New inexperienced farmer!

BullBauld

So my father recently passed away. He worked all his life so was a part time farmer until he retired from work and the farm became his main interest. Nothing major, 35 acres, dry stock of 15-20 usually. Buy calves, sell at 30 months. That sort of thing.
He's also in GLAS and getting a few other payments.
So for the most part this has been passed on to me. Always a reluctant farmer growing up. But now I want to keep things going as best I can.....if it's viable. I don't want to let it out if at all possible.
Have to get the herd number transferred over to me and a few things like that.

So any advice for a newbie with limited experience?

Thanks.

Panch18

BullBauld wrote: »

So my father recently passed away. He worked all his life so was a part time farmer until he retired from work and the farm became his main interest. Nothing major, 35 acres, dry stock of 15-20 usually. Buy calves, sell at 30 months. That sort of thing.
He's also in GLAS and getting a few other payments.
So for the most part this has been passed on to me. Always a reluctant farmer growing up. But now I want to keep things going as best I can.....if it's viable. I don't want to let it out if at all possible.
Have to get the herd number transferred over to me and a few things like that.

So any advice for a newbie with limited experience?

Thanks.

sorry to hear about your loss

Only advice i would give you is keep your wages totally separate from the farm - have a separate bank account and let the farm pay its own way. Rearing a few calves is probably the best thing you could do with the place in current times. If you were selling in the mart rather than the factory even better

Also don't forget - in the beef game the difference between farming to the highest level or just tapping away is tiny, maybe even non existent. Remember that before you go spending any money or working too hard on it!!

BullBauld

Panch18 wrote: »

sorry to hear about your loss

Only advice i would give you is keep your wages totally separate from the farm - have a separate bank account and let the farm pay its own way. Rearing a few calves is probably the best thing you could do with the place in current times. If you were selling in the mart rather than the factory even better

Also don't forget - in the beef game the difference between farming to the highest level or just tapping away is tiny, maybe even non existent. Remember that before you go spending any money or working too hard on it!!

Thanks for your reply.

Good advice re keep wages separate.
Dad always sold in the mart so I'd keep going that way.

For the time being I'm just gonna get into it and build up some knowledge/experience. Herd test due soon so after that I'll probably sell and buy more calves and go from there.

Dad relied on neighbours to put out bales, bring stock to mart and stuff like that as he had no tractor. Would a tractor be a wise investment for what it would be used for.

Dad loved being up the field and I think it was the thing he missed the most when he got sick so I want to do the best I can.

Hard Knocks

BullBauld wrote: »

Thanks for your reply.

Good advice re keep wages separate.
Dad always sold in the mart so I'd keep going that way.

For the time being I'm just gonna get into it and build up some knowledge/experience. Herd test due soon so after that I'll probably sell and buy more calves and go from there.

Dad relied on neighbours to put out bales, bring stock to mart and stuff like that as he had no tractor. Would a tractor be a wise investment for what it would be used for.

Dad loved being up the field and I think it was the thing he missed the most when he got sick so I want to do the best I can.

Tractors are nice but an investment
No tractor here, contractor does most (when I’m at work)
Everyone to their own

BullBauld

funkey_monkey wrote: »

What's the handling facilities like? Fences? Do the sheds need any maintenance? Reseeding? Those might be a better place to start instead of a tractor. Buy a tractor and then you'll start needing a pile of implements for it. From the sounds of it you have neighbours who don't seem to mind doing bits and pieces so if possible I'd lean on them for a while longer until you get your feet under the table.

Fair point re tractor. No real need for it at moment, neighbours would do what's required no bother.
Facilities are decent enough. Fencing is sound. Not a whole pile needs doing apart from getting GLAS field prepped.
Thanks for the advice.

Panch18

don't forget if you loose money for a few years on the farm you can write if off against your PAYE tax paid, if you are in the high tax bracket then some things you might want to do or get aren't as expensive as you think.

Hurling Hereford

BullBauld wrote: »

So my father recently passed away. He worked all his life so was a part time farmer until he retired from work and the farm became his main interest. Nothing major, 35 acres, dry stock of 15-20 usually. Buy calves, sell at 30 months. That sort of thing.
He's also in GLAS and getting a few other payments.
So for the most part this has been passed on to me. Always a reluctant farmer growing up. But now I want to keep things going as best I can.....if it's viable. I don't want to let it out if at all possible.
Have to get the herd number transferred over to me and a few things like that.

So any advice for a newbie with limited experience?

Thanks.

Best wishes to you!

49801

Get your silage ground closed and fert out ASAP. 😀

Do soil testing in the autumn and get a handle on soil fertility for your ground.

tanko

Have you got your fathers herd number transferred into your name and got your BPS application sent in for this year?

BullBauld

tanko wrote: »

Have you got your fathers herd number transferred into your name and got your BPS application sent in for this year?

Yea application is sent in. I did it with dad a few weeks prior.
Not sure I can transfer herd number as yet until I have a probate?

Good loser

Get the Farmer's Journal every week - and read it if possible.


On small acres I get by with a tractor, small old rear loader, spinner and roller. A spike might get you by instead of loader.

Sheep breeder

BullBauld wrote: »

Fair point re tractor. No real need for it at moment, neighbours would do what's required no bother.
Facilities are decent enough. Fencing is sound. Not a whole pile needs doing apart from getting GLAS field prepped.
Thanks for the advice.

Handy cheap tractor would be a good investment and neighbours might have done things for your father and that can change overtime. A bale spike and a transport box don’t cost a lot of money and can be very handy to do jobs around the farm.

lalababa

When you say calves...what age? Runners (older calves) would be eating hay/silage/grass/meal. Young calves can be troublesome at the best of times!
Might be a wise move to start with weanlings this year.

tanko

BullBauld wrote: »

Yea application is sent in. I did it with dad a few weeks prior.
Not sure I can transfer herd number as yet until I have a probate?

I don't know to be honest. My herd number was transferred while my father was still alive. Do you know a good agricultural consultant who can advise you?

John Hutton

Sorry for your loss OP.

My advice, and I don't mean to sound harsh, is to try and not be sentimental or emotional about it.

Just because your dad loved it doesn't mean you have to or should. It's ok to not want to do it.

Remember it's a business so keep the business hat on.

Don't put loads of money, time or effort into it because of your dad, because he loved the farm or you think he would like you to do it.

Do it because you want to. If you do it for any other reason than that you want to you could end up angry and resentful, Ive seen it happen.

My advise would be to learn as much as you can about the various dept grants and go from there.

Anniepower

Sorry for your loss OP.

As a previous poster has said focus on handling facilities and fencing. If you have safety for both yourself and livestock it’s worth it’s weight in gold. Focus on them as much as you can even if it is a 3 year plan to have the fencing secure and do it bit by bit.

You can’t put a price on comfortness.

20silkcut

Panch18 wrote: »

sorry to hear about your loss

Only advice i would give you is keep your wages totally separate from the farm - have a separate bank account and let the farm pay its own way. Rearing a few calves is probably the best thing you could do with the place in current times. If you were selling in the mart rather than the factory even better

Also don't forget - in the beef game the difference between farming to the highest level or just tapping away is tiny, maybe even non existent. Remember that before you go spending any money or working too hard on it!!

I’m intrigued with your point about farming at the highest level and tapping away. Could you expand that a bit please??

Panch18

20silkcut wrote: »

I’m intrigued with your point about farming at the highest level and tapping away. Could you expand that a bit please??

What i mean by that is beef is a low margin game - no matter how good or bad a farmer you are the margins are pretty much the same.

Take the OP's 35 acres. on a calf to year and half system. If he has 50 year and halfs leaving a margin of 300 that's 15k. But he has to fertilise, top, cut a lot of silage, spread a lot of slurry, paddocks and have a shed for 50 weanlings. He's working most days of the year. But he has 15k margin

If he stocks lightly at say 35 year and halfs then he will have a greater margin per animal at say 350. He will have less work to do, less fertilisers to spread, less sheds to build etc etc. So his 35 animals will leave a margin of 12,250. so less than a 3k difference. Take tax at over 50% off that and then your difference is not much more than 1k

You could do similar calculations for out-wintering say 20 weanlings. It all works out roughly the same in the end - because the margins aren't there. when you farm intensively the costs take away all the "efficiency" gains that you make by farming "good"

But yet people would look at the fella who is farming 50 and say he's doing a greaat job and look at the fella out wintering 20 and say he's a messer. Fact is he wouldn't be any worse off really - he'd have a lot less bills to pay and a lot less work to do

So whats the point of farming intensively in beef? Putting money into loads of peoples pockets for little to no gain yourself - only more work

BullBauld

lalababa wrote: »

When you say calves...what age? Runners (older calves) would be eating hay/silage/grass/meal. Young calves can be troublesome at the best of times!
Might be a wise move to start with weanlings this year.

Yea when I said calves I meant weanlings. It's a long time since we had calves knocking about!

BullBauld

tanko wrote: »

I don't know to be honest. My herd number was transferred while my father was still alive. Do you know a good agricultural consultant who can advise you?

I don't think I can fully transfer herd number until I get probate. Can become a 'herd keeper' until then to ensure things tick over.

emaherx

BullBauld wrote: »

Yea application is sent in. I did it with dad a few weeks prior.
Not sure I can transfer herd number as yet until I have a probate?

I was in similar situation to you a few years ago. You probably can't transfer herd number yet. But make sure you are put down as herd keeper for now. A good agri adviser would be money well spent now as they will have been through the process many times.

BullBauld

John Hutton wrote: »

Sorry for your loss OP.

My advice, and I don't mean to sound harsh, is to try and not be sentimental or emotional about it.

Just because your dad loved it doesn't mean you have to or should. It's ok to not want to do it.

Remember it's a business so keep the business hat on.

Don't put loads of money, time or effort into it because of your dad, because he loved the farm or you think he would like you to do it.

Do it because you want to. If you do it for any other reason than that you want to you could end up angry and resentful, Ive seen it happen.

My advise would be to learn as much as you can about the various dept grants and go from there.

Thanks and I get what you're saying.

But there is a certain emotional element to it.
I want to do it myself but part of me wants to do it for my father aswell.

Now what exactly I do with it is the question. I'll keep the beef ticking over and see how I get on. But I'd be open to exploring alternative ways of using what I have down the line.
That does not mean letting it, that won't happen. Just alternative farming if viable.

BullBauld

Panch18 wrote: »

What i mean by that is beef is a low margin game - no matter how good or bad a farmer you are the margins are pretty much the same.

Take the OP's 35 acres. on a calf to year and half system. If he has 50 year and halfs leaving a margin of 300 that's 15k. But he has to fertilise, top, cut a lot of silage, spread a lot of slurry, paddocks and have a shed for 50 weanlings. He's working most days of the year. But he has 15k margin

If he stocks lightly at say 35 year and halfs then he will have a greater margin per animal at say 350. He will have less work to do, less fertilisers to spread, less sheds to build etc etc. So his 35 animals will leave a margin of 12,250. so less than a 3k difference. Take tax at over 50% off that and then your difference is not much more than 1k

You could do similar calculations for out-wintering say 20 weanlings. It all works out roughly the same in the end - because the margins aren't there. when you farm intensively the costs take away all the "efficiency" gains that you make by farming "good"

But yet people would look at the fella who is farming 50 and say he's doing a greaat job and look at the fella out wintering 20 and say he's a messer. Fact is he wouldn't be any worse off really - he'd have a lot less bills to pay and a lot less work to do

So whats the point of farming intensively in beef? Putting money into loads of peoples pockets for little to no gain yourself - only more work

Think I'll let it out after reading this :-O
Haha. Good explanation there and makes things a bit clearer.

ep71

Sorry for your loss,

I'll give you my own slightly different experience.

Mother passed away in 2015, farm was a joint herd number with both parents, got mother removed from herd number and myself added back then.

Did very little farming, working away from home, father kept things tipping away on his own.

2017 - 2018, moved abroad so no farming but came back October 2018 with father approaching 70th birthday and looking to get out of farming.

Met with IFAC accountant to get advice on how to transfer over farm to myself, if I needed to get green cert etc. Was advised no real benefit in doing green cert as I'd already been on the herd number for a couple of years, just proceed with transfer of land etc. So have completed this recently and paid stamp duty, solicitors fees, land registration etc. to get it transferred over in the past few months.

Still working away from home 1.5hrs away and renting an apartment in the city so have spent the last few months trying to get things under control and making things as easy as possible to manage with minimal input.

Have approx. 23 acres and 23 sheep, so far 32 lambs and have been managing ok with father keeping an eye and myself travelling down at the weekend and 1 or 2 evenings a week depending on need.

Have prioritised getting fences repaired where they were very bad and have done this by tackling one area per weekend over the past few months and now have things relatively secure but still have loads of fencing to do over the next few months and loads of trees to cut up which were cut to get fencing in place.

A huge help has been a couple of handling / penning areas which were badly needed which has made it far easier to get the sheep in for handling, dosing or lambing and also a cheap camera system called reolink go which I bought, it has a sim card and battery in it which means you need no power or network just a sim card which is €5 per month and you can mount it on the side of your shed or out in the field and view through an app on your phone. In all have probably invested about €1.5k so far with gates, fencing and the camera was €180.

I still have loads to do but feel I'm making it a small bit more manageable every week.

20silkcut

Panch18 wrote: »

What i mean by that is beef is a low margin game - no matter how good or bad a farmer you are the margins are pretty much the same.

Take the OP's 35 acres. on a calf to year and half system. If he has 50 year and halfs leaving a margin of 300 that's 15k. But he has to fertilise, top, cut a lot of silage, spread a lot of slurry, paddocks and have a shed for 50 weanlings. He's working most days of the year. But he has 15k margin

If he stocks lightly at say 35 year and halfs then he will have a greater margin per animal at say 350. He will have less work to do, less fertilisers to spread, less sheds to build etc etc. So his 35 animals will leave a margin of 12,250. so less than a 3k difference. Take tax at over 50% off that and then your difference is not much more than 1k

You could do similar calculations for out-wintering say 20 weanlings. It all works out roughly the same in the end - because the margins aren't there. when you farm intensively the costs take away all the "efficiency" gains that you make by farming "good"

But yet people would look at the fella who is farming 50 and say he's doing a greaat job and look at the fella out wintering 20 and say he's a messer. Fact is he wouldn't be any worse off really - he'd have a lot less bills to pay and a lot less work to do

So whats the point of farming intensively in beef? Putting money into loads of peoples pockets for little to no gain yourself - only more work

Agree 100%

Bass Reeves

The other thing is not to get caught up feeding ration to stores over the winter if going back to grass. Even at 4/kg of a base the return is marginal at present it costing to feed ration during the winter.

Keep away as far as possible from winter finishing. Costs are horrendous and there is no return in it. Keep costs down by making dry silage if possible do not get caught up on the DMD and trying to get 3 cuts of silage.

If buying anything from fencing to dosing check online prices. Beef plan got some great prices on fertlizer I think the man there were dealing with would do three drops with a 28 ton load it was too lift but quad packs were 5/ton extra. Had my fertlizer bought before it this year but.intend to get a load with another lad next year even if I have to take a bit extra. You will always find a lad to take a few ton off your hands.

Sugarbowl

ep71 wrote: »

Sorry for your loss,

I'll give you my own slightly different experience.

Mother passed away in 2015, farm was a joint herd number with both parents, got mother removed from herd number and myself added back then.

Did very little farming, working away from home, father kept things tipping away on his own.

2017 - 2018, moved abroad so no farming but came back October 2018 with father approaching 70th birthday and looking to get out of farming.

Met with IFAC accountant to get advice on how to transfer over farm to myself, if I needed to get green cert etc. Was advised no real benefit in doing green cert as I'd already been on the herd number for a couple of years, just proceed with transfer of land etc. So have completed this recently and paid stamp duty, solicitors fees, land registration etc. to get it transferred over in the past few months.

Still working away from home 1.5hrs away and renting an apartment in the city so have spent the last few months trying to get things under control and making things as easy as possible to manage with minimal input.

Have approx. 23 acres and 23 sheep, so far 32 lambs and have been managing ok with father keeping an eye and myself travelling down at the weekend and 1 or 2 evenings a week depending on need.

Have prioritised getting fences repaired where they were very bad and have done this by tackling one area per weekend over the past few months and now have things relatively secure but still have loads of fencing to do over the next few months and loads of trees to cut up which were cut to get fencing in place.

A huge help has been a couple of handling / penning areas which were badly needed which has made it far easier to get the sheep in for handling, dosing or lambing and also a cheap camera system called reolink go which I bought, it has a sim card and battery in it which means you need no power or network just a sim card which is €5 per month and you can mount it on the side of your shed or out in the field and view through an app on your phone. In all have probably invested about €1.5k so far with gates, fencing and the camera was €180.

I still have loads to do but feel I'm making it a small bit more manageable every week.

Which make of Reolink camera is that?

ep71

Sugarbowl wrote: »

Which make of Reolink camera is that?

reolink go

https://reolink.com/product/reolink-go/

893bet

ep71 wrote: »

reolink go

https://reolink.com/product/reolink-go/

Interesting. Are you using solar power or do you need to recharge the battery another way?

Did you purchase on that site?

johnnyfruitcake

ep71 wrote: »

reolink go

https://reolink.com/product/reolink-go/

What sim card do you use for the camera?
I'm trying to find one for a mobile router for my cameras.

20silkcut

I’m sure this has been asked on this forum a 100 times but how does making bales for sale stack up against buying in calves and take them to 2 years.
Assuming a profit margin on animals of 2-300 per head?
Assuming your own gear for making bales. No contractor costs. Just fertilizer and plastic. And assume local piggery / AD plant etc for P and K.