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

whelan2

Milked out wrote: »

The problem with Johnes is they can't test for it accurately. It would be the same as tb if not worse unless they can improve the test. Obviously best practice should be followed and if there are obvious clinical issues the test has its uses

It would be a help though if you are/were buying in stock if the seller would say that they have/had johnes in their herd

Dawggone

whelan2 wrote: »

It would be a help though if you are/were buying in stock if the seller would say that they have/had johnes in their herd

Are you blooding for Johnes, or is it on the milk test?

I only buy stock from guaranteed free herds. Any stock being kept on farm here only gets mothers milk...never from pooled milk. Is that best practice?

whelan2

Dawggone wrote: »

Are you blooding for Johnes, or is it on the milk test?

I only buy stock from guaranteed free herds. Any stock being kept on farm here only gets mothers milk...never from pooled milk. Is that best practice?

on 3rd year of blooding. Never buying in again.

kowtow

Farmers always did, and still are bearing every penny of the cost of BVD. Long before testing it was already an economic loss from infected animals and underperformance.

Now it is an economic loss, but with an added layer of bureaucratic cost creating more jobs for the non farming population. This cost too falls directly on farmers. it's a farmer specific tax.

So as generous as it is of us to contribute to economic recovery by keeping laboratories and civil service offices staffed and warm, the question is are we getting value for our money with this tax? And while PI animals are uncompensated and remain on farm you'd have to say we aren't.

Dawggone

I just heard on radio that nearly 400 dairy farmers have taken their own lives in the last few months??? Good God can that be true...?

alps

Dawggone wrote: »

I just heard on radio that nearly 400 dairy farmers have taken their own lives in the last few months??? Good God can that be true...?

That is frightening....France, Europe or worldwide?

RightTurnClyde

I see Glanbia are second from the bottom for the Jan milk league.
AND bottom of the Global league for Jan
AND bottom of the Global league for the Global rolling average, last 12 months.

Dawggone

alps wrote: »

That is frightening....France, Europe or worldwide?

France.
IF it's true.

There may be a deeper societal issue at play here...in Ireland the suicide age profile is mostly young men. In France it tends to occur in the 45 - 55 age bracket.

I'm far from expert on this and dislike commenting.

Timmaay

Suicide/depression is only recently gaining any sort of media attention here, individual incidents still receive very little media attention and tend not to be reported on, as far as statistics go here I don't have a clue what the numbers are like at all for farming. All I know is the economic crash caused a huge huge number of businessmen to take their own lives, and please God we don't seen any sort of repeat of that with this dairycrash.

As big an elephant in the corner has to be the fact that dairying is the most dangerous workplace for serious accidents and death also, there is no quick solution to that at all, and with the current economic outlook farmers are going to be under even more pressure and cut corners when it comes to H&S moving forward.

howdee

Making enquiries at the moment for a 3 way ration from local mill, they are offering 40%barley 30%hulls 30%distillars at 190 or 220 with calmag, havent bargained yet but always fed nuts in the past but due to sr I will probably have to feed for longer so looking at different options? Thoughts?

milkprofit

RightTurnClyde wrote: »

I see Glanbia are second from the bottom for the Jan milk league.
AND bottom of the Global league for Jan
AND bottom of the Global league for the Global rolling average, last 12 months.

Who shares in the 4% margin on the loan

Dawggone

milkprofit wrote: »

Who shares in the 4% margin on the loan

I gave a quick glance at the finance package on offer.
The interest rate is steep, very steep, but I suppose it's better than what's on offer from the pillar banks.
I don't like the way the payment holiday is outside of the control of the farmer also...I always get the option of payment holidays built into loan contracts, as I've said on here with years, but it's when I want, not market forces.

Glanbia might be using the facility as a way of tying in farmers to milk supply contracts for extended periods. Or not.

I don't like the variable interest rate either when it should be possible to fix for the term. Sub 2% should be easily possible when they have preferential rights on the milk cheque...

alps

Sit-in in progress in Mitchelstown....sketchy details, but ex suppliers were being met by the board this week...

Milked out

Dawggone wrote: »

Are you blooding for Johnes, or is it on the milk test?

I only buy stock from guaranteed free herds. Any stock being kept on farm here only gets mothers milk...never from pooled milk. Is that best practice?

Our vet said it's the chance of the calf ingesting any dung/ dirt from the dam is actually the biggest risk as they think it's the 24 hr period when the biestings is able to be absorbed is when the johnes passes also so any infected dung/ dirt would be a risk so he said ideal world calf would be taken as soon as born and dried manually, as well as only getting mothers milk

Dawggone

Milked out wrote: »

Our vet said it's the chance of the calf ingesting any dung/ dirt from the dam is actually the biggest risk as they think it's the 24 hr period when the biestings is able to be absorbed is when the johnes passes also so any infected dung/ dirt would be a risk so he said ideal world calf would be taken as soon as born and dried manually, as well as only getting mothers milk

So that's what Trixi was on about. Lots of extra work...wouldn't it be easier to keep the cows clean?

whelan2

Dawggone wrote: »

I gave a quick glance at the finance package on offer.
The interest rate is steep, very steep, but I suppose it's better than what's on offer from the pillar banks.
I don't like the way the payment holiday is outside of the control of the farmer also...I always get the option of payment holidays built into loan contracts, as I've said on here with years, but it's when I want, not market forces.

Glanbia might be using the facility as a way of tying in farmers to milk supply contracts for extended periods. Or not.

I don't like the variable interest rate either when it should be possible to fix for the term. Sub 2% should be easily possible when they have preferential rights on the milk cheque...

If glanbia want to spend millions could they not pay a better milk price? Being bottom of legue tables for so long is only going to alienate suppliers even more

whelan2

Milked out wrote: »

Our vet said it's the chance of the calf ingesting any dung/ dirt from the dam is actually the biggest risk as they think it's the 24 hr period when the biestings is able to be absorbed is when the johnes passes also so any infected dung/ dirt would be a risk so he said ideal world calf would be taken as soon as born and dried manually, as well as only getting mothers milk

10 positives on bloods done last week, one 8 year od will ignore that as a false positive. 8 of the others are out of previous johnes positive animals. So I am now just going to cull any offspring from positive animals.

Dawggone

whelan2 wrote: »

If glanbia want to spend millions could they not pay a better milk price? Being bottom of legue tables for so long is only going to alienate suppliers even more

Glanbia are only facilitating the package for a small fee.

kowtow

Dawggone wrote: »

I gave a quick glance at the finance package on offer.
The interest rate is steep, very steep, but I suppose it's better than what's on offer from the pillar banks.
I don't like the way the payment holiday is outside of the control of the farmer also...I always get the option of payment holidays built into loan contracts, as I've said on here with years, but it's when I want, not market forces.

Glanbia might be using the facility as a way of tying in farmers to milk supply contracts for extended periods. Or not.

I don't like the variable interest rate either when it should be possible to fix for the term. Sub 2% should be easily possible when they have preferential rights on the milk cheque...

Is it a repayment holiday when milk prices are low, or an interest & repayment holiday?

In other words when milk prices are low, does your debt simply keep rising at compound % upon % to be repaid later when milk prices are higher?

I can understand it for stock or building purposes, but I'm instinctively uncomfortable with the idea of an 8 year term loan being used as a 4(?) year revolving facility to cover operating expenses... but as you say it is cheaper than the pillar banks and people will do what they will do.

It's not really an anti-volatility measure, because it doesn't get any cheaper. That is just marketing jargon to guarantee press releases & ministerial trumpets from those who should know better.

It's an employer loan, like the ones they give out for season tickets.

Dawggone

kowtow wrote: »

Is it a repayment holiday when milk prices are low, or an interest & repayment holiday?

In other words when milk prices are low, does your debt simply keep rising at compound % upon % to be repaid later when milk prices are higher?

I can understand it for stock or building purposes, but I'm instinctively uncomfortable with the idea of an 8 year term loan being used as a 4(?) year revolving facility to cover operating expenses... but as you say it is cheaper than the pillar banks and people will do what they will do.

It's not really an anti-volatility measure, because it doesn't get any cheaper. That is just marketing jargon to guarantee press releases & ministerial trumpets from those who should know better.

It's an employer loan, like the ones they give out for season tickets.

+1.
Surely the facility is for land acquisition, buildings (OC's!) stock etc? It would be crazy to use for running expenses...then some may be thinking about 'any port in a storm'.

I don't know the details of the holiday, but when I build in the option to a loan it's a total, interest and repayment, holiday. This triggers a penalty which, in my case, is covered by my 'key man' insurance. I do this because there can be events in life that can be a lot worse than low milk/grain prices...

It's being marketed as an instrument to even out the extremes of volatility, which in a way it does but people should be able to do their own business with banks without having to sign up msa for eight years.

I wrote a lot about this when lads were going with the deeds to the banks three years ago.

Base price

pedigree 6 wrote: »

It sounds like the milk powder or yoghurt is to blame. There's something going on anyway. Not sure if you mentioned what brand of milk powder you're using but you're going to have to say what it is to see if anyone else is having problems. Maybe you're not supposed to mix that powder with yoghurt or maybe the yoghurt is to blame. Maybe you might be better off starting all over again with a new milk replacer/ yoghurt mix culture.

I'm not adding yoghurt to the milk replacer for general feeding it already contains pro and pre biotics. I'm only adding it for the calves that have bloated and were dosed with either liquid parrafan or bread soda.
They seemed to have settled down except I noticed another one slightly bloated at lunch time. He wasn't too bad and not kicking himself & getting up and down.

farmertipp

alps wrote: »

Sit-in in progress in Mitchelstown....sketchy details, but ex suppliers were being met by the board this week...

What is going on there?

Brown Podzol

Dawggone wrote: »

I just heard on radio that nearly 400 dairy farmers have taken their own lives in the last few months??? Good God can that be true...?

Report on Agriland.

http://www.agriland.ie/farming-news/theres-something-rotten-in-society-if-farmers-are-driven-to-suicide/

C0N0R

In college today we were looking at a block of land that they did a bit of work on, was 14 acres split into paddocks with a lane way put in and a water system. Reckon the lane way cost €8000 threw out €4000 for reseeding and whatever else for fencing and water. Say €15000 for arguments sake, one lad pipes up, "you would be better off buying a zero grazer for €30,000 and forget the €15000. It's mad the amount of lads that have no interest in doing anything anyway different and no realisation of cost etc

keep going

alps wrote: »

Sit-in in progress in Mitchelstown....sketchy details, but ex suppliers were being met by the board this week...

Oh b#ll#cks, just when the ifa thread had died down, this will set them off again

Timmaay

whelan2 wrote: »

If glanbia want to spend millions could they not pay a better milk price? Being bottom of legue tables for so long is only going to alienate suppliers even more

Between the 1.25% setup fee, and 75e/per 100k annual fee, Glanbia (or maybe it's rabobank?) stand to make a tidy few quid in being the facilitators of all this, it's not as if Glanbia are gifting us farmers these millions!

Buford T. Justice XIX

Timmaay wrote: »

Between the 1.25% setup fee, and 75e/per 100k annual fee, Glanbia (or maybe it's rabobank?) stand to make a tidy few quid in being the facilitators of all this, it's not as if Glanbia are gifting us farmers these millions!

The question is whether this loan facility will be more or less expensive that facilities offered by the mainstream banks.

Milked out

Buford T. Justice V wrote: »

The question is whether this loan facility will be more or less expensive that facilities offered by the mainstream banks.

As dawg said you'd think a company of glanbias scale would.be able to.raise the finance at less than 4%

Buford T. Justice XIX

Milked out wrote: »

As dawg said you'd think a company of glanbias scale would.be able to.raise the finance at less than 4%

They surely should be able to.

Someone is going to make a lot of money out of loaning money to farmers.

It's either the banks or Glanbia.

All the farmer has to decide on is which loan is least expensive to him and draw that one down.

Timmaay

Pricing up nuts here, got a very good price on a 14%p nut, but soya hull based. When I snubbed my nose to the soya hulls the feed merchant tried to tell me it's not a bad ingredient this time of the year as it helps add fibre to the diet while the cows getting out to fresh grass. Full of crap or any truth to this ha?