Dairy Chitchat 3

Buford T. Justice XIX

Mooooo wrote: »

We are kinda at the stage machinery wise where the machines that are 20 years old now have similar complexities to newer machines and therefore can have higher maintenance costs as well while still costing a chunk of change. While they all require maintenance, if you drop 5k repairing something it would cover a few repayments on newer machines. Emissions regs then seem to pushing the price of new stuff higher again. A 20 yr old 412 may still cost 25k plus and have a lot of work done at that so you'd be wondering is it value at all, the new model is prob up on 100k new then

Seriously looking at a telescopic loader this summer, the pit is about 3 foot too high for the tractor and grab and I don't fancy driving up on top of a block of silage every day to get to the top of the pit.

The budget isn't big but there are a few machines out there in our price range so when we come across one we'll probably buy.

Added bonus of being able to clean out the straw bedded sheds ourselves as well so a bit more independence.

Wildsurfer

richie123 wrote: »

Well u can also look at it this way.
Do u even need a tractor ??
I mean 25 k will pay a lad to do a ****load of jobs over the next 5 year all of which would be 100%tax efficient write-off.
I'm not even counting diesal roadtax and Insurance.not to mind repairs or a tyre blowout.
If ur dairying ..the money's in the milk..concentrate on that .. everything else is just a distraction.
It's different for beef men because there's so little in beef incomewise,u have to nearly do all your own work to ekk out a few pound.

Been there done that, contractors in for everything while I just milk milk milked. Got very monotonous though, one of the Joy's of farming is the varied lifestyle, and nothing like heading off spreading fertilizer with the young fella sitting beside you or spending a day fencing. Now I get a lad in to milk and do a few jobs the contractor used to do.

whelan2

Wildsurfer wrote: »

Been there done that, contractors in for everything while I just milk milk milked. Got very monotonous though, one of the Joy's of farming is the varied lifestyle, and nothing like heading off spreading fertilizer with the young fella sitting beside you or spending a day fencing. Now I get a lad in to milk and do a few jobs the contractor used to do.

I enjoy topping. Even pulling ragwort isnt too bad as you can see something for what you're doing

richie123

Wildsurfer wrote: »

Been there done that, contractors in for everything while I just milk milk milked. Got very monotonous though, one of the Joy's of farming is the varied lifestyle, and nothing like heading off spreading fertilizer with the young fella sitting beside you or spending a day fencing. Now I get a lad in to milk and do a few jobs the contractor used to do.

I have to agree with you.if u can afford a decent secondhand or new machine buy it..not everything has to make perfect sense once u have the means.we'll all be dead long enough.

Timmaay

mahoney_j wrote: »

So dairy farming chit chat ....how’s everyone’s dairy cows doing !!!!!!!!!!!

The June milk cheque is gonna be in in 3wks time, its the perfect deposit for a nice shiny new tractor sure!

But yeh largely agreed with mooo, I got stung with 2 what I thought were basic 10yr old "clean" tractors but they still had too much unreliable electrics on them, that who mess definitely wasn't worth it against a new yoke with better after sales service and so far a hell of alot more reliable.

whelan2

Our tm125 is very basic. We have it 20 years now. Does what we want it to do. Not much electrics etc on it

roofer1988

Hi Lads anyone have any cure for really really really really slow milkers. Anything that can be tried or is it just put up with it.

whelan2

roofer1988 wrote: »

Hi Lads anyone have any cure for really really really really slow milkers. Anything that can be tried or is it just put up with it.

Factory

cute geoge

Put a small stone that is heavy but will fit on top of clawpiece

mahoney_j

roofer1988 wrote: »

Hi Lads anyone have any cure for really really really really slow milkers. Anything that can be tried or is it just put up with it.

Yep the mart ,the factory or throw a few calves on her .

Mooooo

roofer1988 wrote: »

Hi Lads anyone have any cure for really really really really slow milkers. Anything that can be tried or is it just put up with it.

Agree with Whelan, cull or at least don't breed replacements from them. Trying to speed them up may only cause scc issues

Timmaay

Wildsurfer wrote: »

Been there done that, contractors in for everything while I just milk milk milked. Got very monotonous though, one of the Joy's of farming is the varied lifestyle, and nothing like heading off spreading fertilizer with the young fella sitting beside you or spending a day fencing. Now I get a lad in to milk and do a few jobs the contractor used to do.

The key thing here is having the choice, the farmers that I tend to see under pressure are trying to juggle too much, and do both the cows and machinery work, and almost always what happens in that case is the cows suffer! At the end of the day if you run a dairy farm your number one job is to make sure milk is going out the gate as efficiently as possible, after that subcontract out as much as you want, I actually think the milking itself is the easiest task to train someone into, it just involves following the set procedure and a beginner can be trained in to do it independently after 2milkings, whereas machinery work take more time and effort and has alot bigger likelihood of damage or just not done up to a sufficient standard.

whelan2

cute geoge wrote: »

Put a small stone that is heavy but will fit on top of clawpiece

That makes them worse. Also if someone else is milking they wont know the story and will end up with mastitis

Buford T. Justice XIX

roofer1988 wrote: »

Hi Lads anyone have any cure for really really really really slow milkers. Anything that can be tried or is it just put up with it.

Sell her or put up with it, I think.

We have a very slow one here this year. She's milked in the last round while we wash the clusters and she's just done when the last cluster, bar hers, is washed.

Manorpark man

Snowfire wrote: »

They’re doing good thanks, urea too high and protein too low tho. The usual story. Getting cows feet trimmed today and was going to walk them tru a footbath for a few days after. Just wondering How much copper sulphate I should be mixing in a 200l footbath..?

Usually half bag of copper sulphate and half drum of formaline is the go here

jaymla627

richie123 wrote: »

Well u can also look at it this way.
Do u even need a tractor ??
I mean 25 k will pay a lad to do a ****load of jobs over the next 5 year all of which would be 100%tax efficient write-off.
I'm not even counting diesal roadtax and Insurance.not to mind repairs or a tyre blowout.
If ur dairying ..the money's in the milk..concentrate on that .. everything else is just a distraction.
It's different for beef men because there's so little in beef incomewise,u have to nearly do all your own work to ekk out a few pound.

25k wouldn’t cover the yearly contractor bill on a large unit where all silage/slurry/fert etc is contracted out, your caught by the balls to if heavily reliant on the one contractor he knows you won’t go anywhere else so are often at the back of the queue at silage time

Timmaay

roofer1988 wrote: »

Hi Lads anyone have any cure for really really really really slow milkers. Anything that can be tried or is it just put up with it.

Yellow tape on the tail or something to make them stand out and put the clusters on 1stly, if the cluster isn't available put the cluster from the cow in front or behind on.

Timmaay

jaymla627 wrote: »

25k wouldn’t cover the yearly contractor bill on a large unit where all silage/slurry/fert etc is contracted out, your caught by the balls to if heavily reliant on the one contractor he knows you won’t go anywhere else so are often at the back of the queue at silage time

What's a large unit? 3c/l is the teagasc pm rule of thumb for contracting and machinery costs, which would be in around 800kl supplied. Personally I'll very happily give 3c of every litre to let someone else deal with that whole end of things. And most places there is competition between several different contractors.

straight

Wildsurfer wrote: »

Been there done that, contractors in for everything while I just milk milk milked. Got very monotonous though, one of the Joy's of farming is the varied lifestyle, and nothing like heading off spreading fertilizer with the young fella sitting beside you or spending a day fencing. Now I get a lad in to milk and do a few jobs the contractor used to do.

That's my plan. Replace contractors with relief milkers. Need to have someone to milk the cows in emergency, etc.

Castlekeeper

roofer1988 wrote: »

Hi Lads anyone have any cure for really really really really slow milkers. Anything that can be tried or is it just put up with it.

All of the above plus use proven LIC bulls if grass based.

roofer1988

Thanks lads for all suggestions, was thinking there wasnt much that could be done with the slow milkers. Cheers

Mooooo

Timmaay wrote: »

What's a large unit? 3c/l is the teagasc pm rule of thumb for contracting and machinery costs, which would be in around 800kl supplied. Personally I'll very happily give 3c of every litre to let someone else deal with that whole end of things. And most places there is competition between several different contractors.

Was at 3.5 I think just for contractors not a mind our own machinery costs, not including a digger at drainage work. Teagasc have the machinery costs underestimated I think

Timmaay

straight wrote: »

That's my plan. Replace contractors with relief milkers. Need to have someone to milk the cows in emergency, etc.

Replace is a strong word. Would you not like to have a mix of both?

Millionaire only not

Castlekeeper wrote: »

All of the above plus use proven LIC bulls if grass based.

Don’t thing he said anything about going suckling!

Sugarbowl

If ye are training in someone new to do relief milking for a few nights away, what do ye do? Just bring them in for a milking? Leave them off??

mahoney_j

Sugarbowl wrote: »

If ye are training in someone new to do relief milking for a few nights away, what do ye do? Just bring them in for a milking? Leave them off??

In for as many milkings as it takes so I can go away with piece of mind had and still have some great relief milkers here but also had one disaster of a lad

Timmaay

I usually only take someone on if they have some livestock experience, I've full printed out instructions with photos of the pre and post milking procedure, 1st milking I explain through all the steps, do the 1st row with them, and largely let them on after that until the washdown, then I explain through the post milking step by step, next milking then they are handed the instructions and let off to try it themselves, once they follow the steps there should be no issues, I rarely have to intervene past the 2nd milking. The only 2 things I make sure to spell out extremely clearly that are absolutely no no are letting a red tape into the tank or forgetting to either turn on the tank or close the value, I usually sarcastically tell them to run the hell away very fast if either happens! I've trained up at least 10 different people over the last few yrs in the parlour and thankfully I've never had a bad one, and I can count on one hand the number of issues I've had over the years with individual milkings (usually nothing more than a clip didn't get opened or whatever).

Sugarbowl

Having print out instructions would be rear out my way!

Sugarbowl

Having print out instructions would be rear out my way!

Say my name

Fertilizer not spread on the last round so cows grazing grass with only it's own reserve of soil nitrogen.
Milk urea staying around 25.

Happy with that. Cows content.
Conditions perfect for soil life. Wet and warm.