IFJ Open Day at Tullamore Farm - Tuesday 25th July

patsy_mccabe

Is it worth going ???

Beef and sheep mixed grazing at Tullamore Farm Ltd

farawaygrass

patsy_mccabe wrote: »

Is it worth going ???

Beef and sheep mixed grazing at Tullamore Farm Ltd

Would it be too late arriving at 6? Is the last tour at 7 or is it all wrapped up at 7 I wonder?

patsy_mccabe

Well Journal says 1pm to 7pm and tours starting every 30 mins.

Farmer_3650

I'm hoping to go to it. Should be very interesting to go to a farm walk about mixed grazing and to see how they do things.

Bellview

Don't get the logic of a media business going into farming..

Siamsa Sessions

farawaygrass wrote: »

Would it be too late arriving at 6? Is the last tour at 7 or is it all wrapped up at 7 I wonder?

Think the Journal said tours will last 2 - 2.5 hours. And there's going to be some talks/presentations from 4-7 but maybe the tours will still be happening in parallel?

I'm heading for a look anyway. Big thing seems to be setting up paddocks, roadways, and soil fertility to grow more grass. It'll be interesting to see how they manage mixed grazing

Biscuitus

Bellview wrote: »

Don't get the logic of a media business going into farming..

So you can be told how easy farming is when they spend €2 to make €1.

I will be looking forward to their articles on housing, feeding and eventually calving in the coming year.

patsy_mccabe

I saw a certain Journal guy buy a limousine bull at a premier sale in Roscrea. I wonder will I see the same bull again today?:D
Shur in any other industry, you'd have to pay for good advice.

DaDerv

patsy_mccabe wrote:

I saw a certain Journal guy buy a limousine bull at a premier sale in Roscrea. I wonder will I see the same bull again today? Shur in any other industry, you'd have to pay for good advice.

I was reading about it in the journal last week. They have three bulls running with the herd of 120 cows I believe. 1 Bull didn't do any work so they had to AI some and let one of the other two bulls clean up then.

It's an interesting concept in their defense. It's well and good these lads telling you how to farm and giving advice in the paper, be fun to see how they actually get on. They seem to be fairly open about the process which is obviously important regarding finances etc. Clearly a massive undertaking that would be near impossible for a single farmer unless he was well flush!

Muckit

I don't like with the way they've gone about things. It's unrealistic and not really true to life. Cash flow is the biggest thing a farmer has to manage. Who has the funds to go into full blown reseeding and stocking heavily from the get go?

It's farm simulator kinda stuff. Any young lad could do it.

patsy_mccabe

Muckit wrote: »

I don't like with the way they've gone about things. It's unrealistic and not really true to life. Cash flow is the biggest thing a farmer has to manage. Who has the funds to go into full blown reseeding and stocking heavily from the get go?

It's farm simulator kinda stuff. Any young lad could do it.

That's the beauty of the Gross Margin, none of these start-up cost come into that ingenious accountancy figure.:D

Muckit

Return for hours worked, not per ha is what I'd like to see.

rangler1

Bellview wrote: »

Don't get the logic of a media business going into farming..

IFJ are always doing presentations at shows, ploughing, etc, so this is taking it one step further.....aren't they supposed to return a percentage of their profits back to farmers or is that only FBD

rangler1

Muckit wrote: »

I don't like with the way they've gone about things. It's unrealistic and not really true to life. Cash flow is the biggest thing a farmer has to manage. Who has the funds to go into full blown reseeding and stocking heavily from the get go?

It's farm simulator kinda stuff. Any young lad could do it.

No point in doing it if you're only going to show rubbish farming practises, we can see that at home.

Muckit

Going out and getting a large loan and sinking the whole ship could be regarded as 'Rubbish farming practice' as that's what a lad would have to do to emulate what they've done there.

I'd have a higher opinion of myself than that too. I reckon I'd put on a better show. What I've achieved with the money and time that l had.

rangler1

Muckit wrote: »

Going out and getting a large loan and sinking the whole ship could be regarded as 'Rubbish farming practice' as that's what a lad would have to do to emulate what they've done there.

I'd have a higher opinion of myself than that too. I reckon I'd put on a better show. What I've achieved with the money and time that l had.

Waste of time having a demonstration farm that isn't going to show the best, what's the point of demonstrating grazing rubbish grasses or poor fences, this'll be a mixed grazing demo farm, and we don't have many of those...there'll be plenty of knockers but attending or even reading about it isn't compulsory

Username John

Muckit wrote: »

I don't like with the way they've gone about things. It's unrealistic and not really true to life. Cash flow is the biggest thing a farmer has to manage. Who has the funds to go into full blown reseeding and stocking heavily from the get go?

It's farm simulator kinda stuff. Any young lad could do it.

I kinda disagree... I know the scale might not be applicable to every farm, but they have to have something that is workable.

Tell me - what is the 'get go' now for farmers starting out? What should the 'get go' be?
Farm, 100+acres, already up and running with stock, all reseeded already, max stocking rate, all passages done

Muckit wrote: »

Return for hours worked, not per ha is what I'd like to see.

Ah ha - this is where the lad that walked into the 100+ acre farm above, that's all setup will be a winner...

Return for hours worked, I would have said is more dependent on capital spending than a lot of other figures...
A lot of the posts on this forum, revolve on around making capital investments to save time... So, your return per hours worked might go up in the future, but the 2k you just spent on the labour-saving gizmo has to come from somewhere...

Muckit wrote: »

Going out and getting a large loan and sinking the whole ship could be regarded as 'Rubbish farming practice' as that's what a lad would have to do to emulate what they've done there.

I'd have a higher opinion of myself than that too. I reckon I'd put on a better show. What I've achieved with the money and time that l had.

I know its unrealistic that most lads go down the same road... But as far as I know, the IFJ's father didn't leave him a farm
So they're starting behind where a lot of farmers would be...

To be fair Muckit, I do get your point about it being not true to life, for most scenarios... But they have to start somewhere, and if it costs more than others to get setup, I think that's ok...

Its the running of the farm - the ability of the farm to generate an income from the acreage / stocking rate / setup, that's where the interesting numbers will come from...

Muckit

I can see others point of view on this. I used to marvel at these ideal farms too.

But l feel they have no relevance to me anymore. They will be commerically backed and will therefore have be commercially biased. What l mean is they will be pushing lads to use products whether they be suitable for their situation or not, more grass seed, more fertiliser, more concentrates etc etc.

They are of little help to the newbie, the young cash strapped parttime farmer starting off.

bogman_bass

At it at the moment. The big thing is that they're selling all their high merit replacement heifers and then buying back in.
That seems like madness to me.

I asked about goods and servicesvbeing supplied for free. I was told that it wasn't happening even IFAC are charging full whack

Bullocks

bogman_bass wrote: »

At it at the moment. The big thing is that they're selling all their high merit replacement heifers and then buying back in.
That seems like madness to me.

I asked about goods and servicesvbeing supplied for free. I was told that it wasn't happening even IFAC are charging full whack

Funny enough I always sell my good heifers if the price is up and cash in , and if it's low again after buy a middling looking cow with a decent bull calf at foot to cover her quickly when weaned .

rangler1

Muckit wrote: »

I can see others point of view on this. I used to marvel at these ideal farms too.

But l feel they have no relevance to me anymore. They will be commerically backed and will therefore have be commercially biased. What l mean is they will be pushing lads to use products whether they be suitable for their situation or not, more grass seed, more fertiliser, more concentrates etc etc.

They are of little help to the newbie, the young cash strapped parttime farmer starting off.

They're the ones doing the fancy developement around here and reseeding with the fancy varieties....they have the money to do it, young farmers can get great jobs now.
When you see the grass/weeds in the carpark and then the sward under the cows, it demonstrates why it was all reseeded

patsy_mccabe

Back home now. Didn't know Mucklagh was in the tropics. People lying around on the grass. Small well run event with a fairly big crowd.
Hard to know what to think of it. If that is poor land land, I'd love to see some good stuff. Good fertile land. The ph was high already, so very little lime needed. P was good I think, but K very low. Good slatted sheds there already. Most of the investment seems to have gone into reseeding, roads and fencing.

They bought all high indexed cows, from 5 herds to minimise disease risk. Cows all had good height to them, but nothing fancy shape wise. Calves showing great weights but U grade at the most, no fancy E grades.

It seems to be a no nonsense approach with a big emphasis on output, pushing grass growth as much as possible. Lovely clover swarths. really hit home the value of reseeding.
Young guy managing it, from a Dairy background so well clued into heat detection and grass budgeting/measuring.

Are Teagasc involved in this at all? Seems strange they have no input in it.

rangler1

bogman_bass wrote: »

At it at the moment. The big thing is that they're selling all their high merit replacement heifers and then buying back in.
That seems like madness to me.

I asked about goods and servicesvbeing supplied for free. I was told that it wasn't happening even IFAC are charging full whack

Surely if they're in the business of selling replacement heifers out of dairy bred cows, that's the system they see with the best profit,

rushvalley

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eK0r3OUHIaQ

Few other videos put up as well.

Siamsa Sessions

I was there and a few things came to mind driving home after

* The beef side of things is humming along nicely but lots of work needed on the sheep side, such as the type of ram and ewe they'll use. Darren Carty, the sheep guy, said they choose mules/first hill crosses to ease lambing and/or lamb outside rather than having higher prolifigacy breed like Belclare or Llyen. Still trying to decide which ram to go with as well, so they're not sure of lambing date or system yet I'd say

* Roadways and paddocks look great, as do the reseeds themselves. There's not a weed in the place (yet!)

* The farm manager will be a busy buachaill. Be interesting to see if they get help in as and when he gets married or has kids. Assuming he's in his twenties now, he'll be hitting 40 when the lease is up in 15 years. A man looks at life differently and might have different commitments when he's nearing 40. Having said that, the place is set up for anyone to come in and get up to speed fairly fast. Maybe that's part of the thinking behind the extensive infrastructure

* Teagasc - they were mentioned here and there today but nothing major. It certainly wasn't a Teagasc show. I'm assuming Teagasc aren't impressed with someone else having the cheek to run a demo farm and open it to the public.

* There was no info presented today that hasn't been in the Journal already over the past few months. It was more an intro to the place than giving out results or new info.

Overall, it was nice to see the place in the flesh. Tis a 2-hour drive for me though so there'd have to be something special on offer for me to visit again. In fairness, you could easily get the info from the Journal itself. And the really interesting stuff will only start happening from here on.

Farmer_3650

I'm not long back from it, thought it was a great day out. The only thing I can't figure is that it only cost them €22 per acre for lime at a rate of 2 tonnes/acre?

patsy_mccabe

Farmer_3650 wrote: »

I'm not long back from it, thought it was a great day out. The only thing I can't figure is that it only cost them €22 per acre for lime at a rate of 2 tonnes/acre?

Every second year, I guess. So a maintenance average rate of 1T/acre.

rangler1

patsy_mccabe wrote: »

Every second year, I guess. So a maintenance average rate of 1T/acre.

Surprising as the PH was too high in my opinion....6.9

squinn2912

Lot of negative reaction to the whole thing here!
I'm not long home from it long trip down from Armagh but I'm pleased I went.
I think it would be foolish to take this as a real world example - it's not. They've had to fast track the whole process and are on a farm almost entirely tillage hence the reseeding. Good to see mistakes etc it gives us all some faith!

Cavanjack

Wasn't there but I can't see anything wrong with what they are at.
Some poster earlier mentioned the madness of taking out massive loans to get set up. They are renting the land and borrowing money for upgrading infrastructure and they obviously reckon the system they are going to run will return a profit.
Most of us own our own land and arnt making a bob (if you are to believe everyone on here) so let them at it and see how they get on.

Bullocks

Any info on what wage the farmer will be taking home after everything is paid ?

charolais0153

Bullocks wrote: »

Any info on what wage the farmer will be taking home after everything is paid ?

Think its 35k

rangler1

Bullocks wrote: »

Any info on what wage the farmer will be taking home after everything is paid ?

labour is 45000, interest is 21000, land rent is 25000, so a farmer on his own farm wouldn't have that much interest or rent.. ... even with all those extra expenses their projected surplus is 3700 plus whatever your farm payment is.
so there's quite a bit there for the farmer...if ti works

squinn2912

That works out at €312.50 per cow (112) so you really feel every calf lost or infertility

He's bound to have bonuses as well and he seems to be taking out a huge amount of paddocks for bales so might sell surplus.

They were talking about needing labour for calving I'm not sure where the budget allows for that

patsy_mccabe

A few pics. Phone camera so quality not great.

patsy_mccabe

Soil management and cows.

patsy_mccabe

Cows and calves (2).

patsy_mccabe

The things you notice.
Photo should be rotated 90deg clockwise.

squinn2912

What you think of cows/calves? Not much beside mcgees

rangler1

squinn2912 wrote: »

What you think of cows/calves? Not much beside mcgees

I suppose they were bought from around the country, most came from one farm, it'll be five years before they get to where they want to be,
I don't think mcgees type is where they want to be, they're hoping to sell replacement stock to farmers....a farmer will always be the best customer, you only have to look in the sales ring to see guys making a fool of themselves on prices

squinn2912

That is true and those guys will be well clued in at marts. I was impressed enough by the calves, dubious of the mortality rate (1/112), cows on the small side if anything goes wrong they average 580kgs. 3 lame calves on show in one group

blue5000

Thanks Patsy for all the info if you ever feel like giving up farming you could give journalism a shot!

What sort of calves are they buying in, I'm guessing it's replacement heifers? Seems a bit illogical to be selling replacements and buying in from someone else? I don't know anything about sheep, but gross output (2800?) and stocking rate (3.46) seems ambitious to me anyway.

Looking forward to seeing how it works out for them.

rangler1

squinn2912 wrote: »

That is true and those guys will be well clued in at marts. I was impressed enough by the calves, dubious of the mortality rate (1/112), cows on the small side if anything goes wrong they average 580kgs. 3 lame calves on show in one group

They weren't aware of the lame calves yesterday but They were saying that the roadways were giving foot trouble and they had to blind them off at a cost of €4/mtr.
Ground was hard yesterday and the ground was well poached at one stage going by the ankle breaking ruts, but I suppose the new reseeds would be more tender in bad weather

pedigree 6

rangler1 wrote: »

They weren't aware of the lame calves yesterday but They were saying that the roadways were giving foot trouble and they had to blind them off at a cost of €4/mtr.
Ground was hard yesterday and the ground was well poached at one stage going by the ankle breaking ruts, but I suppose the new reseeds would be more tender in bad weather

Going with just the two grass varieties is a bit risky imo. They're great for bulk and quality but ground cover wouldn't be the greatest for those varieties. Should have went with a third or maybe a fourth variety too. I'd imagine they'd get more rainfall than here in Wexford too. Although they had on the board that they're moved daily onto fresh ground.

bogman_bass

pedigree 6 wrote: »

rangler1 wrote: »

They weren't aware of the lame calves yesterday but They were saying that the roadways were giving foot trouble and they had to blind them off at a cost of €4/mtr.
Ground was hard yesterday and the ground was well poached at one stage going by the ankle breaking ruts, but I suppose the new reseeds would be more tender in bad weather

Going with just the two grass varieties is a bit risky imo. They're great for bulk and quality but ground cover wouldn't be the greatest for those varieties. Should have went with a third or maybe a fourth variety too. I'd imagine they'd get more rainfall than here in Wexford too. Although they had on the board that they're moved daily onto fresh ground.

Our group pulled them up on that.
They claimed that as ground cover goes up grass quality goes down.

If you want ground cover then select for ground cover rather than diluting the mix with more varieties

pedigree 6

bogman_bass wrote: »

Our group pulled them up on that.
They claimed that as ground cover goes up grass quality goes down.

If you want ground cover then select for ground cover rather than diluting the mix with more varieties

There is a few other varieties up near the top of the ppi chart with good ground cover traits plus top spring growth more than abergain and aberchoice. They have to actually stand on the grass in the spring and Autumn to eat it. That should never be forgotten. Mixes do work well enough. Just look at germinals top five extend mix. It's a learning on the go experience for people I'll grant you that.

rangler1

Owner is probably get rent plus BPS (rumored yesterday to be over 600/ac between the two) tax free and paYing for 40% of infrastrure developement, so between depreciation and tax free rent he won't be paying a lot of tax for the first 7 years at least

GrasstoMilk

pedigree 6 wrote: »

There is a few other varieties up near the top of the ppi chart with good ground cover traits plus top spring growth more than abergain and aberchoice. They have to actually stand on the grass in the spring and Autumn to eat it. That should never be forgotten. Mixes do work well enough. Just look at germinals top five extend mix. It's a learning on the go experience for people I'll grant you that.

Wouldn't agree. Come look at my paddocks of 100% abergain. You'd do well to find any clay between the grass plants. Aberchoice would be a good compliment to it

patsy_mccabe

squinn2912 wrote: »

What you think of cows/calves? Not much beside mcgees

Plain enough cows. All first cross from the dairy herd. I don't think I'd buy any of them if I saw them in a mart. I'd prefer the more 3/4 cross types. Calves were showing great growth but they had all the grass and milk they wanted.

blue5000 wrote: »

... What sort of calves are they buying in, I'm guessing it's replacement heifers? ....

First cross from the dairy herd again, I think. Only half will be bulled and the rest finished.

pedigree 6

GrasstoMilk wrote: »

Wouldn't agree. Come look at my paddocks of 100% abergain. You'd do well to find any clay between the grass plants. Aberchoice would be a good compliment to it

You must agree though you have to increase the seeding rate with abergain.
Or do you go with the standard 11kgs of grass seed per acre?

GrasstoMilk

pedigree 6 wrote: »

You must agree though you have to increase the seeding rate with abergain.
Or do you go with the standard 11kgs of grass seed per acre?

Got 14 kg per acre and was direct drilled. 3 yrs later you can't see any clay. I don't like thick dense swards tbh. The more light to the base the more the grass grows