Dairy Chitchat 4, an udder new thread.

straight

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122021519#Comment_122021519

You're dead right. Pit time and total time are two different things. The sh1t some dairy farmers spout about milking time taking an hour is just that.

Bass Reeves

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122021733#Comment_122021733

And that is bbefore you factor in holidays and bank holiday's equivalent to about 15% of pay.

In a years time add in a bit of a pension plan with auto enrolment.

Taking 15% of the 50 euro is 42.50 a milking. Changes the numbers completely

green daries

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122021771#Comment_122021771

Have wages gone that out of control that lads are thumbing there nose at 50 euro a milking ......its no wonder lads are getting out and a lot of businesses are closing down. Who would want to be self employed anymore 🤔 😕 🙄

older by the day

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122021851#Comment_122021851

Where have you been the past four years, the value of money has nearly halved. Fuel is 1.80 a litre a pint is heading for 5.50. Electricity, groceries, insurance. I know its Monday but really!!

A stamp was a euro the last time I bought one, its 1.40 today.

50 euro nowadays is very weak for milking a fair sized herd.

wrangler

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122021932#Comment_122021932

A friend is milking weekends at €50 cash/milking, I remarked that it wasn't great but he said it makes a difference as he hasn't a great job.

Horses for courses I suppose

green daries

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122021932#Comment_122021932

Ya I understand all that but really it was a genuine questionand a genuine point who the hell would want to be self employed and dealing with wages and other costs 🤔 busy busy ejeets is all we are

Bass Reeves

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122021851#Comment_122021851

A couple of years back I got approached to do a bit of subbie work in my old skill set. Pay was 300ish/ day. Sounds great. However it was not an 8 hour day.

Firstly it involved significant travelling every day usually an hour and a half on average and you used your own transport every day I was averaging over 150 miles per day. I averaged it at 50c/km or 75 euro a day to allow for everything.

The night before you be 60-70 minutes downloading the job prepping for it a few days earlier you have arranged meeting times with other involved in the job.

So you hit the road at about 7am, spend the day on the job and you be hitting the farm yard that evening between 4-5 pm. Dose not sound too bad.

However You were not finished, do the cattle head home have the dinner and you started into the job completion paper work. This would take at least two hours usually two and a half. Between photos, documentations etc.

Along with that jobs were cancelled at short notice and work was very intermittent unless you were willing to travel 100+ miles to jobs each way at times. TBF however invoices were promptly paid by middle of the following month.

Now as I was farming I did not have the self employed benefits to put against it such as electricity, car expenses, phone which are written off against farm. I be hitting the high tax bracket as well.

If I allowed for holiday pay I was doing a 14-15 hour day for about 110-130 euro into my hand.

straight

Controversial for the true believers. Cynics will say this man is just selling nutrition.

https://www.irishexaminer.com/farming/arid-41372224.html?utm_source=push&utm_medium=mobile&utm_campaign=article

Kerry2021

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122022177#Comment_122022177

I couldn’t read the entire article because it’s behind a pay wall but I think myself a low input system would have to be the most profitable. If a fella had a big dry farm, a stocking rate of 2 acres to 1 cow, a winter of only 10 weeks or so you’d imagine even in the worst of time he’d still do alright. We’ve a lame bunch here on the farm, we usually give them a paddock at a time and even though they look like rubbish versus the rest of the cows they actually leave them for dead with milk yield

straight

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122022202#Comment_122022202

That's why they're lame I guess. They're the ones milking off their back.

He was just making the point that it shouldn't be one system fits all when it comes to dairying. Everyone has different challenges like wet, dry, not enough land, small milking block, labour, etc. he is saying that less cows and more milk deserves more attention and shouldn't always be just dismissed.

I'm interested in following the UCD herd but there doesn't seem to be much of a conclusion out of their trials. Or maybe it just isn't published much..

Bass Reeves

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122022004#Comment_122022004

BBeing Self employed has many benefits especially now that the self employed credit is the same as the PAYE credit. You can write off a certain amount of personnel expenditure. However you have to be a realist and allow for holiday pay and fund a pension. That is where the biggest failure happens.

However most will continue to reinvest in the business instead of funding holidays and pension. There is a lad retiring in the betterhalf workplace. His wife actually works there as well and is retired. He was 65 and could have gone 5 years ago. His pension will be in the region of 35k, his wife probaly. 5k less. They have only one child and would not live extravagantly.

I often have this debate with my MIL and a BIL. Any time a tradesman calls they nearly have heartfailure at the charge for the repair. The cannot see that he is entitled to fund his holidays and pension and the time it take to go from one task to another or the time it takes to collect bit and pieces for jobs. Neither do they allow for the risk of sickness.

The MIL between the OAP and her work pension would have 6-700/ week before tax, yet she cannot equate that to what a self employed needs to achieve that sort of pension

Kerry2021

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122022374#Comment_122022374

If you’ve a lot of cows some of them are going to be lame no matter what.

Tonynewholland

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122022004#Comment_122022004

The amount of tradesmen packing up and moving to multi nationals is unreal. They don’t even want a cash job on weekends or evenings now.

green daries

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122022800#Comment_122022800

Ya can't get anyone to come look at a job in our own house it's mental the one lad who's answering the phone says he'll be 6 months minimum.......

visatorro

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122020873#Comment_122020873

Yield is 6500. Was around 5000. Was carrying alot of shite before. 520 kg solids last year. 1.3 tonne of meal. Not very efficient really yet.

I don't know whether I could say cows are lasting longer. They move at their own pace alright but as a herd walk more because alot of them move 3 times to 3 paddocks. My milkings around 2.3 for the year. I'm culling harder than previous.

Fr cow. Only have a couple of 10k cows. Have a couple of 4k cows aswell though!! A small % of Jersey.

Yes got 40% grant

Old parlour was old kip. Had no plate cooler so was expensive to cool milk. I remember the bill being the same when we switched. I can't give a better answer than that.

Cost per litre, I'll have to get back to you. But I know my loan repayments are very close to what I was paying for 5 milkings a week.

It's more the cows you have to train. Tbh even though cows might be on the robot I seen an improvement in year 2. If the spring played ball I'd see another improvement this year.

Castlekeeper

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122018506#Comment_122018506

Right bang of Yellowstone about that story, life imitating art and all that...

Castlekeeper

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122021552#Comment_122021552

Am I right in thinking that the phrase like "does not extend to mines and minerals" is on every title deed in the country?

Still u suppose the first step is to own it anyway. It'd be hard to see a govt allowing such assets go east when the EU is trying to secure stuff in Greenland.

Say my name

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122024248#Comment_122024248

Everyone is mad for land atm (in Ireland). 11,000 acres reported on the Sunday Indo of coolmore in Ireland. Most likely have a lot more. Now your man Dyson has a foothold here too. All going gangbusters to acquire more and more land.

It must be some feeling when you've gone beyond the living wage stage of land ownership and see it as a way of vanity to just be the biggest and best and have those around you in your pocket.

kevthegaff

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122024329#Comment_122024329

Im fairly sure the same was happening in Poland and they brought in laws such as residency and nationality to stop it. Of course our crowd are asleep at the wheel..

Say my name

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122024297#Comment_122024297

I don't see why they'd want 1000 acres. It's said they possibly could have 600 acres already. Cork airport I'd say wouldn't have that much land around the airport. But they are saying it's for a business park and hotel development as well.

If it is the israelis. They have a monopoly on agri plastic now I think and Bale wrap was made or maybe still is in arklow.

But for a mine development acquiring as much as possible before development possibly would make sense.

Say my name

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122024362#Comment_122024362

There's some (merchants, politicians, dreamers of farmers,) who see this as progress. But they are only fooling themselves. It's tightening up and removing others off land and only widens the gulf between the ordinary homeowner and how they perceive landowners. You go far enough down the line and it brings back in land reform and if not revolution with "white boys" terrorising and killing the large landowners. As happened in the past here.

Kerry2021

curios to see what would ye value this farm at. It was in the farmers journal the week before last. For full disclosure it definitely is not a farm that would interest me, not one tiny bit. I think it’s very hard put a price on it. It’s a bit out of the way just for added context and as ye can see half it seems to be what you’d call “raised bog” and as far as I know that’s protected under the hen harrier thing so the new owner couldn’t touch that half of it pretty much

I was thinking the half it that’s actually land is worth about €700,000 and the half that’s the hen harrier protected area probably €100,000 so €800,000 for the 167 acres

https://www.property.ie/commercial-property/Meenanare-Duagh-Co-Kerry/19095416/

https://www.farmersjournal.ie/property/property/167ac-farm-in-kerry-for-sale-with-prime-agriculture-land-in-pasture-811224#:~:text=A%20167.94ac%20holding%20with,Listowel%20and%2012km%20from%20Abbeyfeale.

Gawddawggonnit

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122023603#Comment_122023603

Excellent Thanks.
I presume the hardest part was training the cows?
Has it increased the efficiency of your time and allowed more flexibility in your working day?
The robot farms here would be on 12-13k litres all indoors with ayr calving to keep the robots maxed out 24/7. Meal feeding would be over a ton.
It must be fair complicated with grazing and robots.
Seems any farm here that are serious about dairy (they’re all threatening to quit, and many have) are putting in robots. They’re seen now as the only way to future proof the farming system…and it’s hard to disagree. Any farms I’ve been onto will have young farmers and robots..the youth see robots as a lifestyle that they could live with. Indoor systems allow for industrial type work environment as well.
If I could manage to stay producing AOP with robots it’d become something I should really have a serious look at. AOP only allows 750kg of ration and it must be sourced within a 50km radius, be non-gmo etc etc. Saying that I reckon it’s doable. There’s a young man here who’s very enthusiastic and an excellent cow man who’s pushing for robots..but when I ask him to go into partnership and invest, he gets nervous. Same lad isn’t afraid of work.

More and more robots seem to be a solution for dairy into the future.

visatorro

Cows took a while because I made a few mistakes early on. They do get there.

Definitely robot and robot debt made me improve the operation here. Like I said you have the Information aswell. Definitely more flexibility. But if you have a problem you still have to down tools fairly quick and sort it out.

Rough quide is 150-160 milkings. 50 cows high yielding 3 times. 70-75 grazing animals 2 times a day. If you have too many the last row of the parlour cows suffer and you'll end up collecting them. That's pointless. That's a limiting thing about the robot you can't just milk an extra row if you were growing numbers . Although that could be a thing of the past anyway.

Grazing is not that hard if your set up is right. It's abit different to paddock grazing but principle is the same

visatorro

Funny, Iv met a few young lads in the last couple of years all they want a rotary and a highly stocked farm with plenty of cheap staff and an armchair to watch on from.

wrangler

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122024329#Comment_122024329

It's good considering the age profile here of farmers,

Like the rise in rents, it's another option for those retiring

With the way things were going ten years ago, I thought there'd be no demand for me to sell or rent land by now.

Farmers without successors is so common now

Siamsa Sessions

I was doing a bit of homework on fixed time AI for heifers and someone told me it works out at €26 per animal, and then the AI man and a straw for her on top of that.

Is it that expensive?

cosatron

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122025119#Comment_122025119

everything about dairy farming is expensive. get used to it. Do you not think it may be in your best interest considering it will be your year milking to just let an angus bull off with the heifers until you find your feet. Like the heifers you're breeding now could be no good or not to your liking. I don't breed any stock out of heifers, I want to see what they are like in parlour first to see what type of bull they need to improve there progeny.

green daries

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122024865#Comment_122024865

That's all they have seen elsewhere 🙄

Wildsurfer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122025279#Comment_122025279

But he needs replacements coming into the herd in 3 years time or he'll be back buying again and they might not be as cheap as they are this year.