Dairy Chitchat 4, an udder new thread.

mahoney_j

don’t get too hung up on all those shiny boards from today …tgat one re hours worked …holidays generated a few raised eyebrows …..clover plots interesting but felt presenters were holding back on wether they needed n or not and what sr they can support ….wishy washy stuff re questions on effective clover safe sprays …..also restrictions on p and how it’ll affect it

Was good day ,sorry going to but end of the tour around contained lot of stuff people were just passing by and had little interest in …don’t think there’s a need for trade stands like the Ai companies ,Fbd etc either….had stands from clonakilty ,ballyhaise,next gen herd …..nothing from Lyons in ucd…or something to interest a band 3 high yielding herd ….all in all didn’t feel there was much there that we havnt heard a lot about already ….glossy picture painted on everything from ebi to dbi to clovers etc etc

older by the day

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123600053#Comment_123600053

Jayus, don't be telling fellas to take holidays, myself and another neighbour are minding a farm for a lad gone on his honeymoon.

I would list what has gone wrong in the last five days but, he might read this and be on the first plane back.

The sucklers are eating a nice swart of the second cut silage tonight anyway. Another suckler got bad mastitis and I had to get the vet yesterday for her, so I'm pulling down shiite and injecting her every day.

Farming and holidays, need to be timed right.

ginger22

Got home from the day job at 5.30 yesterday evening. Went spraying urea on an outfarm with a nice comfortable tractor and the biggest sprayer in the county. Had a chat with about 70 incalf heifers while there that I bred myself and reared as calves. Looked at the maize jumping out of the ground now head high, Checked a 20 acre field of winter wheat looks like a good 6 ton crop of crimp. On the way home stopped at a leased farm, another 30 acres of winer wheat and 14 acres of spring barley, all looking good, checked another bunch of incalf heifers and about 90 heifer calves. Was back home for 8.30. Not bad going for a pensioner. Life is gooood.

ftm2023

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123600328#Comment_123600328

I’m being made go on holidays at the end of this week. I guess there’s no right time to ever go when you milk all year round. I don’t know what possessed me to agree to it. Have a lot of the 2nd cut in but still waiting to make pit silage. Only going to be gone for 4 nights & it’s going to have bits of rain all those days here anyway.

yosemitesam1

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123600071#Comment_123600071

They are some of the meanest lads going out there. Will not spend a penny on stone or concrete if they can help it. No interest in building model farms like in Ireland

whelan2

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123600558#Comment_123600558

Medal in the post to you

whelan2

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123600565#Comment_123600565

TThis Is a horrible post. Being made go on holidays. If you've kids you should be making memories with them on holidays. They'll remember these trips. If you don't have kids your oh probably needs a breakaway from routine to recharge the batteries. The farm will still be there when you get back.

ginger22

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123600599#Comment_123600599

Why would you feel the need to pass that snide comment.

whelan2

Read it back. Blowing about numbers of all you did.

straight

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123600238#Comment_123600238

I couldn't face some of those teagasc lads yesterday and listen to the same owl sh1t. I think they have forgotten about MSS now. It's all urea and clover. Sure God help them. The EU is anti urea in their latest plan which makes a joke of teagascs stance.

Was There something there about farm apprenticeships? I wouldn't mind having one maybe.

green daries

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123600723#Comment_123600723

The Farm apprenticeship is just a case of signing up as a host farm and filling out forms you've to get an electrician certificate every few years etc it's a hit and miss thing with the lads who come an odd one would run the place and then more of them wouldn't be able to bed calves. The most are in between and if you get a nice lad it makes it easier.

But my good God the screen time and reluctance to answer or talk on the phone would craic you up

Wildsurfer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123600558#Comment_123600558

I can just imagine having to listen to you down the pub after a few pints. Padraig Flynn on the Late Late comes to mind.

GrasstoMilk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123600723#Comment_123600723

teagasc never promoted mss. They trialed them as requested by the government. It was pippa and dlf that had the hard on for mss

ginger22

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123600651#Comment_123600651

Was trying to point out how satisfying farming can be. So I am proud of what I have done in life and enjoyed every minute of it. We were subjected to posts about your milking parlour for months. What else have you done.

cosatron

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123600908#Comment_123600908

no you weren't, you were blowing your own trumpet. Like come on, who writes the following with any level of sincerity

'nice comfortable tractor and the biggest sprayer in the county'

you could of easily have wrote, came home from work, sprayed the crops, checked the hiefers, checked the crops on rented land, home again at 8.30, happy as larry as a pensioner to be able to be active and helpful..

ginger22

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123600966#Comment_123600966

Ouch

ginger22

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123600894#Comment_123600894

Well that's one place you wont find me. Cant listen to the b,,,,,,t ye spout there.

jaymla627

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123600966#Comment_123600966

It raises a point about the silent labour unit and the need for family labour to keep the show on the road, father and mother here are 3 weeks into a 8 week holiday in france/Spain in their camper and are heading out to Australia in October for a month to see the brother...

The look of disbelief when you'd chatting farming neighbours about such holidays and how are you coping etc, its a given on most dairy farms the older generation silently farm away till physical unable, but you won't see that up on a slide at moorepark

mahoney_j

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123600966#Comment_123600966

made little of gingers post tbh …only fair fooks to him and great to see a lad happy and content with what work and life has given him ……this really is a country of begrudgery and looking down on success and hard work …..social media is a **** place sometimes …little keyboard warriors sitting behind a screen spouting crap ….and they wouldn’t have hands to wipe there arse …look at someone like Jo McManus and the the crap lots spout re him and tax status etc …doubt there’s a more generous man in the country with his money

Siamsa Sessions

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123601031#Comment_123601031

I see it around here too - Daddy and sometimes Mammy helping to keep the show on the road. But they conveniently disappear when official data is being collected. At best, there might be mention of "family help" but it'd be interesting to see how many hours/week those parents are really doing.

straight

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123600908#Comment_123600908

Ya, I understood your post. Happy out to be going out doing a few jobs around the farm besides running in to watch fair city or some other crap like the top 25%.

straight

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123600897#Comment_123600897

Maybe... Teagasc people have told me it's just a trial. More teagasc people have told me it's the best thing since sliced bread.

cosatron

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123601088#Comment_123601088

Fairplay to him and his success, but his post had little or nothing to do with the on-going discussion of getting time off to go on holidays and work life commitment with cows. Obviously ginger has a labour unit/family member at home milking the cows which allows him to carry out the work in the evening.

older by the day

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123601031#Comment_123601031

It is a great point.

I have often said it here, it's a different story when everything is left to one person.

We got ate by a young fella here, when some of us only check dry cattle every few days on out farms. And more saying that 10 hours a day is plenty to work on a dairy farm. When the help drys up, it's then you realise what you had.

Let ginger alone, he always gives me great advice.

Drive on ginger, with your fancy tractor and biggest sprayer in ireland. I wish my parents were as healthy and active as you 😀

mahoney_j

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123601136#Comment_123601136

either way wouldn’t be huffing and fluffing over it ….Shur things here get pulled and dragged in every direction time to time …you’d nearly enjoy here more than twitter …lot of us know who each other are in real life or by our real name …..twitter can be full of people playing to the crowd or people just tapping one another on the back ….bout in reality they wouldn’t say something totally different away from it …..just saw some of stuff from morality yesterday re lads with these big revolutionary ideas they heard there re grass …reseeding …clovers etc etc etc ….we already knew most of it before that …wasn’t just a light bulb flicked and a take home message from yesterday to go home and do some reseeding ….few Tegasc boyos and advisors revelling on back of it🙄🙄….anyway now I’ve done it took this thread off on another tangent 🤣🤣

mahoney_j

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123601144#Comment_123601144

my dad passed awaycrelatively young at 70 after suffering with Alzheimer’s /dementia ….he was a huge help to me whilst he was able to do things ….be it checking stock on outfarm …feeding/bedding calves greasing machinery …running to the mill ….you don’t truly appreciate that help till it’s gone …my wife works …I’ve young lad to help in spring and when needed in summer ….relief Milker at weekends for 4 milkings from may on ….outside tgat im on my own on average I’m on the farm 10/12 and more hours per day Monday/saturday …I ain’t tied to it but fit in school runs …summer camps …bit of lunch …and if I’ve a spare 5 minutes😉😉😉 I’ll pop on here or boards or that fookin tik tok to see what’s going on outside the gate

whelan2

Both parents here can't drive atm. Oh hasn't left house in 2 weeks. You'd miss the help big time. Even for my dad to go to vets to get something or whatever. I still bring him with me most mornings to count cattle as it gets him out of bed.

Say my name

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123601144#Comment_123601144

My mother is just after running over my fathers pride and joy white kitten with a lawnmower. Says she never saw it in front of it. These things never happen if you are stuck in the bed. But sure it's an accident. I think what happened was the kitten crawled under the mower and into the grass box before starting and on starting crawled back out again.

We are all well to be so well.

Went to the factory this morning with two dry cows after milking. Ordered lawnmower rope pre accident. Ordered parlour detergent. Now looking at a landleveller for the farm tracks. Have ten acres silage cut and hopefully at later.

I think we mostly all understand one another here and there's little clues of home life given and how and why every or anyone looks at things. Makes the world tick I suppose.

Though there is one you'd swear it is farming simulator and they get their info from out looking in. 😶😎

ftm2023

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123600620#Comment_123600620

Whelan, you must’ve woken up on the wrong side today.

First off, your comment to @ginger22 was miles out of line. I know the man personally—he’s no boaster. He could buy and sell half of us here if he felt like it, so talking casually about rented land isn’t him showing off.

As for your little dig at me: I was replying to someone discussing holidays clashing with farm work, and I clearly stated I’m flat-out busy. My second cut is overdue by two weeks and it’s driving me up the wall. When I joked about being “made” to go on holiday, it was obviously tongue-in-cheek. My wife is heavily pregnant with our second child and wanted to go on a holiday so three weeks ago I booked this trip abroad as a surprise and cancelled the staycation we had planned—if I had booked it any later flying would’ve been out of the question. And since you seem so worried about my parenting skills and family memories, rest easy—I’ve already planned another family holiday for December.

Siamsa Sessions

Changing the subject back to cows…

I took too many paddocks out for silage, so short of grass for a week-ish, and feeding silage at the moment. Milking OAD in the morning and leaving the cows in the yard with silage at the barrier for 2-3 hours after milking. Then out to a stemmy paddock til the following morning.

They’re not milking great and I’m wondering about leaving them out after milking and bringing them into the yard for silage over night.

Does it matter a damn either way?