Jobs to suit a part time farmer

DJ98

Lads what jobs would suit a part time farmer with no college qualifications? Just curious to know. IE time would be needed off for calving and lambing and also probably for silage

Snowfire

DJ98 wrote: »

Lads what jobs would suit a part time farmer with no college qualifications? Just curious to know. IE time would be needed off for calving and lambing and also probably for silage

Relief milking...

DJ98

Snowfire wrote: »

Relief milking...

Don't think relief milking would pay enough to cover the bills and provide a decent standard of living

Icelandicseige

Work on a spring calving Dairy Farm. Calve your own stock in the autumn so you are available for work in spring.

CloughCasey1

TV licence inspetor. ☺

tomwaterford

Postman/retained fireman

popa smurf

A bit of gardening, mowing lawns, garden maintenance. People are getting rich again and getting too fat and lasy to look after there own little patch through an add in local press and away you go,

popa smurf

Another one would be get a bus driving licence and you could take a load of hens to westport, all you need is a bus,a bucket and a box of condoms.

anthony500_1

A neighbour of mine does a school bus run with a private bus company, Gone 7/10 and 3/6 during the week. He feeds stock during the day when he is off and can check on them again in the evening after he is finished. Changed all calving to June/august so he is around them months. It seems to work for him not saying its perfect but its a balance that seems to be working for him so far

He also does the odd match here and there when it suits on the weekend. So he is making a few pound but I'd say never be a millionaire

Bass Reeves

If you are a part time farmer you have to decide which is you jam and which is your bread and butter. For most the job is the bread and butter in the system. IMO most farmers that work will have to work the farm around the job and not visa versa. Because of that you need to accept that you may need to change or modify your farming system.

One lad I work with changed to a LM bull away from a CH bull. It made it a lot easier to watch cows and he has a neighbour that will check on a cow if she is on the point of calving. He is not making as mush off the calves as if they were charley but in his opinion another 100/calf is not worth the risk as opposed to the ease of calving of the LM breed

patsy_mccabe

I manage 20 or so suckler cows while working full time. Say you work 5 days at 8 hours a day and other hour for travelling. That's only 1/3 of the time you are away from the farm during calving.
Most cows calve away on their own anyway so with an internet calving camera you can watch things from work. Once you live close enough to work, you can manage things easy enough. Keep quiet cows that calve easily and use easy calving bulls and things go a lot smoother. I find most cows calve at night anyway.
Also a great help if your boss is also a farmer and understands where you are coming from.

tomwaterford

patsy_mccabe wrote: »

I manage 20 or so suckler cows while working full time. Say you work 5 days at 8 hours a day and other hour for travelling. That's only 1/3 of the time you are away from the farm during calving.
Most cows calve away on their own anyway so with an internet calving camera you can watch things from work. Once you live close enough to work, you can manage things easy enough. Keep quiet cows that calve easily and use easy calving bulls and things go a lot smoother. I find most cows calve at night anyway.
Also a great help if your boss is also a farmer and understands where you are coming from.

Would the majority not calve during those daylight hours though?

Parishlad

patsy_mccabe wrote: »

I manage 20 or so suckler cows while working full time. Say you work 5 days at 8 hours a day and other hour for travelling. That's only 1/3 of the time you are away from the farm during calving.
Most cows calve away on their own anyway so with an internet calving camera you can watch things from work. Once you live close enough to work, you can manage things easy enough. Keep quiet cows that calve easily and use easy calving bulls and things go a lot smoother. I find most cows calve at night anyway.
Also a great help if your boss is also a farmer and understands where you are coming from.

Much the same here. I have been lucky enough I suppose in that I do find that the majority calve in the evening or late at night. There are always those that will calve during the day but generally I will have them spotted well in advance and will at least have moved them back in to a calving pen.
Generally there is someone at home that can keep an eye on them too but, to be honest, unless the blister or legs are out they wouldn't have much of a clue otherwise and, depending on the cow, I would nip out of work for a couple of hours to sort it out. (I have serious trust issues when it comes to my cow calving! )
I have also changed from a CH to LM bull this year. Hopefully that will make things a bit easier without taking too much of a hit on price. A lot of effort does go in to the CH calf when it is born. They can take an age to get up and suck but in fairness they usually pay you back when it comes to sell them on.
I can also work from home too so that is a help at times.

GrasstoMilk

Ai Technician?
My tech is s suckler farmer. Has Quite a sizeable suckler herd aswell. His contractor does most of his machinery work so that solves that issue of silage in may and June.

popa smurf

patsy_mccabe wrote: »

I manage 20 or so suckler cows while working full time. Say you work 5 days at 8 hours a day and other hour for travelling. That's only 1/3 of the time you are away from the farm during calving.
Most cows calve away on their own anyway so with an internet calving camera you can watch things from work. Once you live close enough to work, you can manage things easy enough. Keep quiet cows that calve easily and use easy calving bulls and things go a lot smoother. I find most cows calve at night anyway.
Also a great help if your boss is also a farmer and understands where you are coming from.

Have you much on at home, kids, football, much of a social life hobbies, do you enjoy it or is it a dread, you must be working 80 hours a week , whats the reward for all this build up the place and improve it and hand it on to next-generation, what drives ye, I see a few lads around here the same as yourself they will surely pass themselves out some day. I am not saying that in a bad way, just wondering why you do it.

tomwaterford

popa smurf wrote: »

Have you much on at home, kids, football, much of a social life hobbies, do you enjoy it or is it a dread, you must be working 80 hours a week , whats the reward for all this build up the place and improve it and hand it on to next-generation, what drives ye, I see a few lads around here the same as yourself they will surely pass themselves out some day. I am not saying that in a bad way, just wondering why you do it.

I know myself it's a love of doing things right/as well as I can

I apply this to all areas of my life though....don't see point in doing anything half arsed

alps

DJ98 wrote: »

Don't think relief milking would pay enough to cover the bills and provide a decent standard of living

Fortune to be made out of relief milking, and no shortage of work...

Downside is you'll need to make yourself available for most weekends..

Gawddawggonnit

Civil service. Preferably secondary school teacher.
Guards are a good one also.

Limestone Cowboy

GrasstoMilk wrote: »

Ai Technician?
My tech is s suckler farmer. Has Quite a sizeable suckler herd aswell. His contractor does most of his machinery work so that solves that issue of silage in may and June.

Not sure there's much of a demand for it in the west, had a friend working for Munster for a year and he wasn't getting enough of calls to justify it and could have to travel up to 20 miles to some of them. Might be better in dairy country.

Belongamick

Depends on your circumstances really, for example;
- Have you a large farm with decent cash flow and no overheads? You may be looking for a few hours weekend work.
- Have you a young family and want to build you own house, then you may be looking for plenty of hours.

One to think about would be shift work with a US multinational. If you hope to build a home, marry etc you may need a steady income, healthcare provided for a young family. You would be working long'ish days and farming on the days off. If you were made 'full time', you could apply for 'Job sharing' arrangement where you work half the week for half your salary but maintain many of the benefits. This would free you up for the farming side.
The amount of former construction workers in factories now is huge.

visatorro

alps wrote: »

Fortune to be made out of relief milking, and no shortage of work...

Downside is you'll need to make yourself available for most weekends..

Someone said on another thread, some lads want loads of cows but they don't want to milk them! An organised fella could make good money relief milking, maybe three milkings a day, 150/day is nothing to be sneezed at.

alps

I know of lads now doing evening milkings "on the way home from work"... home at 7/7.30 instead of 5.30 and 200 a week better off for 4 or 5 milkings...

visatorro

alps wrote: »

I know of lads now doing evening milkings "on the way home from work"... home at 7/7.30 instead of 5.30 and 200 a week better off for 4 or 5 milkings...

It doesn't suit the farmer I'd imagine alot of this money is into the paw aswell.

alps

visatorro wrote: »

It doesn't suit the farmer I'd imagine alot of this money is into the paw aswell.

Some of these farmers have gone up in cows, and the guy coming in for the evening is a great relief to the increased workload. It's a steady few hours a week for the milkers and is very easy to fit in with a long term routine. Don't know how the pay trail works but these things can be done correctly to suit everyone.