two off from milkong around christmas.

st1979

I always find when teagasc do there costings on fertility or milking on late a spring calving herd they never include any winter bonuses to make the figures more stark. Now i know not everyone can get liquid or winter bonuses (although people moving to strathroy will!!). But i have been to teagasc meetings given to liquid suppliers and same figures used.
If you can get a bonus for late milk and you have late calvers it has to make sense to milk on in a no quota environment. Now if you are talking a couple of cows its not worth the hassle but a half decent number i would.

Timmaay

Hmm when I read the title of this thread I was more thinking about all year around calving. In terms of all year around milking I'll be sticking it out for sure for the next few years until herd fertility improves. I've worked out I can jump up to about 90cows next spring with the replacements coming thought and moderate culling, I won't require much investment for the likes of that, however if I was to go spring milk only I'd probably have to cull out 1/4 of the herd, who are otherwise grand cows, sticking with all year around milking definitely makes sense short term for me.

sheebadog

I HATE all year round calving!
I've haven't much choice though.

As an aside, with all these fancy new parlours going in, isn't it very wasteful to be only using them a few months of the year??
Friend of mine has two parlours side by side that go 24 hours a day for the last 20 odd years. Is that the ultimate in expansion? Will we all be doing that in a few years.......?

Viewtodiefor

Won't be doing it unless milk hits 70 cent a litre. As a one man show ya need some sort of a life also

Greengrass1

Viewtodiefor wrote: »

Won't be doing it unless milk hits 70 cent a litre. As a one man show ya need some sort of a life also

How does 54c/l sound? That's the highest we got this year

whelan2

mf240 wrote: »

Sure if ya werent milking for the winter youd only be looking at fair city or some rubbish.

Cant understand lads drying off may calvers for six months just to get a week or two off from milkong around christmas.

This.... all for the sake of a holiday. Sure milking christmas day is a great escape from all the relations:D

Viewtodiefor

Greengrass1 wrote: »

How does 54c/l sound? That's the highest we got this year

Nah I like my few weeks off. So unless financial circumstances change not for me!

Timmaay

Greengrass1 wrote: »

How does 54c/l sound? That's the highest we got this year

For like a few % of the years supply! While the supermarkets are on a race to the bottom with the price of liquid milk, to be honest it was a little stupid lads bragging to the general public etc last winter about getting that, when its only down to the small volume of high solids end of lactation milk.

Greengrass1

Timmaay wrote: »

For like a few % of the years supply! While the supermarkets are on a race to the bottom with the price of liquid milk, to be honest it was a little stupid lads bragging to the general public etc last winter about getting that, when its only down to the small volume of high solids end of lactation milk.

No we would usually hit the top 40s most yrs for 3-4 months of the year.
I have a different contract to you. Mine us a winter where yours is a liquid

Timmaay

Greengrass1 wrote: »

No we would usually hit the top 40s most yrs for 3-4 months of the year.
I have a different contract to you. Mine us a winter where yours is a liquid

Well OK stop bloody bragging so and making all us farmers look like we are all on an utter gravytrain ha, when in reality my winter milkers are giving out white water not much over 6.5% solids

Greengrass1

Timmaay wrote: »

Well OK stop bloody bragging so and making all us farmers look like we are all on an utter gravytrain ha, when in reality my winter milkers are giving out white water not much over 6.5% solids

Must have hit a sore point

st1979

Viewtodiefor wrote: »

Nah I like my few weeks off. So unless financial circumstances change not for me!

I would far prefer to get a system where i can employ a man all year. I think its better quality of life for both farmer and employee. I can't understand the drive for everyone to be 1 man bands. It is my ultimate aim to become a 2 man system. In the past i had an employee and the freedom it gave and flexibility. Plus as my accountant told me when i whinged about the cost was how many animals would he save in the year either himself or the fact i was not running around the whole time and saved the animal myself. Was talking to a teagasc advisor and it took him a while to look a little outside the box 1 option was to be 1 man band in a low cost system and the projected profits where very good but i would need to look after 150 livestock units on my own. Then i suggested a higher cost system with 180 livestock units and 2 men and even after wages i would make more money on the same type budgets. And he was in full agreement that there would be less work for me on the higher cost system. Now i know in times of low milk price the low cost system is not going to get hit as hard. But in times of poor weather the higher cost system would be less affected, So swings and roundabouts.