2024 is coming, how ye fixed

Reggie.

Well i just wanted to survive and I think i got that far

whelan2

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122992707#Comment_122992707

Same. First 5 months were very tough going. Thankfully milk price bounced back up and weather improved

K.G.

A kind of a bi polar year.started off with a building job that ran into calving and the year just seemed to be a battle.fighting to feed cows and they just didnt run easy and financially things were tight and it was September before things just come right physically and financially .one of the things that occupies alot of my thoughts n9w is thinking about strategies for sucession.we ve 2 lads very interested in farming but for the moment they are acquiring other qualifications and I d like to give them a chance to experience a different life but trying to plan for the different possible outcomes is tricky.so it's trying to find the balance between maintaining a positive business at home and planning for the possibility of another unit or that there may not even be one viable business as we rent so much land.

jaymla627

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122992758#Comment_122992758

Number one question is can the home-place afford 40-50k of a salary on-top of your own wages to one of the lads present day our will they be expected to be working on the prefix it will all be yours shortly...

I'd let them get their trades, and if at all possible have a mortgage got and house bought our started on a site on farm, that they don't get caught living at home into their 30/40's and not a chance of doing the above on a dairy farmers salary

SuperTortoise

Thought it was a bit of standing still year but now i look back on it there was progress made.

Finished roadways giving access to handling facilities on an out farm which is a huge help.

Got a bit of drainage done so ready for a bit more reseeding next spring.

Kinda neglected the career for the last number of years just setteling i guess, but i'm trying to push on this year on that front

Jobs for next year, fencing, build a lean to as a machinery shed as i'm getting to old to be rolling around on wet gravel trying to fix things and maybe a bit of concrete around the yard.

K.G.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122992849#Comment_122992849

We re working on the basis that in in 6 to 8 years they will have a qualification and experience in a work environment and a bit of the world seen and then we ll each consider where we each are. I don't want to be the main decision maker in 10 years time when I turn 65 but we ll see how life goes

Siamsa Sessions

Heard a good one re succession recently: unless Daddy has a man full-time that junior is going to replace, then there isn’t enough money out of the place for junior to come home.

Succession is a long way off for me. My only plan for 2025 is to survive. I’ll be calving 28 heifers and when that’s done I’ll buy 8 calved cows, to milk 36 part-time. Once I’m in something of a routine, I’ll need to think about stocking the 40 acres we’ve currently leased out that’ll come back to me on 1-Jan-2026. But that seems a long way off at this stage.

visatorro

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122992962#Comment_122992962

Plenty of time, fella beside me took the reins at 58.

RockOrBog

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122993134#Comment_122993134

It's the whip he'd need

visatorro

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122992707#Comment_122992707

Im not clear here yet but under control. You'd love to hear this but the contractor was the last fella paid. I was upfront with him from the start and we worked monthly what we could. This has been going on for well over a year. Looking back i was very close to selling the jeep and one of the tractors just to get a few pound together. Just bad luck for a couple of years. Sob stories don't pay bills unfortunately. I felt like throwing the cheque book and card in the fire, was the only way to keep money in the account. Bills and breakdowns kept coming thou . The chief would have seen it all before and was very supportive. The better half couldn't understand where the money was going. One thing I'll always remember was the fella that does the hedgecutting. I had rang him 6 months previous just to tell him to do along the road. He rang and said he was coming the next day. I told him no I didn't want any more bills it'll do until the next time. He landed anyway, said he'd no problem with someone being straight with him and that we'd get there basically. He also said his grandfather told him before If things were going bad, always keep the place looking well, stop the neighbours talking! That meant alot to me and he was the first lad I paid when things turned.

GrasstoMilk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122992962#Comment_122992962

I’d personally let them off to find their own path and build up a bit of wealth and experience. There will be plenty of dairy farms to lease into the future imo.

If they both want to farm see can ye collectively come together with the aim of one going to leased farm with the funds gathered to buy stock straight up and the other takes the home farm and pays rent to you as a means of supporting your retirement. Then it is a level playing field that they both have rent to pay

There has been an awful lot of farms built up this route. My parents could name a few and so could I

awaywithyou

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122992678#Comment_122992678

A comprehensive report by you!!

You have one full season done at the zero grazing... what are your thoughts on it?

weatherbyfoxer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122993169#Comment_122993169

Take it from a lad who does some contracting that most lads will never see a farmer stuck once your straight with them and they know the story.

visatorro

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122993292#Comment_122993292

There was a couple of tough conversations with the main contractor but in fairness to him he knows me long enough to know if I was in bother it was genuine. Only thing was certainly the start of 24 he was owed alot of money and I'd say he was under pressure himself.

whelan2

Contractor here gets money every month. Mightnt be alot every month but it's a bit torwards it. Just send money electronically

Reggie.

Well I'm not out of the woods yet it seems

Just out from the docs. Had a lump on my back that grew the last few days to roughly the size of a hard golf ball.

Doc says it's a cyst that formed from a blocked sweat gland (looks like that 1 shower a week wasn't cutting it). Massive infection so currently on 4000mg of antibiotics for next few days to try to control it.

It's pressing aganist some nerve cluster they don't like so it's a surgery job as soon as infection clears. Have I letter for A&E if it gets worse in anyway in next day or 2. It's safe just has to come out ASAP

whelan2

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122993399#Comment_122993399

Hope all will be ok. We've a health drama here too atm. With Christmas the next urgent appointment is mid January for what's needed. If it wasn’t Christmas time you'd have an appointment within a week...

GrasstoMilk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122993247#Comment_122993247

definitely happy we had it. Saved no meal and were back a bit in milk solids but I would put that down to the poor spring and me being out of action for a month from mid March to mid April which was a crucial time.
That new block is well set up for grass next year so hoping for better returns on it. What we reseeded is going to be for zero grazing and the sheep swards that are left in it will go for silage and we’ll reseed them in the autumn after 3 cuts of silage.
Every field is weed free now too. 3 fields had to get sprayed twice to rid them of docks the ingestion was so bad

Slurry going it all on the 13th of Jan and hopefully we’ll be zero grazing by mid Feb

carrollsno1

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122991731#Comment_122991731

Heads really only coming clear now after 2023. Had another winter of neglecting myself with long daily commutes, ill have my papers by April and can jump ship if needs be for work closer if its going this year. Gonna give this year thinking about where the next move is gonna be, Canada or Australia are the two im favouring the most. I reckon ill either be in Vancouver or Melbourne for Patricks day 2026. Got a drunken lecture off a pair of aunts yesterday about how ive to stay here and farm etc (their experience of farming is watching Emmerdale and Countryfile) how ill not have freedom or opportunity like i have here if head away. As far as im aware ive no farm here theres nothing in my name and there doesnt seem to be much freedom or opportunity in going out onto a farm in the dark every evening and the weekend gone with it too. Especially when its not your own. It was unusual that when i was getting that lecture both my grandparents present said id be better off going and trying to make a go of it anyway.

As regards the farm at home i cant say its like a bomb hit it as if a bomb did hit it i might have something to work with. The bull didnt go to the cows this year and the auld fella reckons thats going to fix all his problems it wont, the only way his problems farming will go away is if he gives up altogether. He fucked his back last spring and i nearly had a breakdown between slobbering in the evenings and working in Dublin during the day. There wasnt a sprong or a bucket in the place when i landed on the scene and any bucket i had bought back then has either been ran over or left caked in **** since.

And yet people are telling me how lucky i am to have the opportunity to go home and face into that every evening. We got ash knocked with dieback along a secondary road, big holes in the ditches left where the trees were knocked and he threw up a bit of polywire across it to keep the stock in. Wasnt long before they broke out anyway and i was called upon to do the fencing working with my father those few Saturdays was enough to turn me off the place alrogether. There is absolutely no finesse with him whatsoever and he hasnt a clue nor any interest in learning or improving the place either. Just there this evening hes had to get a loan of a few basic bits from my toolbox as he hasnt even got a toolbox for the farm himself and anything he does by he loses ir breaks fairly quick. I cant stand that im hard set to even give anyone a loan of a tool on site i definitly woulfnt be lending anything to a slobberer like him if i was on site anyway.

So it doesnt look like im going farming in 2025 by the looks of it ir 2026 either

lmk123

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122993637#Comment_122993637

go away for a few years life is too short for that bulls**t, if / when you come back he might have enough of it and hand over the reins. Go and make a few pound and see the world you won’t regret it, the chance will be gone before you know it.

carrollsno1

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122993681#Comment_122993681

Tis a permenent move im thinking of. Have a friend who gave 10 years at home trying to farm with his father and it was a similar situation with slobbering to here. He gave 9 years on anti depressants he went to oz last year and hasnt looked back since hasnt spoke to his father since leaving and has absolutely no plans on coming home to it at all now.

awaywithyou

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122993693#Comment_122993693

what age are you?

carrollsno1

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122993711#Comment_122993711

Im just turning 30 gave the first 5 years of my twenties working on fatms and off travelling, gave the last 5 trying to get my trade.

lmk123

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122993693#Comment_122993693

go for it, I was abroad, loved it for the first few years and thought I’d never come home and then hated it for the last 2 years because I was just sick of big cities, novelty wore off I suppose, delighted I moved abroad and delighted I came home, had a fair battle for a while when I took over the place at home but it’s an entirely different set up now and wer getting on great most of the time, go abroad and see how it goes, you can come back anytime if you want, if you do come back you might be more appreciated and get more of a say otherwise don’t bother with it

memorystick

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122993737#Comment_122993737

Go for it. Too many other people have plans for you to stay and slobber just to get a kick in the hole. I was told it’ll be mine for my lifetime and my nephews will get it. Develop a backbone and do what you want.

GC4

For me, this year fixed the mess that last year made financially, so all in all I'm happy out with 2024.

JustJoe7240

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122993637#Comment_122993637

That's hard reading, Have you much of a spin to Dublin?

Dunedin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122993399#Comment_122993399

best of luck Reggie. Hope you get sorted soon.

Reggie.

Thanking you

wrangler

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122994028#Comment_122994028

Sounds like something to do with your tractor seat as you drive it a lot.

Anyway, best of luck with the surgery, Surgeons are very good now…… when you finally get to them