What's your Farming New Years resolution?

Bleating Lamb

Part time suckling and sheep farming here with the father,what do ye feel could be done better on your holding in 2015?...
length of list will depend of course on your current efficiency of course:).
Here I'm going to try and be more organised keeping likes of off farm sales up to date on register...and not be thinking back to what happened a month previously;),
Also intend culling 2 or 3 Suckler cows that have reasonably good calves but have either a slight lack of milk or put too much condition on themselves and not enough on calf!
Reality in Suckling now is that if you are taking 80 or 100 euro less for a weanling in October that's same age
and off same stock bull that majority of calves are averaging 100e more then that calfs mother is a bit of a passenger on the team.The father would be a bit sentimental about one or two of them but I'd rather see us keeping on a few replacements off better breeding cows or buying a nice incalf heifer/cow or two...or cow with calf at foot in April.
Anyways all the best to everyone on here for 2015...and remember animals will get sick and some will die,but as long as its outside the house another year will bring better luck;)

Bullocks

Take more money out of the farm and do a bit less work . Only exception is fencing fencing and more fencing

Mr Rhode Island Red

Do my utmost not to increase sheep numbers on the ranch

blue5000

Going to start measuring grass.

Connemara Farmer

Finish the tunnel, piece of a roadway if I can manage it. Anything else will be a bonus.

Muckit

Keep the ship afloat! No major plans farm wise for 2015. Simplify things where possible.

Miname

splitting a couple of the bigger fields into 3 acre paddocks( the neighbours will say im going milking). drain 2 wet spots (prings)that have been annoying me for years. dig out for a new silage pit and stone and leave for bales for now. get all soil indexes right, this years samples are going on monday, increase cow numbers and start spraying a bit more.

Mad4simmental

Give up fags first!

Try start grass measuring,

First real year back suckling so try up numbers more and set out paddocks (slowly as the boss man loves letting them free)

Just set up half an old hay shed with new floor and calving pens ect so wanto do the other half during the year.

Cut silage earlier with more leaf less stem.

More spray this year for weeds and rushes as what we done this year worked and payed for itself.

More reseeding.

Stay alive.

Reggie.

Try and not buy too much machinery

tomwaterford

fenceing....ive another roughly mile of it to do....also put in dipping tank/yard

and a few derelict old houses in a corner of the yard I intend to level with the view to putting up another shed for the sheep at some stage....2017 maybe finish date?

Nekarsulm

Finish the dipping tank. Fence more. Spread lime and spray the brains out of places the rushes are thriving. Up the sheep numbers a bit if possible. Fix a few old slated roofs before they fall in. Put up more pillars and hang gates properly .

Try and get to the HMT Show in Holland. Try and get ten days away to drive down the Rhine vineyards. ..

sh1tstirrer

Top of the list is dumping my current accountant

Greengrass1

Control costs to the absolute cent and make sure I measure grass weekly

ihatewinter

Finish off cutting gorse on the side of a hill, without losing my mind or killing myself :P

Put in a new roadway down to the old sheds where I use for lambing. Killer trying to get ewes and lambs up to the pen for loading.

Cull any rogue sheep, heartbroken yet again. There's about 11-12 all related to one another who love jumping wire. I moved them all home over Christmas, 3 decided to jump wire and go for a little swim. They have been spotted a mile down the road. The feckers.

Start creep feeder early from about 10 days to get lambs out early. I had lambs here till December trying to finish them because they were so light at weaning.

Scan, scan scan this year.

Timmaay

Greengrass1 wrote: »

Control costs to the absolute cent and make sure I measure grass weekly

Both will do nicely for me also.

Ashill5

Re-roof old shed, spray rushes, cut silage earlier, lime.
Most of all grow more grass.

I said

sh1tstirrer wrote: »

Top of the list is dumping my current accountant

Is lakill out of a job?

Username John

ihatewinter wrote: »

Start creep feeder early from about 10 days to get lambs out early. I had lambs here till December trying to finish them because they were so light at weaning.

Scan, scan scan this year.

You'll creep the lambs from 10 days old?
Assuming you haven't scanned yet, you won't be lambing til march timeframe. (I think)
Do you think creeping the lambs then will pay?

grassroot1

I will stop swearing, should be fun with lambing and calving!!!

Reggie.

grassroot1 wrote: »

I will stop swearing, should be fun with lambing and calving!!!

Best of luck with that

Feckthis

Try to invest in the farm as much as I can. Try to get things sorted with regards setting up a profitable enterprise. Don't forget to have some fun at the same time. Life is not all about work. And oh yea F##k the Begrudgers.

eric prydz

Reggie. wrote: »

Try and not buy too much machinery

So what are you going buying?
Trying to get more enjoyment out of farming myself.

Reggie.

eric prydz wrote: »

So what are you going buying?
Trying to get more enjoyment out of farming myself.

Looking at tedders for the summer

ihatewinter

Username John wrote: »

You'll creep the lambs from 10 days old?
Assuming you haven't scanned yet, you won't be lambing til march timeframe. (I think)
Do you think creeping the lambs then will pay?

Well the price I got for them in 2013, without any concentrates, would justify it. I sold in October/November and averaged 50 euro per head. Average sell weight 25kg.

This year weaned in August, lambs on mountain weaned average 18kg and hill farm weaned average was 25kg. Fed concentrates and got 90% of hill lambs to 40kg by mid November and mountain lambs averaged 35kg by mid December.

I had 117 ewes of grand uncles ewes, sold about 70 this year and bought in 53 and 20 of my own so have 120 ewes. Now they are bigger, stronger ewes and I have done a lot of work to get them right, so I'm assuming a lot will have twins as I bought from reputable farmers. My land here at the moment is crap, mountain commonage wasn't grazed in 20 years so it is still not nutritious enough for growing lambs. Gonna divide singles and twins. Singles to the mountain and twins stay on hill farm. So that's why I was going to creep from 10 days to give them a chance to grow on overgrown mountain.

Sorry for my rant

whelan2

going to do this https://www.affinityplus.org/Portals/0/Documents/Blog/52Week.pdf its a money saving plan, hope to do it towards money for summer holidays,and hope we all stay happy and healthy in 2015

just do it

The plan I've been mulling over for the last few years -> I'm going to just do it

quader

back milking get beasting into every calf within 2 hours work my ass off loose weight beat all of my financial targets and try to learn how to measure grass


AND TRY TO KEEP THE WIFE HAPPY:D:D:D:D

Bleating Lamb

Started as I mean to go on and got the sheep register tidied up this evening,good sense of achievement afterwards:)

Bitten & Hisses

Declare war on rushes, which now grow in fields where they have no right to do so, get more slurry out in March, get my file to the accountant earlier this year.