Dairy Start-up

Green&Red

I’m looking at going into dairy, setting this up to try and get some of the information I’m lookinh for.
I’ve been speaking to a lad who does investments in dairy abroad as a living and he’s given me some good spreadsheets to help put together a business case and see if it’s wethwhile.

So the first piece of information I need is how much DM/grass I can grow while the cattle are out, this will allow me to calculate how many cows I can keep and that’ll allow me to calculate how much silage I’ll need to winter these cows.

Anyone able to help me? Based in Mayo, I’ll be basing it on 1st April turn out, 1st November House for the winter. The last soil sample was good so I’m trying to get how much fertiliser I’ll be putting out across the summer and how much grass I’ll get for that.
I can ignore silage grass for the time being as I’ll be leasing that land and I’ll calculate that later

Thanks

Timmaay

Step away from the spreadsheets and the ton/dm figures away for the minute for a start lol... What experience do you have of milking cows? What size is your milking platform? What existing enterprise is on the farm? How much infrastructure is in place already, winter accommodation, cubicles/slurry storage etc etc? What size paddocks? What sort of land? Have you talked to any local dairyfarmers yet?

Buford T. Justice XIX

Green&Red wrote: »

I’m looking at going into dairy, setting this up to try and get some of the information I’m lookinh for.
I’ve been speaking to a lad who does investments in dairy abroad as a living and he’s given me some good spreadsheets to help put together a business case and see if it’s wethwhile.

So the first piece of information I need is how much DM/grass I can grow while the cattle are out, this will allow me to calculate how many cows I can keep and that’ll allow me to calculate how much silage I’ll need to winter these cows.

Anyone able to help me? Based in Mayo, I’ll be basing it on 1st April turn out, 1st November House for the winter. The last soil sample was good so I’m trying to get how much fertiliser I’ll be putting out across the summer and how much grass I’ll get for that.
I can ignore silage grass for the time being as I’ll be leasing that land and I’ll calculate that later

Thanks

What kind of tonnes were grown last year on the land you will be using for your dairy platform? You're not going to walk into a farm growing 7-8t DM/ha and get it up to growing 12+t DM/ha in the first year along with parlour/dairy/housing/slurry/fencing/roadways/water.

And I haven't even mentioned reseeding yet or lime and P&K.

Keepgrowing

I'd love to sell you some stock

Green&Red

Timmaay wrote: »

Step away from the spreadsheets and the ton/dm figures away for the minute for a start lol... What experience do you have of milking cows? What size is your milking platform? What existing enterprise is on the farm? How much infrastructure is in place already, winter accommodation, cubicles/slurry storage etc etc? What size paddocks? What sort of land? Have you talked to any local dairyfarmers yet?

So we got out of cows 13 years ago, my dad was sick. I’ve been working off farm and am now in a position where I want to go back at it full time.
We’ve 100 acres in one plot with a main road through it. I’ll need an underpass for that.
I have 200 cubicles and the layout is made for dairy. The parlour is stripped out but it was a 10 unit each side.
The land is in good condition bar maybe 4 acres.
I’m coming out of suckler cows but I had been cutting down so I can’t use that as a bench mark for what grass I can expect to grow but I am on top of the lime, P and K

Green&Red

Buford T. Justice V wrote: »

What kind of tonnes were grown last year on the land you will be using for your dairy platform? You're not going to walk into a farm growing 7-8t DM/ha and get it up to growing 12+t DM/ha in the first year along with parlour/dairy/housing/slurry/fencing/roadways/water.

And I haven't even mentioned reseeding yet or lime and P&K.

Why would you not go from 8 to 12+?

freedominacup

Green&Red wrote: »

Why would you not go from 8 to 12+?

Experience and fertility. If your utilisation isn't right the tonnes you do grow could be wasted and knock on to further losses. If the grass measuring thread ever gets going again follow it closely.

Buford T. Justice XIX

Green&Red wrote: »

Why would you not go from 8 to 12+?

You can, but it would be with a lot of recently reseeded or older well managed grass being better managed.

It's certainly possible but better to budget for lower growth and build up a reserve if growth is better rather than budget for higher growth and be trying to buy in like this year.

Silage will be harder bought this year with lads trying to build/replace reserves.

Just advising caution rather than being over optimistic, that's all.

Wildsurfer

Green&Red wrote: »

So we got out of cows 13 years ago, my dad was sick. I’ve been working off farm and am now in a position where I want to go back at it full time.
We’ve 100 acres in one plot with a main road through it. I’ll need an underpass for that.
I have 200 cubicles and the layout is made for dairy. The parlour is stripped out but it was a 10 unit each side.
The land is in good condition bar maybe 4 acres.
I’m coming out of suckler cows but I had been cutting down so I can’t use that as a bench mark for what grass I can expect to grow but I am on top of the lime, P and K

Why have you 200 cows with only a hundred acres? Did ye have extra land in the past?

Green&Red

Buford T. Justice V wrote: »

You can, but it would be with a lot of recently reseeded or older well managed grass being better managed.

It's certainly possible but better to budget for lower growth and build up a reserve if growth is better rather than budget for higher growth and be trying to buy in like this year.

Silage will be harder bought this year with lads trying to build/replace reserves.

Just advising caution rather than being over optimistic, that's all.

Buford T. Justice V wrote: »

You can, but it would be with a lot of recently reseeded or older well managed grass being better managed.

It's certainly possible but better to budget for lower growth and build up a reserve if growth is better rather than budget for higher growth and be trying to buy in like this year.

Silage will be harder bought this year with lads trying to build/replace reserves.

Just advising caution rather than being over optimistic, that's all.

That’s exactly what I plan on doing, I’ll be running the figures on 85 acres rather than 100, it’s easy enough to go and buy a few extra heifers after year one or two.

I’ve reseeded 40 acres in the last three years and I have some reserves as it is. Plus it’s summer 2019 I’ll be looking to lease land, hopefully lads have stocked up again by then.
Would 10/11 be a reasonable figure to go with?


We’ve 200 cubicles because we had a neighbours land rented

Green&Red

freedominacup wrote: »

Experience and fertility. If your utilisation isn't right the tonnes you do grow could be wasted and knock on to further losses. If the grass measuring thread ever gets going again follow it closely.

Grass management is going to be my biggest issue. I’ve no pressure at the minute and my dad would have used experience rather than any science or measurement

Buford T. Justice XIX

Green&Red wrote: »

That’s exactly what I plan on doing, I’ll be running the figures on 85 acres rather than 100, it’s easy enough to go and buy a few extra heifers after year one or two.

I’ve reseeded 40 acres in the last three years and I have some reserves as it is. Plus it’s summer 2019 I’ll be looking to lease land, hopefully lads have stocked up again by then.
Would 10/11 be a reasonable figure to go with?


We’ve 200 cubicles because we had a neighbours land rented

10 would be a reasonable figure for a start so.

The national average is under 8t DM/Ha so you would be in the top 25% of grazing farmers if you get to that 10t. The reseeded 40% will be a big help in that anyway.

Dakota Dan

The thing about dairying is that it looks great to be on the outside looking in but not always the case when you're inside looking out.

Green&Red

I'm trying to calculate the cost of silage. Budgeting for 103 cows
I'll need 18kg of DM/cow/day. So 222 tonnes of DM. Now I need to get to what a realistic amount of land to rent with three cuts to get this.

Is it as simple as
222/12= 18.5 HA?
Also what amount of fertiliser am I looking at to produce this?

For the purposes of costing I'm assuming the land will have sufficient lime and PK values.

freedominacup

Green&Red wrote: »

I'm trying to calculate the cost of silage. Budgeting for 103 cows
I'll need 18kg of DM/cow/day. So 222 tonnes of DM. Now I need to get to what a realistic amount of land to rent with three cuts to get this.

Is it as simple as
222/12= 18.5 HA?
Also what amount of fertiliser am I looking at to produce this?

For the purposes of costing I'm assuming the land will have sufficient lime and PK values.

For the purposes of costing you need to assume the opposite.

Green&Red

i've included for making that the case elsewhere. Its in the budget to make good rented land

freedominacup

Green&Red wrote: »

i've included for making that the case elsewhere. Its in the budget to make good rented land

I don't know where you'll find rented land capable of producing a silage with an intake of 18kg dm per day.

Buford T. Justice XIX

freedominacup wrote: »

I don't know where you'll find rented land capable of producing a silage with an intake of 18kg dm per day.

That 18kgs DM intakes as a mistake on my side when discussing this earlier today. The figure the OP gave me of 14kgs across the winter would be correct taking a few months of milking and high intakes and a few months dry with 10kgs intakes during that period.

Apologies, Green&Red:o

Green&Red

I’ll forgive you this once Buford

I probably also should have said that this summer will give me a massive buffer, I’m cutting down on the sucklers and so will be cutting a lot of silage myself

Mooooo

Green&Red wrote: »

I’ll forgive you this once Buford

I probably also should have said that this summer will give me a massive buffer, I’m cutting down on the sucklers and so will be cutting a lot of silage myself

Cut away before mid may and every 6 to 7 weeks after so. May as well put high dmd st7ff into the pit while you have the chance.