Dairy Chitchat 4, an udder new thread.

whelan2

Haven't seen any posts from @Mooooo in a while. Hope all's ok. Weather was pretty bad down there

kevthegaff

Goof grass weather atm

straight

I hear teagasc are trying to come up with a mechanism to penalise herds with a high carbon figure.

What is the story with teagasc and Ifj never mentioning Friesian. Is it that they can't pronounce the word or what.

They talk about jersey, crossbred or black and white. WTF is black and whites like?

jaymla627

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122168558#Comment_122168558

They'd want to rein themselves in, theirs a test now available with milk samples to give a individual methane efficeny index for cows, obviously the incarnation they come up will favour their type of genetics and hammer higher yielding herds, they deserve to be brought infront of a judge if they go a step-further with another airy fairy index thats not actually accurate

mahoney_j

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122168558#Comment_122168558

well if they go that route they can shove there yearly sun for me where sun don’t shine ….bulls I’m all using are carbon negative because it dosnt suit the kiwi model there ramming down our neck for years ….this will be a step too far for lots

Say my name

There's one thing that's not really talked about by farm advisors and teagasc with dairying and that's mental health and suicide. It's the most mundane, most labour taking, most repetitive day after day, most cash taking for improving facilities for new regulations, most socially isolating professions going.

I probably have it slighty wrong and if it is to protect their identity then it's no harm.

Heard of a farmer suicide. A dairy farmer in his 20's. Herd gone to 600 cows. He couldn't get labour over the weekend. If that's the cause and it would cause anyone to flip. But he took his own life days after.

If going well he'd probably meet the teagasc parimeters for farmer of the year and an aim that the rest of farmers are supposed to aim for. When it doesn't though it can be hell on earth. And no teagasc advisor or product salespeople or coop milk managers are going to milk those cows for you.

jaymla627

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122169204#Comment_122169204

Was more than likely just a trigger, expensive spring/milk volumes on the floor, weather still very variable, exhausted from working 90 plus hour weeks, combine that with peak milk cheques barely making a dent in paying bills racked up over the winter/spring, and intrest rates on highly borrowed large units crippling them, where 40k was going out to cover intrest now over 80k…

Its a wonder we arent expirencing alot more

Siamsa Sessions

For all the copying of the kiwi model, I wonder if many advisors know about this mental health website for NZ farmers: https://farmstrong.co.nz

There's a dozen cliches about minding yourself, but one thing that stays with me is 'Farmers need farmers'. We could manage without advisors, salesmen, co-op managers, etc. - they're not our peers. But a 2-min chat with another farmer is worth 20 self-help, mind-yourself videos.

I find "talking" on here great. It's not like a pint and a laugh in the pub, but it's still a chat with other farmers. I'm always praising the farming forum on boards to anyone who'll listen.

whelan2

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122169567#Comment_122169567

I go to football, talk shite. Nothing about farming. Clear the head. Noticed a good few farming people don't stay for games etc anymore- maybe they dont want to talk to me- but it's great to get away from the farm for a while, it'll still be there when you get back

straight

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122169204#Comment_122169204

Sounds like the misfortune got caught up in the hype. There's no fear of our own man @older by the day winning farmer of the year.

The belittling from teagasc and Co is unreal. There seems to be no more room for mediocrity, you just have to be excellent now to make money from it.

They want cows with high maintenance and beef figures. Charolais calves then just to make them saleable like. Nothing about the calf being profitable for the dairy farmer. They'd drive you to the drink.

Alot of lads I know are gone to private advisors now but I can't figure out why. Are they cheaper or what? One guy I know thinks he doesn't have to grass measure if he's not with teagasc.

ginger22

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122169807#Comment_122169807

But why would anybody be taking advice from Teagasc or anybody else for that matter. Our fathers got on fine doing their own thing and so can we. It doesen't have to be by the book.

straight

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122169909#Comment_122169909

That's what I think too. So why are people leaving for private advisors is what I'm wondering

whelan2

Ai man was saying this morning, you spend thefirst t 3 weeks of the season trying to serve as many cows as possible and then dreading the time after with repeats

ginger22

The thing with the Teagasc gospel is all the deadlines, compact calving, Spring rotation planner, high ebi bulls, grass measuring. If you don't meet those targets it doesn't make you a bad farmer. At the end of the day it makes very little difference to the success of the business. The only thing that matters is money going out versus money coming in and there are several different ways to achieve that.

GrasstoMilk

If you’re spring calving and want to dry off over Christmas compact calving is essential. It’s just lost days in milk other wise and lost income. If you’re happy to milk through then don’t worry about it. I’m quite happy to follow it and when I started out at home it and proper grassland management has what’s really made the biggest difference

older by the day

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122169204#Comment_122169204

Great Post.

No one can be too haughty about mental health. If every one is honest, most people goes through a bad patch, it might last a day, month, years. My favourite saying is " everything is transient". I have known a few people down the years and was very surprised as some were happy go lucky and top of their game. So try to go easy on yourselfs and don't be worried about grass or scc or relationships, time sorts things out.

I beginning to sound like a Buddhist monk.

wrangler

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122169909#Comment_122169909

Same here, I always took whatever teagasc advice suited me and made sense to me.

Bad mouthing the advisors is stupid as they haven't put a gun to anyones head.

Poor business people will always blame someone else when they make a f..k up.

When things went wrong here I always said ''this too will pass' and it did. very few are borrowed over their assets and most are unlikely to be homeless.

Pride is a cruel master though.

straight

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122171122#Comment_122171122

Giving out about advisers is one thing. Giving out about people creating policy that affects you without having any say is another thing entirely.

mahoney_j

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122170294#Comment_122170294

in a nutshell that’s it ….everyone worried about everyone else be …reality is what’s inside your own gate all that matters ….see too many lads loosing there **** because things ain’t working out like all the poster boys

whelan2

We're very lucky We've a very good teagasc advisor. He was a great help setting up the partnership, etc, always at the end of the phone. I assume in some areas people aren't as lucky and use private advisors

alps

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122169807#Comment_122169807

What book are you reading or do you wake up in a sweat having dreamt it?

The only thing that made people drive on is that they had a massive horn up.

Some expansionists were very astute and are doing exceptionally well and more made a dogs #####x of it....but no one forced it..

The narrative that the Gov set 2020 targets and we did our duty and followed them, and teagasc and co were complicit in forcing people to places they didnt want to go???..such nonsense..

straight

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122172094#Comment_122172094

You've lost me there lad.

Kerry2021

I was talking to a man this week. He told me in 1983 Kerry were paying out £1.05 per gallon of milk. I found a website online that was able to tell me how much an Irish Punt in 1983 would be worth in euros in 2023.

Turns out that £1.05 would be worth €3.65 so according to that we’d want to be getting 80 cent per litre which is double what we are getting

jaymla627

Half the year gone and they roll out this press realase, its hard to fathom the carry-on by the current goverments policies and what the civil servants are demanding

https://www.agriland.ie/farming-news/voluntary-cow-reduction-measures-remain-part-of-2024-climate-plan/

Siamsa Sessions

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122172752#Comment_122172752

I’ve heard farm leaders say it was never on the table which is a bit of a cop out.

The Dept and Minister flew a kite on a cow reduction scheme. The IFA shot it down despite the then vice-president admitting they were hearing interest from farmers. The discussion went no farther then.

To say there was never a scheme in place is technically correct but there was the start of a scheme, which is usually how these things work. It deserved more discussion at least rather than shouting it down immediately.

Whatever.

Farmers seem to be voluntarily reducing cows now anyway and it’s costing the Dept nothing.

mahoney_j

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122172839#Comment_122172839

they ain’t voluntary doing it ….legislation for most part is forcing them ….then add in older farmers with no successor and farmers fed up ……govt won’t need to put there hands in there pockets to pay out for a reduction scheme

straight

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122172716#Comment_122172716

At least the media and other vested interests have stopped shouting highly profitable dairy farming from their pulpits.

roosterman71

 the mobilisation of voluntary reduction measures for livestock farmers recommended by the Food Vision Dairy Group and Food Visions Beef and Sheep Group.

Sure this is already happening. Lads are voluntarily cutting numbers

Charlie McConalogue effectively ruling out cow reduction measures or schemes in both the dairy and beef sectors.

Another way of saying the Government won't put it's hand in it's pocket. And rightly so. Why would they when the numbers are going down voluntarily?

K.G.

What we are dealing with now is the last hangover from the quota system. We had 30 years of restriction and then in fairness it was flagged early that quotas were being scrapped so its no wonder we all went a bit mad.so now you re at a settling period where I suspect the industry will rise and fall depending on market conditions. When you stand back all that has happened is a rebalanced of the national herd to what it was before in terms of suckler /dairy cow proportions.

One of the big advantages of the abolition of quotas is the ability it gives to either reduce,increase,get out or come back depending on their circumstances.in the earlier conversation about mental health one of the tools available now is the ability to be flexible in numbers and system. What is wrong with dropping a Row or two or easing stocking rate for a year or 2 just to ease pressure. Often it has alot less effect on profitability than we might think. The yanks are very quick to cull if the profitability of cows decline and then ramp up as conditions improve.often worrying how things might look exasabates a mental health problem but most neighbours would hardly notice if you were milking a few less cows but they d definitely take note if either you or the cows were gone

Bass Reeves

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122168079#Comment_122168079

⁹it would be great to add maize and barley fir a grass ration for beef. Even oat hulls are an option at 90/ton with maize and some barley.

Probably have a high energy ration back around 250/ton. 20% oat hulls, 55%maize 23% barley and 2% mins and vits