Dairy Chitchat 4, an udder new thread.

Tonynewholland

GrasstoMilk wrote: »

Thats why you keep it simple

A farm i did placement on left me basically running the place after my 2nd day there

The workload wouldn’t be the problem. By the time you did your placement how many years experience would you have on a dairy farm. Most FRS milkers I’ve had didn’t grow up on a dairy farm.

ruwithme

How do dairy folk on here find frs provided workers? I ask as neighbour was telling me,his son enquired of frs about a dairy farm job locally

The pay to the worker from frs was €11 a hour gross.would they attract people with a background in Farming & at least some experience at €11 a hour gross??

straight

ruwithme wrote: »

How do dairy folk on here find frs provided workers? I ask as neighbour was telling me,his son enquired of frs about a dairy farm job locally

The pay to the worker from frs was €11 a hour gross.would they attract people with a background in Farming & at least some experience at €11 a hour gross??

11 euro is more than the farmer is on anyway. Are lads able to find people for the spring? Friend of mine can't find anyone.

Sugarbowl

What would be the going rate/hour to pay someone to help out in the Spring? Say with milking etc and you would be around yourself as well. From your bank a/c straight into theirs?

Tonynewholland

ruwithme wrote: »

How do dairy folk on here find frs provided workers? I ask as neighbour was telling me,his son enquired of frs about a dairy farm job locally

The pay to the worker from frs was €11 a hour gross.would they attract people with a background in Farming & at least some experience at €11 a hour gross??

Some are very good but these are usually full time with the bigger lads
Not sure how much they get paid but I don’t think €11 an hour for milking is right. They charge me something like €85 a milking

ruwithme

I suppose it's called the middle man tony

mahoney_j

straight wrote: »

11 euro is more than the farmer is on anyway. Are lads able to find people for the spring? Friend of mine can't find anyone.

Same lad I had last few years 4 hours every morning (7/11)all thru the books 10 euro per hour plus his tax .he scrapes down beds/passages limes them feeds calves beds them etc I milk and tube any new calves .by 11 the heavy work of day is done and leaves me to do foddering ,bookwok and keep on top of things .he then dose relief milking for me in summer along with another lad

Timmaay

Mooooo wrote: »

It's something we should all be working to plan against tho as the farm is developing. If something should happen to you in the spring we should have some form of plan in place someone can come in and manage.

Hmm I see your point but I guess I was more talking about having the choice of when to leave the farm, lets say you value your time as an experienced dairyfarmer at like 30e/hr, and you work 10hr a day in them busy times, it will cost 300e/day to replace you then, against say the quieter times when the likes of 80e/day for 2 milkings would replace you, you'll obviously decide to escape during them quiter times. And for me hiring extra labour in the spring is about offloading some of the jobs that a 10 or 12e/hour labour unit can do reasonably efficiently and independently of me, rather than me wasting my say 30e/hour time at.

cjpm

Timmaay wrote: »

Hmm I see your point but I guess I was more talking about having the choice of when to leave the farm, lets say you value your time as an experienced dairyfarmer at like 30e/hr, and you work 10hr a day in them busy times, it will cost 300e/day to replace you then, against say the quieter times when the likes of 80e/day for 2 milkings would replace you, you'll obviously decide to escape during them quiter times. And for me hiring extra labour in the spring is about offloading some of the jobs that a 10 or 12e/hour labour unit can do reasonably efficiently and independently of me, rather than me wasting my say 30e/hour time at.

Tim, I heard that you don't get out of bed for less than $10,000 :pac:

Sacrolyte

mahoney_j wrote: »

Same lad I had last few years 4 hours every morning (7/11)all thru the books 10 euro per hour plus his tax .he scrapes down beds/passages limes them feeds calves beds them etc I milk and tube any new calves .by 11 the heavy work of day is done and leaves me to do foddering ,bookwok and keep on top of things .he then dose relief milking for me in summer along with another lad

Do you pay his tax?

If he used up all his credits that 10 euro an hour would be closer to €20.

mahoney_j

Sacrolyte wrote: »

Do you pay his tax?

If he used up all his credits that 10 euro an hour would be closer to €20.

As his employer yes if I was paying cash it’d cost me way more as no allowance against my tax bill .all done thru payroll with Ifac and wage slip issued .steeped to have him on terms I have outlined wouldn’t have work for him full time nor could I financially justify it as farm ain’t big enough .I worked for years off farm so have experience as an employee ,it’s an issue with some farmers in oraticular they never did anything else or was someone else’s employee and can be complete pigs to work for ,expect too much and pay pittance

Mooooo

mahoney_j wrote: »

As his employer yes if I was paying cash it’d cost me way more as no allowance against my tax bill .all done thru payroll with Ifac and wage slip issued .steeped to have him on terms I have outlined wouldn’t have work for him full time nor could I financially justify it as farm ain’t big enough .I worked for years off farm so have experience as an employee ,it’s an issue with some farmers in oraticular they never did anything else or was someone else’s employee and can be complete pigs to work for ,expect too much and pay pittance

What was meant above was if he had a partner and the partner had all the tax credits taken or similar that while he would still be getting the 10, you would be covering more tax than is necessary on your side. Safest is to agree a gross figure, and then person in question can sort his own affairs

mahoney_j

Mooooo wrote: »

What was meant above was if he had a partner and the partner had all the tax credits taken or similar that while he would still be getting the 10, you would be covering more tax than is necessary on your side. Safest is to agree a gross figure, and then person in question can sort his own affairs

Without going into detail that is done

Tonynewholland

mahoney_j wrote: »

Same lad I had last few years 4 hours every morning (7/11)all thru the books 10 euro per hour plus his tax .he scrapes down beds/passages limes them feeds calves beds them etc I milk and tube any new calves .by 11 the heavy work of day is done and leaves me to do foddering ,bookwok and keep on top of things .he then dose relief milking for me in summer along with another lad

What does this man do for the rest of the day. Not many people around here willing to just do a few hours a day like that and the ones that do can’t hold down a job anywhere and can be unreliable when working by themselves

Mooooo

Tonynewholland wrote: »

What does this man do for the rest of the day. Not many people around here willing to just do a few hours a day like that and the ones that do can’t hold down a job anywhere and can be unreliable when working by themselves

There are people where a few hours in the day may suit, people working around school drop offs etc whom don't want to work fulltime or occasionally there are college courses which would allow time for lads to work a few days a week morning or evening. Sometimes advertising locally can find people as well as frs etc.
Altho have been advised that if you want or need someone for the spring from frs etc it helps to give a work to them at other times of the year whether it be a day or week or whatever

Sacrolyte

Mooooo wrote: »

What was meant above was if he had a partner and the partner had all the tax credits taken or similar that while he would still be getting the 10, you would be covering more tax than is necessary on your side. Safest is to agree a gross figure, and then person in question can sort his own affairs

Exactly mooooo. I had a situation once where I was paying set wage plus tax and and the employee had a change of circumstances and some other family related enterprise of his gobbled up his tax credits. At that moment his cost to me went from 10 to circa 17 €/hr. thankfully I was doing the wages through revenue in real time and was spotted straight away and rectified. He wasn’t too happy but when I gave him his wage slip with the obvious details he understood.

mf240

Tonynewholland wrote: »

What does this man do for the rest of the day. Not many people around here willing to just do a few hours a day like that and the ones that do can’t hold down a job anywhere and can be unreliable when working by themselves

Might suit someone with sucklers or drystock of their own.

Or family commitments.

Gawddawggonnit

GrasstoMilk wrote: »

Not many farms around over hundred cows doing it on there own
I have a relief milker who's looking for more work, I'd simply just hire him to 90% of milking of it came to it and I do all other jobs

But but but that’s 90% of the drudgery gone!

Gawddawggonnit

Timmaay wrote: »

Actually very doable in Dec Jan and from June until October. Absolutely not during calving breeding, and Nov always a messy month with on off grazing.

Most farmers don't need that however, a part time labour unit the spring is enough.

What’s the future for part time workers without any work contracts?
There’s NO way that the abuse of labor with zero hour contracts etc will be allowed in the future...you’ll have a nation of Debenham (etc) workers being abused. I see where even Apple in Cork are riding their employees. It won’t last and rightly so.

kevthegaff

Have alad that's in college that rings me when it suits him and I work around it, haven't seen him last few weeks but he was working here around 8 hrs a week. I have to be flexible cos part time staff are like hens teeth. With the pubs closed he could be ringing me after christmas..

Gawddawggonnit

For a good few years we used to get Irish lads over for the dairy side of things. The usual ‘I love milking cows’ was the phrase du jour...until the tillage lads drove past the parlor, then the face on them would turn milk sour.
I wouldn’t blame them.
IMO there’s no greater drudge than walking into the sh1t-pit twice a day.

I’ll have to do my bit for the next fortnight. I only have to milk at Xmas and Easter...and that’s waaay too much!

Tonynewholland

Gawddawggonnit wrote: »

For a good few years we used to get Irish lads over for the dairy side of things. The usual ‘I love milking cows’ was the phrase du jour...until the tillage lads drove past the parlor, then the face on them would turn milk sour.
I wouldn’t blame them.
IMO there’s no greater drudge than walking into the sh1t-pit twice a day.

I’ll have to do my bit for the next fortnight. I only have to milk at Xmas and Easter...and that’s waaay too much!

Have you more than one man for your cows if your only milking Christmas and Easter. Is there something like FRS over there

Mooooo

kevthegaff wrote: »

Have alad that's in college that rings me when it suits him and I work around it, haven't seen him last few weeks but he was working here around 8 hrs a week. I have to be flexible cos part time staff are like hens teeth. With the pubs closed he could be ringing me after christmas..

Would you and a neighboru have enough work to offer one lad a fulltime job? Half the week with you and half the week with a neighbour?

Timmaay

kevthegaff wrote: »

Have alad that's in college that rings me when it suits him and I work around it, haven't seen him last few weeks but he was working here around 8 hrs a week. I have to be flexible cos part time staff are like hens teeth. With the pubs closed he could be ringing me after christmas..

I'm probably lucky around here with in terms of demographics and plenty of farmers sons etc, but I've never ever had issues getting part time staff, most are like aged 16 to 22, so in school/college or just between stuff, zero hour contracts suit both sides well enough. I had one chap come from a job in the local supermarket, which was top-heavy with managers who were drama queens and his hours there had got cut to the point that it wasn't worth his while, the farm here part time was a hell of alot better option for him. Milking can be hardship however it does work out the likes of 17e/hour which blows most other jobs out of the water, I generally don't give any single milker more than 4 or 5 milkings a week either ha.

Timmaay

Mooooo wrote: »

Would you and a neighboru have enough work to offer one lad a fulltime job? Half the week with you and half the week with a neighbour?

How does that work with say 2 spring calving farms? Do yous have enough work for them in the off season? And will they be under pressure in the springtime doing loads of hours with both farms?

mickey1985

I see some of the cows with hair missing must be lice or mange. What product would ye recommend?

straight

mickey1985 wrote: »

I see some of the cows with hair missing must be lice or mange. What product would ye recommend?

I don't know about recommend but we always use ectospec pour on.

mickey1985

straight wrote: »

I don't know about recommend but we always use ectospec pour on.

Thanks il try that. Is there any cheap pour on that you can give for worms as well now that cows are dry

whelan2

Check the withdrawal time

mahoney_j

mickey1985 wrote: »

Thanks il try that. Is there any cheap pour on that you can give for worms as well now that cows are dry

Dung test first you may not need to dose them