Fodder Crisis

sea12

I see planned meeting for tomo and they are expecting to announce help on transport for specific areas. Hopefully this helps out those worse affected. Hope it doesn't increase the price though.

Mtx

Are bales really €50 in Donegal?

Reggie.

Mtx wrote: »

Are bales really €50 in Donegal?

Seem to be

Water John

I notice one farmer, eulogising about expansion at the Positive Farmers Conference. Hope they have an early spring as they are already buying in, all their fodder.
I have every sympathy with those caught with heavy land and very wet year.

Bullocks

A neighbour here is out of silage and has started buying from either Kildare or Meath , I'm not sure which .
35 euro delivered into the yard by the artic load and its the best silage he got this year he reckons . I dont know the proof of it but I saw it and its great dry leafy looking stuff .
50 quid a bale is ridiculous , you wouldnt buy much at that price before you would start pricing elsewhere or looking at alternatives
Its probably like the lad getting 1300 for a 7 month old weanling , it will be heard all over the place and not a mention of the the other 99% selling for 800 everywhere else :D

Base price

tanko wrote: »

Im in the scheme and i cant see how it can be a problem if under pressure for fodder.
A farmer can sell plenty of stock or even sell all their cows as long as they replace enough of them next year to comply with the terms of the scheme.

I suggested to one local man that he could sell some of his older cows (herd of 14 sucklers) and he nearly took the head clean off my shoulders. His point was that he could never replace the quality of his own cows and his breeding programme would be badly affected/set back. Now in fairness he has good cows that produce cracking calves/weanling weights.

Donegalforever

Mtx wrote: »

Are bales really €50 in Donegal?

I can say what price Silage Bales are in my part of Donegal as I do not know of any for sale. Everyone I speak to in this area is short of Silage Bales.


Large Bales of Hay are for sale in a Co-Op in Donegal for €85....crazy/

Bullocks

Donegalforever wrote: »

I can say what price Silage Bales are in my part of Donegal as I do not know of any for sale. Everyone I speak to in this area is short of Silage Bales.


Large Bales of Hay are for sale in a Co-Op in Donegal for €85....crazy/

I'd suggest getting on Donedeal and start ringing around the country . Even if its only a few bales you need , if its in such short supply up there it should work out easily to organise an artic load from anywhere and split the load between a few people

The man in red and black

Base price wrote: »

I suggested to one local man that he could sell some of his older cows (herd of 14 sucklers) and he nearly took the head clean off my shoulders. His point was that he could never replace the quality of his own cows and his breeding programme would be badly affected/set back. Now in fairness he has good cows that produce cracking calves/weanling weights.

Thought of this for sentimental reasons when the father sold the cows at home last Spring. He could always flush a couple of his top cows for embryos then sell them to spare feed. Then bang in the embryos in the Spring and replace his top cows.

Base price

The man in red and black wrote: »

Thought of this for sentimental reasons when the father sold the cows at home last Spring. He could always flush a couple of his top cows for embryos then sell them to spare feed. Then bang in the embryos in the Spring and replace his top cows.

Embryo transfer is an option but only if you have prepared in advance. Around here it's unlikely any (suckler) farmers would consider it an option. Most are single men in their late 50's/65+. TBH they live in a daily routine that really doesn't change, you could set your watch seeing them heading everyday to outfarms with a bale of silage.

J.O. Farmer

The man in red and black wrote: »

Thought of this for sentimental reasons when the father sold the cows at home last Spring. He could always flush a couple of his top cows for embryos then sell them to spare feed. Then bang in the embryos in the Spring and replace his top cows.

What sort of cost would the embryo transfer cost compared to the cost of feed especially with a small herd. The fodder crisis is a scarcity in parts of the country but fodder can be gotten from other parts at a cost.

Snowfire

Rang IFA to offer Silage bales for the cause. They didn’t seem inundated with demand. They were grateful and said they would pass on my details if needed.

sonnybill

patsy_mccabe wrote: »

Reality is lads with weanlings or store cattle can sell then. Lads with sucklers are going to have some tough decisions to make in the coming weeks, myself included.

I feel a cut in numbers coming for me , spoiled last year, nothing fed last year until end of January, feeding a month now and they need it all ..

Shauny2010

Suckler Cows in since October 1st the amount of silage they have eaten is unreal, just noticed this morning the slurry comming up over one end of the slats. Land is sopping wet been raining constant since last August so it hasn't got a chance. Would need a months dry weather before you could dream of putting out slurry or letting cattle out.
Thought I had a surplus of Silage as I carried over about a quarter from last year, but now looking at being out of silage in 5 weeks. Just got a text in from the local merchant saying how feed prices are rising this week.
Decided to sell all the cows I can now over the next few weeks. I just hope the cow price holds up as at the moment as its the only positive.
I do believe if we get another later spring as we got a few years back it will finish the suckler farming system in Ireland

patsy_mccabe

Cattle are going to eat a lot more too, when temperatures drop.

tanko

patsy_mccabe wrote: »

Cattle are going to eat a lot more too, when temperatures drop.

If they cant reach it they wont!!!!

memorystick

Sold 30 this evening to a sound lad I know for €25. He's been fair to me over the years. It's enough for them. A lad told me that his father got the same and more for straw to go north. Tis mad Ted.

Reggie.

memorystick wrote: »

Sold 30 this evening to a sound lad I know for €25. He's been fair to me over the years. It's enough for them. A lad told me that his father got the same and more for straw to go north. Tis mad Ted.

These bad years are coming more often

Say my name

Reggie. wrote: »

These bad years are coming more often

Some scientists say we are entering a solar period not seen since the last ice age.

Makes you glad to have the machinery for silage and not be relying on hay in times past.

tomwaterford

Reggie. wrote: »

These bad years are coming more often

Possibly not helped by increased amount of stock kept??

Bass Reeves

tomwaterford wrote: »

Possibly not helped by increased amount of stock kept??

This is one factor that the IFA, Teagasc, processors and politicians fail to take into account. Over the last two years even with higher exports we have nearly 200k more drystock for slaughter in the country. There must be about that many extra dairy cows as well. As well 50% of exports are not as calves but weanlings/yearlings. That is a awful lot of extra mouths to feed.

A suckler cow premia could add another 150K extra suckler cows and there calves.

Muckit

Bass Reeves wrote: »

A suckler cow premia could add another 150K extra suckler cows and there calves.

I agree. It's a dangerous thing having a headage type payment linked to sucklers. The very lads that can't feed them will increase numbers just for the few pound.

charolais0153

Muckit wrote: »

I agree. It's a dangerous thing having a headage type payment linked to sucklers. The very lads that can't feed them will increase numbers just for the few pound.

Its obviously going to be for what you had this year or last year rather than a rolling type of payment

anthony500_1

Muckit wrote:

I agree. It's a dangerous thing having a headage type payment linked to sucklers. The very lads that can't feed them will increase numbers just for the few pound.

100% agree. The good farmer will do ok out of it, but the bad/greedy lad will push to over his limits just to get every penny going and have bad animals in brutal conditions. I think as a hole it's a bad scheme for the good of the suckler herd.

And I'm messing at sucklers before anyone starts shouting about what would I know (and ye could be right)

wrangler

Bass Reeves wrote: »

This is one factor that the IFA, Teagasc, processors and politicians fail to take into account. Over the last two years even with higher exports we have nearly 200k more drystock for slaughter in the country. There must be about that many extra dairy cows as well. As well 50% of exports are not as calves but weanlings/yearlings. That is a awful lot of extra mouths to feed.

A suckler cow premia could add another 150K extra suckler cows and there calves.

It's a poor outlook that if you want to keep cattle in this country that you have to buy them from dairy farmers.
Of course suckling has to be made viable

Bass Reeves

wrangler wrote: »

It's a poor outlook that if you want to keep cattle in this country that you have to buy them from dairy farmers.
Of course suckling has to be made viable

Will you explain why we should put a subsidy in place to encourage extra production or maintain production so that the process can reap the benefit. 100 euro on a 380kg carcasse is 26c/kg a subsidy might drive the price of beef down twice that. As well we may see fodder hard to access because of higher dairy numbers. We cannot control dairy calf numbers so people will have no choice but to adjust. Look at the present beef price and ask yourself how viable are sucklers in this senario

mahoney_j

No fodder crisis around here but slurry crisis is getting a big issue ,months of rain ,land sobbing wet (even on this dry farm)and tanks at or near capacity

Willfarman

It has to be got from the market though rangler. If it can't be got from the market then subsidising production is just stupid. Subsidise a reduction in the herd for the environment, the farmer, and the health and wellbeing of the cattle makes some sense at least.

wrangler

Bass Reeves wrote: »

Will you explain why we should put a subsidy in place to encourage extra production or maintain production so that the process can reap the benefit. 100 euro on a 380kg carcasse is 26c/kg a subsidy might drive the price of beef down twice that. As well we may see fodder hard to access because of higher dairy numbers. We cannot control dairy calf numbers so people will have no choice but to adjust. Look at the present beef price and ask yourself how viable are sucklers in this senario

There's not going to be any difference in the amount of land that's available, so how will numbers increase, all that's happening at the moment is that farmers are being forced into dairy calves and the processors that are doing trials with dairy calves don't have any good news either. It's bad enough being in a low income situation without having to farm cattle that you hate the sight of.
There mightn't be as many dairy calves around either if they closed intervention for SMP.
Why subsidise one and not the other, 100 acre farm stocked with sucklers won't produce as much beef as one stocked with calf to beef.
I think I've given you enough reasons to subsidise sucklers there.
Oh and Dairy calves are a rip off at the moment

Willfarman

A man with 2 acres and one cow. Now teagasc tells that man you should have two cows on that two acres because the gate and wire would keep two as ready as one. Or even 3 or 4 or five...