Dairy Chit Chat- Please read Mod note in post #1

kowtow

Looking for bright ideas for a slurry grid / channel to run across the end of a cubicle shed and a feed passage.

Have thought about a couple of slats with a mini reception tank below but might end up digging a full tank directly in the same spot later on in the year so tempted to go for something quick and cheap.

The simplest thing would be a narrow slurry channel connected to the existing tank by some corripipe with a dam.. is there a way to put a grid over at least part of a new channel so we could drive over it into the passages at a pinch?

boggerman1

billie holiday wrote: »

Anyone see that article in last weeks farming indo about cost cutting ??
I generally disagreed with most of it (stop vaccinATing stop milk recording etc)

read it and laughed.what a load of bull****.cut out vaccines,cut out meal and sell all your machinery and contract out everything.so i guess when the price of milk ever goes back up to 40cents we would be all heading back to our local tractor dealer to buy a shiny new one.:D

Buford T. Justice XIX

Stolen from YLYL




http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=98405308&postcount=3586

darragh_haven

Buford T. Justice V wrote: »

Stolen from YLYL




http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=98405308&postcount=3586

And maybe the reality is closer to the excerpt take from the PFC below.

The Positive Farmers conference heard how Shinagh Dairy demonstration farm in Co Cork, made a surplus of €108,000 in 2015 after leases, labour and bank repayments were made. 

Greengrass1

darragh_haven wrote: »

And maybe the reality is closer to the excerpt take from the PFC below.

The Positive Farmers conference heard how Shinagh Dairy demonstration farm in Co Cork, made a surplus of €108,000 in 2015 after leases, labour and bank repayments were made. 

Is that after running expenses too?

Timmaay

Duno what sort of reaction I'll get from this question ha, but anyways I'm in my final year of officially being a young farmer, so only have this year to use up the 80k worth of a 60% grant! I'm absolutely not the sort of person who goes for grants for the sake of them ha, but I could definitely do with a decent bit more slurry storage, and spending 80k with a 60% grand means it only costs me 32k (spending 60k is 24k, so I'll happily max out the grant if I'm getting value for the spend). Anyway stocking the block to 3.5 cows/ha here would leave me at 150 cows, plus let's call it 40 incalf heifers and 40 yearlings. Currently we have 16wks worth of storage for about 80 cows, and 86 cubicles in total. Considering I could do with say another 100 cubicles and storage for that, what way would any of yous suggest I spend the money? I'd rather stay away from a lagoon, just too big a footprint for me, and too much water collected. A large underground tank is what I'm thinking about now, cubicles with a roof, and then an outdoor feeding area.

Finally I might never ever reach the SR of 3.5 here and the 100extra cubicles might be total overkill, but there are 6 different plots of land adjoining the milking block here, I'd be reasonably confidence that I'll get my hands on one of them at some stage moving forward ha.

Or maybe I'm stone mad, got too much money to burn, price of milk is sh1te, forget about the grant and keep the hatches battoned down ha?

Opinions please!

darragh_haven

Greengrass1 wrote: »

Is that after running expenses too?

Apparently yes, after running expenses . taxable income that you can then spend wisely - eg, buy a rear wheel drive 1986 corolla twin cam

Dawggone

Timmaay wrote: »

Duno what sort of reaction I'll get from this question ha, but anyways I'm in my final year of officially being a young farmer, so only have this year to use up the 80k worth of a 60% grant! I'm absolutely not the sort of person who goes for grants for the sake of them ha, but I could definitely do with a decent bit more slurry storage, and spending 80k with a 60% grand means it only costs me 32k (spending 60k is 24k, so I'll happily max out the grant if I'm getting value for the spend). Anyway stocking the block to 3.5 cows/ha here would leave me at 150 cows, plus let's call it 40 incalf heifers and 40 yearlings. Currently we have 16wks worth of storage for about 80 cows, and 86 cubicles in total. Considering I could do with say another 100 cubicles and storage for that, what way would any of yous suggest I spend the money? I'd rather stay away from a lagoon, just too big a footprint for me, and too much water collected. A large underground tank is what I'm thinking about now, cubicles with a roof, and then an outdoor feeding area.

Finally I might never ever reach the SR of 3.5 here and the 100extra cubicles might be total overkill, but there are 6 different plots of land adjoining the milking block here, I'd be reasonably confidence that I'll get my hands on one of them at some stage moving forward ha.

Or maybe I'm stone mad, got too much money to burn, price of milk is sh1te, forget about the grant and keep the hatches battoned down ha?

Opinions please!

Apologies Tim.

I just read a letter written by tillage farmers to the IFA and IFJ and it pointed out exactly what you have posted.
If your neighbor of the same circumstance as you is a tillage farmer he has no access to that funding. Shamefull.


Again apologies Tim (and mods).

jaymla627

darragh_haven wrote: »

And maybe the reality is closer to the excerpt take from the PFC below.

The Positive Farmers conference heard how Shinagh Dairy demonstration farm in Co Cork, made a surplus of €108,000 in 2015 after leases, labour and bank repayments were made. 

It seems to be a very well run operation by the looks of it, 108,000 could be spot on you have to take into account their supplying carbery so would of been working of a base price of over 30 cent a litre averaged out for 2015...
Combined with their high solid crossbreeds they're average milk price would of been probably over 34c/l for 2015, theirs also only one paid labour unit on the farm along with students for the spring/summer nice cost saving their alone too, any slides for greenfields in kilkenny that might of painted a more realistic picture....

kevthegaff

Timmaay wrote: »

Duno what sort of reaction I'll get from this question ha, but anyways I'm in my final year of officially being a young farmer, so only have this year to use up the 80k worth of a 60% grant! I'm absolutely not the sort of person who goes for grants for the sake of them ha, but I could definitely do with a decent bit more slurry storage, and spending 80k with a 60% grand means it only costs me 32k (spending 60k is 24k, so I'll happily max out the grant if I'm getting value for the spend). Anyway stocking the block to 3.5 cows/ha here would leave me at 150 cows, plus let's call it 40 incalf heifers and 40 yearlings. Currently we have 16wks worth of storage for about 80 cows, and 86 cubicles in total. Considering I could do with say another 100 cubicles and storage for that, what way would any of yous suggest I spend the money? I'd rather stay away from a lagoon, just too big a footprint for me, and too much water collected. A large underground tank is what I'm thinking about now, cubicles with a roof, and then an outdoor feeding area.

Finally I might never ever reach the SR of 3.5 here and the 100extra cubicles might be total overkill, but there are 6 different plots of land adjoining the milking block here, I'd be reasonably confidence that I'll get my hands on one of them at some stage moving forward ha.

Or maybe I'm stone mad, got too much money to burn, price of milk is sh1te, forget about the grant and keep the hatches battoned down ha?

Opinions please!

I'd definitely go for it if your in for the long run! Only thing is with grant spec cost will go up!!

kevthegaff

Dawggone wrote: »

Apologies Tim.

I just read a letter written by tillage farmers to the IFA and IFJ and it pointed out exactly what you have posted.
If your neighbor of the same circumstance as you is a tillage farmer he has no access to that funding. Shamefull.


Again apologies Tim (and mods).

fairly obvious which enterprise this current minister is pushing, will he be right...

Dawggone

kevthegaff wrote: »

fairly obvious which enterprise this current minister is pushing, will he be right...

It's a Phuckin disgrace.
The Xmas bonus for the skiing holiday must feel like a kick in the jewels...

mahoney_j

Timmaay wrote: »

Duno what sort of reaction I'll get from this question ha, but anyways I'm in my final year of officially being a young farmer, so only have this year to use up the 80k worth of a 60% grant! I'm absolutely not the sort of person who goes for grants for the sake of them ha, but I could definitely do with a decent bit more slurry storage, and spending 80k with a 60% grand means it only costs me 32k (spending 60k is 24k, so I'll happily max out the grant if I'm getting value for the spend). Anyway stocking the block to 3.5 cows/ha here would leave me at 150 cows, plus let's call it 40 incalf heifers and 40 yearlings. Currently we have 16wks worth of storage for about 80 cows, and 86 cubicles in total. Considering I could do with say another 100 cubicles and storage for that, what way would any of yous suggest I spend the money? I'd rather stay away from a lagoon, just too big a footprint for me, and too much water collected. A large underground tank is what I'm thinking about now, cubicles with a roof, and then an outdoor feeding area.

Finally I might never ever reach the SR of 3.5 here and the 100extra cubicles might be total overkill, but there are 6 different plots of land adjoining the milking block here, I'd be reasonably confidence that I'll get my hands on one of them at some stage moving forward ha.

Or maybe I'm stone mad, got too much money to burn, price of milk is sh1te, forget about the grant and keep the hatches battoned down ha?

Opinions please!

You know what you want and need Tim so go for it whilst your young enough .for slurry storage I'd go for a tower with spare capacity ,cubicles do it in stages ,build them open top with the option of roofing down the road (you may never roof it !!)

Timmaay

kevthegaff wrote: »

I'd definitely go for it if your in for the long run! Only thing is with grant spec cost will go up!!

Have a concrete chap coming down over the next few days to give me a quote, I know he was extremely reasonable in the pre grant times, and from talking to him on the phone he doesn't appear to be overly busy at the sec. This time last year I could hardly even get a quote for the parlour concrete work, low milk price hopefully doing me a favour!!

jaymla627

kevthegaff wrote: »

fairly obvious which enterprise this current minister is pushing, will he be right...

He's 100% right in the sense that in terms of which commodity most value can be added too by processors and knock on effects for job/investment creation milk wins hands down compared to tillage, weather dairy farmers go wallop/our become busy fools is little concern to covney

Dawggone

jaymla627 wrote: »

He's 100% right in the sense that in terms of which commodity most value can be added too by processors and knock on effects for job/investment creation milk wins hands down compared to tillage, weather dairy farmers go wallop/our become busy fools is little concern to covney

???

Buford T. Justice XIX

jaymla627 wrote: »

He's 100% right in the sense that in terms of which commodity most value can be added too by processors and knock on effects for job/investment creation milk wins hands down compared to tillage, weather dairy farmers go wallop/our become busy fools is little concern to covney

You've hit the nail on the head there, jay.

It's starting to look like more of the benefits from milk will be outside the gate than inside, unfortunately.

When milk price drops, outside the gate aren't going to drop their wages and when it rises, there will be more 'compliance' costs tacked onto the price increase.

pedigree 6

This is not about tillage vs dairy. That's just nonsence and only trying to wind people up. It's true that there is large tillage farms being converted to dairy atm and good luck to them. You could make the argument that tillage farms have a higher sfp than dairy farms and I've no issue with that either. There was schemes a while ago for tillage farms for on farm cereal storage.

The schemes are dairy equipment scheme
Pig and poultry scheme
Organic capital investment scheme
and then young farmers capital investment scheme covers all.

I'm leaving some out as the sheep and cattle were/are covered now or the last schemes. Here is an agriland article on it from last year and it doesn't include the extensions in deadlines for them.https://www.agriland.ie/farming-news/a-full-list-of-everything-eligible-for-new-young-farmer-grants/

Edit I just read that letter and I can see where they're coming from with all the talk of dairy being the saviour of the country and nothing about tillage. The beet industry going was a big loss and I hope they can get it back going again.

Dawggone

pedigree 6 wrote: »

This is not about tillage vs dairy.[/url]

Really?
Dairy got protected for over 30yrs. Don't mention '09 please because it makes people sound like CS employees.
Then after screaming for years for open markets you get a handout 8 months later to soften the blow...
The real issue is the free availability of inward investment grants to dairy above all other sectors.

visatorro

tim, you mentioned before an off farm interest/venture. instead of pushing to 150 cows and spending the money on storage and cubicle space etc. could you use money to be extra efficient and even 110-120 cows. drafting systems, extra feed space, automatic feeders things like that. maybe im looking at it all wrong but am a believer in more cows isnt always more money. if you could free up time you might be better off than having more cows

kevthegaff

Tillage men are being forced into storage/contracting for dairy men around here, can't say I agree but that is what's happening

pedigree 6

Dawggone wrote: »

Really?
Dairy got protected for over 30yrs. Don't mention '09 please because it makes people sound like CS employees.
Then after screaming for years for open markets you get a handout 8 months later to soften the blow...
The real issue is the free availability of inward investment grants to dairy above all other sectors.

I know it's easy to generalise. Not every farmer wanted quotas to go and not every farmer is going to apply for the investment grants. It's true that the government is apparently trying to get more farmers into dairying and I have a sneaky suspicion that's what they're at with tillage farmers trying to get that land into dairying. The big winners out of this will be glanbia, Kerry and ornua. I think the government is doing this as they favour big business competing on world markets and you could link in the meat factories into this competing abroad as well. They are looking at the jobs they are creating and bringing foreign money into the country. I'd say they probably did a study sometime to see how could agribusiness bring in more money into the
country and with quotas going they went with it. If there's winners and losers in this situation with quotas gone and huge uncertainty out there now with the processors margin staying the same or increasing now, i'd rather be Siobhan Talbot or larry goodman than a dairy farmer atm.

Timmaay

visatorro wrote: »

tim, you mentioned before an off farm interest/venture. instead of pushing to 150 cows and spending the money on storage and cubicle space etc. could you use money to be extra efficient and even 110-120 cows. drafting systems, extra feed space, automatic feeders things like that. maybe im looking at it all wrong but am a believer in more cows isnt always more money. if you could free up time you might be better off than having more cows

Very good point. Auto drafting and some sort of basic fty are two things that I'd seriously consider definitely. Maybe I'm being nieve but I'm thinking 150cows so as I can justify hiring more labour, I'd happily have a milker in for 1/2 the time, I wouldn't at all mind having to work like a slave during compact calving/breeding season if it means I can take large parts of the summer off, I guess the question is how many cows do I need for this, am I better off with 120 and keep yields/efficency up, or push on the numbers with a simpler lower input system.

The risk with my potential investment is if I fail to get any extra land on the milking block, and then likes of climate change makes a 3.5lu/ha SR totally unsustainable. For the sake of a 30k investment, one that I'll need to spend the likes of 15/20k on slurry storage regardless, I think it's a reasonable enough risk to take.

Deepsouthwest

Timmaay wrote: »

Very good point. Auto drafting and some sort of basic fty are two things that I'd seriously consider definitely. Maybe I'm being nieve but I'm thinking 150cows so as I can justify hiring more labour, I'd happily have a milker in for 1/2 the time, I wouldn't at all mind having to work like a slave during compact calving/breeding season if it means I can take large parts of the summer off, I guess the question is how many cows do I need for this, am I better off with 120 and keep yields/efficency up, or push on the numbers with a simpler lower input system.

The risk with my potential investment is if I fail to get any extra land on the milking block, and then likes of climate change makes a 3.5lu/ha SR totally unsustainable. For the sake of a 30k investment, one that I'll need to spend the likes of 15/20k on slurry storage regardless, I think it's a reasonable enough risk to take.

I'd fire in the application with all the possible investments u might make before the deadline passes, it'll cost u nothing to do that, and then u have a couple of yrs to get whatever u decide to do done.
Always keep ur options open.

Timmaay

Deepsouthwest wrote: »

I'd fire in the application with all the possible investments u might make before the deadline passes, it'll cost u nothing to do that, and then u have a couple of yrs to get whatever u decide to do done.
Always keep ur options open.

I was under the assumption you need to meet the requirements when you drawing down the grant, ie still be under the 5years a young farmer? Regardless, I'll definitely need planning permission before I can even submit a full application. Hence why I'm getting in a builder to give me a quote asap. I'll be putting in extra slurry storage regardless of if it's for 20 or 100 cows, and as I said already if I can get a lot more storage and cubicles for only 10/15k than the min investment I'll need on storage then it's worth it.

Mehaffey1

Have a friend who's in a severe shortage of grass. I know it's difficult without knowing the farm but any suggestions on how to manage a huge defic Culling, extra grazing area and reducing production or 16 hr/ once a day aren't options.

980 cows, 3.7 cow/ha
Available cover equals 300 by the sounds of things at best.
Supplement available through mixer wagon is grass silage, grass Bailage, Lucerne bales, maize in shed feed and palm kernel.

Planner says 20 day round. He was going around in 18 but new farm walk shows 12 days!

keep going

Mehaffey1 wrote: »

Have a friend who's in a severe shortage of grass. I know it's difficult without knowing the farm but any suggestions on how to manage a huge defic Culling, extra grazing area and reducing production or 16 hr/ once a day aren't options.

980 cows, 3.7 cow/ha
Available cover equals 300 by the sounds of things at best.
Supplement available through mixer wagon is grass silage, grass Bailage, Lucerne bales, maize in shed feed and palm kernel.

Planner says 20 day round. He was going around in 18 but new farm walk shows 12 days!

Oh f##k, irrigationOr did ye get rain

Buford T. Justice XIX

Clear test.

Watch as cattle prices drop next week:pac:

whelan2

Buford T. Justice V wrote: »

Clear test.

Watch as cattle prices drop next week:pac:

is that your second clear test?

Greengrass1

Does anyone on here put the bull the heifer calf is by on there tag when they tag them?
Going to start doing it this yr here