Spring 2020..... 1.5m Dairy calves.... discuss.

mahoney_j wrote: »

U clearly have a poor /clouded understanding of the whole situation

Clouded? You wouldnt sell your bull calves in the spring because you weren't getting what you thought they were worth, are you going to rear them to weaning now and then give them to the beef farmer?

GrasstoMilk wrote: »

And if there was money in beef jay why did you go milking cows?
You seem have issue with any farmer thats, spring calving, calves compact, uses ebi, youd love for any issue that would drag the way the typical irish dairy farmer down to happen.

What's the big chip on your shoulder for?

Gg u go finish cattle yourself and see how u get on jay whilst making controversial comments ain’t a million miles off ,all about the dairy farmer and by your thinking the beef man caused the mess and is to blame but shur as long as u can milk more cows tis grand

GrasstoMilk wrote: »

How is it naive? We're expected to rear calves now to 8 weeks and the give the calf to the beef farmer.
After how long have they finally realised they've been paying too much for calves?
They've let Larry ride them for 30 odd years now
They ruined the beef trade here with there strike, base price 3.40 now and an absolute wall of cattle to be killed
I stand by my comment that we're to subsidize beef farmers because they were happy enough to pay too much for calves,any stock really. The price calves were getting in the spring gone was there realistic value but some still have there head in the sand in that regard

U clearly have a poor /clouded understanding of the whole situation

jaymla627 wrote: »

Say lads give up the hobby tell the likes of yourself to run your calves up your hole and do what you like with them and go and make your fortune bringing them to Larry yourself how would you go, theirs been ignorant and then theirs yourself

And if there was money in beef jay why did you go milking cows?
You seem have issue with any farmer thats, spring calving, calves compact, uses ebi, youd love for any issue that would drag the way the typical irish dairy farmer down to happen.

What's the big chip on your shoulder for?

mahoney_j wrote: »

Ffs what a naive comment

How is it naive? We're expected to rear calves now to 8 weeks and the give the calf to the beef farmer.
After how long have they finally realised they've been paying too much for calves?
They've let Larry ride them for 30 odd years now
They ruined the beef trade here with there strike, base price 3.40 now and an absolute wall of cattle to be killed
I stand by my comment that we're to subsidize beef farmers because they were happy enough to pay too much for calves,any stock really. The price calves were getting in the spring gone was there realistic value but some still have there head in the sand in that regard

K.G.

Bass Reeves wrote: »

Talk about delusional perception's. What was worse it was thanked by lads. I never made money until I had self employed income. the better half was talking about it lately. Now we got no grants for kids going to college. However they all worked on the farm and were paid through the farm. As she said we never had to give them 50, 70 or 100 euro going back on a Sunday evening.

There is a few of us go to football final nearly every year. One lad has a limited company, He pays the hotel bill on the company card, collects a few tax receipts if we can get them, and the dinner receipt. He buys a couple rounds in exchange not that we want him to but he insists on it.

You can write off your car, all your fuel and maintenance costs. If you cannot work the system its your own fault not the tax system.

Do you know i was half way through a post arguing out the points and a thought crossed my mind,"this guy believe s the strike had a positive outcome ".i ll say no more

Fedlot

wrangler wrote: »

And the self employed get no breaks, they are targetted for every tax etc,
It's not sustainable whats going on[/quote

That word “sustainable” — do any of you realise what it means or is meant to mean and how it’s been defined differently by the other buzzword of “stakeholders” ?

Farmers have to realise their actual working time is a cost and not just thrown in to make the system work. Their land , their facilities, their way of life also have a cost/ benefit and just because their assets are inherited or paid for does not mean that they too don’t have a cost or a wider Benefit. The global Roundtable for sustainable beef(GRSB) recognise this but our agri policy is led by the sustainable agricultural initiative (sai) which created the European Roundtable for beef sustainability (ERBS) and surprise surprise , it omits the principal of people and community welfare and farm viability which is a fundamental principal of GRSB —why ? because it is industry led with no farmer organization input but guess what —it’s Bord Bia and Dawn meats sponsored with the likes of abp and Tesco on board.
Wrangler , - I am as proud as you with respect to the people that have served the IFA over the years and a lot who continue to serve it. The respect and power of the IFA is enormous when it comes to Brussels and it punches way above its weight . But it has been totally wrong-footed in making their goal of making Irish agri sustainable. Whether this was because of complacency or rewards for the top boys it does the matter to me , but it needs to be addressed ruthlessly.
You are right and it’s totally true that supply and demand for a given product will dictate prices, but when that product is being manipulated and debased than its a false market for a bastardised product. I despair when someone like you says it can’t be helped because we are where we are, the market will decide things and lowest price wins . It’s people like you who have earned respect that can change things .
Have a look at the the Canadian Roundtable for beef sustainability and see how different their ethos and approach is versus our ERBS .
https://crsb.ca/
As I’ve said elsewhere , I am not a practicing farmer but please don't dismiss easily what I am saying . I’ve spent a lot of time researching this and I truly believe this is a last stand for a lot of ye because time is not on your side.
This isn’t actually about the dairy calf versus the suckler calf - it’s about “sustainability” and what the definition of sustainability is. That’s the same fight for all farmers and indeed rural Ireland which is anywhere outside the M50 contrary to what some politicians think.

K.G. wrote: »

Having been on both sides of the argument id say there s plenty spend a good bit.of their 39 hr week chatting smoking or whatever. Truth is plenty people doss away through life in all work environments. The one thing about dairy if you re not the business it ll show straight away.the thought came to my the other day that just the molking process is 28 hrs a week here and my day off Sunday the minimum hrs work would be 5hrs.for me i think anyone with a job is better off than being self employed nowadays no matter what you re at.some of the hrs self employed people are putting in around here are crazy

I prefer to be doing that at 15 euro/hour than working on a farm at 12-13/hour. Ya there is so called handy jobs in the PS some are some are not. When you go above a certain level you earn it. There are advantages in every system but I never really got capital until I had self employed income.

Ya a couple earning 40K each may seem comfortable, by the time they have the mortgage paid the kids are in college costing 10k/year each after tax. If they are lucky there wages have gone up if not they are in a right rat race. Even a 38-40 hour week translates into 50-55 hour week. Too many farmers look at the local garda or teacher. Look at the Nurse travelling 50 miles into a hospital, the factory worker travelling 40 miles and working shift.

I know I worked across a lot of different systems. I was lucky my wife job shared for 15 years while the kids were young but that was because we accepted the reduction in her wages were balanced by my ability to develop my career. But we still be at nothing except we went farming. Yes we made scarfices but self employed income is easier to shelter.

The biggest problem with most farmers is they get too caught up in not paying tax, they buy a new Landcruiser before a Mercedes. Mind you I have neither

wrangler wrote: »

And the self employed get no breaks, they are targetted for every tax etc,
It's not sustainable whats going on

Talk about delusional perception's. What was worse it was thanked by lads. I never made money until I had self employed income. the better half was talking about it lately. Now we got no grants for kids going to college. However they all worked on the farm and were paid through the farm. As she said we never had to give them 50, 70 or 100 euro going back on a Sunday evening.

There is a few of us go to football final nearly every year. One lad has a limited company, He pays the hotel bill on the company card, collects a few tax receipts if we can get them, and the dinner receipt. He buys a couple rounds in exchange not that we want him to but he insists on it.

You can write off your car, all your fuel and maintenance costs. If you cannot work the system its your own fault not the tax system.

wrangler

K.G. wrote: »

Having been on both sides of the argument id say there s plenty spend a good bit.of their 39 hr week chatting smoking or whatever. Truth is plenty people doss away through life in all work environments. The one thing about dairy if you re not the business it ll show straight away.the thought came to my the other day that just the molking process is 28 hrs a week here and my day off Sunday the minimum hrs work would be 5hrs.for me i think anyone with a job is better off than being self employed nowadays no matter what you re at.some of the hrs self employed people are putting in around here are crazy

And the self employed get no breaks, they are targetted for every tax etc,
It's not sustainable whats going on

K.G.

Bass Reeves wrote: »

It is all in the context. A lot of farmers imagine they work long hours. They look at the lad working a 4o hour week. However most farmers consider there working hours start when they get out of bed and finish when the go to bed.

Take a normal worker working a 60 hour week. He has to be in for lets say 7pm. If he is a half an hour from work he may be up at or before 6 am depending on whether he must shower in the morning, but the least he need is to eat something as it will be 10 am before he sees anything and in some employments his first break could be 4.5 hour's after starting time. He rocks into work at 7pm to achieve a 10 hour work day he will have at least an hour in breaks to add in some jobs it may be necessary to close down from 1-2 in that case add another 30 minutes to the day if lunch is an hour. So after rocking in at 7am he gets off at 6pm at best and it may be nearer 7 pm depending on mandatory breaks. He hops into his car and is home between 7-7.30.......now he may need to collect milk for the house, the kids from the parents place, the shopping arrive home to take the kids to music or dancing. Now do that for 6 days a week in a structured employment and you get the idea that yes a 60 hour working week is long.

Farmers can often associate activities that other workers are not allowed to do during there working day, drop and collect the kids from school, into the house after milking fir breakfast, putting on the dinner if the other half is working, lighting the fire before starting to milk the cows, dropping to the shop for the paper, a few cigs running into johnny ( couldn't get away from him) for a chat, taking the car to the garage all these activities are not part of a normal workers working day.

As well a 30 minute commute is low by normal standards. If you are doing a 60 hour week with commuting and even simple stuff like putting diesel in the car for tomorrow you could be leaving the house at 6am and not getting home until 8pm. Many doing it would never see there children from one end of the week until the next. You would be hitting the sack at 10pm if not earlier. for the 2-3 hours home time you may need to sort out clothes, lunch and dinner for the following day.

Mandatory working week for employees has to average less than 50/week. We had a few discussion on this forum about farm wages over the years, most farmer get heart failure when you start going above 12/hour. I think we had one lad with an employee on a 8 hour day staring at 8am, with two hours of breaks during the day so on site from 8am-6pm. Add another two hours to that day and do it Monday to Saturday.

Having been on both sides of the argument id say there s plenty spend a good bit.of their 39 hr week chatting smoking or whatever. Truth is plenty people doss away through life in all work environments. The one thing about dairy if you re not the business it ll show straight away.the thought came to my the other day that just the molking process is 28 hrs a week here and my day off Sunday the minimum hrs work would be 5hrs.for me i think anyone with a job is better off than being self employed nowadays no matter what you re at.some of the hrs self employed people are putting in around here are crazy

wrangler

mahoney_j wrote: »

Ffs what a naive comment

+1
unfortunately farmers will keep paying uneconomic prices for calves and then blame the processors (who are in the real world}for not being stupid enough to do the same.

Bass Reeves wrote: »

It is all in the context. A lot of farmers imagine they work long hours. They look at the lad working a 4o hour week. However most farmers consider there working hours start when they get out of bed and finish when the go to bed.

Take a normal worker working a 60 hour week. He has to be in for lets say 7pm. If he is a half an hour from work he may be up at or before 6 am depending on whether he must shower in the morning, but the least he need is to eat something as it will be 10 am before he sees anything and in some employments his first break could be 4.5 hour's after starting time. He rocks into work at 7pm to achieve a 10 hour work day he will have at least an hour in breaks to add in some jobs it may be necessary to close down from 1-2 in that case add another 30 minutes to the day if lunch is an hour. So after rocking in at 7am he gets off at 6pm at best and it may be nearer 7 pm depending on mandatory breaks. He hops into his car and is home between 7-7.30.......now he may need to collect milk for the house, the kids from the parents place, the shopping arrive home to take the kids to music or dancing. Now do that for 6 days a week in a structured employment and you get the idea that yes a 60 hour working week is long.

Farmers can often associate activities that other workers are not allowed to do during there working day, drop and collect the kids from school, into the house after milking fir breakfast, putting on the dinner if the other half is working, lighting the fire before starting to milk the cows, dropping to the shop for the paper, a few cigs running into johnny ( couldn't get away from him) for a chat, taking the car to the garage all these activities are not part of a normal workers working day.

As well a 30 minute commute is low by normal standards. If you are doing a 60 hour week with commuting and even simple stuff like putting diesel in the car for tomorrow you could be leaving the house at 6am and not getting home until 8pm. Many doing it would never see there children from one end of the week until the next. You would be hitting the sack at 10pm if not earlier. for the 2-3 hours home time you may need to sort out clothes, lunch and dinner for the following day.

Mandatory working week for employees has to average less than 50/week. We had a few discussion on this forum about farm wages over the years, most farmer get heart failure when you start going above 12/hour. I think we had one lad with an employee on a 8 hour day staring at 8am, with two hours of breaks during the day so on site from 8am-6pm. Add another two hours to that day and do it Monday to Saturday.

Belter of a post

Grueller

Bass Reeves wrote: »

It is all in the context. A lot of farmers imagine they work long hours. They look at the lad working a 4o hour week. However most farmers consider there working hours start when they get out of bed and finish when the go to bed.

Take a normal worker working a 60 hour week. He has to be in for lets say 7pm. If he is a half an hour from work he may be up at or before 6 am depending on whether he must shower in the morning, but the least he need is to eat something as it will be 10 am before he sees anything and in some employments his first break could be 4.5 hour's after starting time. He rocks into work at 7pm to achieve a 10 hour work day he will have at least an hour in breaks to add in some jobs it may be necessary to close down from 1-2 in that case add another 30 minutes to the day if lunch is an hour. So after rocking in at 7am he gets off at 6pm at best and it may be nearer 7 pm depending on mandatory breaks. He hops into his car and is home between 7-7.30.......now he may need to collect milk for the house, the kids from the parents place, the shopping arrive home to take the kids to music or dancing. Now do that for 6 days a week in a structured employment and you get the idea that yes a 60 hour working week is long.

Farmers can often associate activities that other workers are not allowed to do during there working day, drop and collect the kids from school, into the house after milking fir breakfast, putting on the dinner if the other half is working, lighting the fire before starting to milk the cows, dropping to the shop for the paper, a few cigs running into johnny ( couldn't get away from him) for a chat, taking the car to the garage all these activities are not part of a normal workers working day.

As well a 30 minute commute is low by normal standards. If you are doing a 60 hour week with commuting and even simple stuff like putting diesel in the car for tomorrow you could be leaving the house at 6am and not getting home until 8pm. Many doing it would never see there children from one end of the week until the next. You would be hitting the sack at 10pm if not earlier. for the 2-3 hours home time you may need to sort out clothes, lunch and dinner for the following day.

Mandatory working week for employees has to average less than 50/week. We had a few discussion on this forum about farm wages over the years, most farmer get heart failure when you start going above 12/hour. I think we had one lad with an employee on a 8 hour day staring at 8am, with two hours of breaks during the day so on site from 8am-6pm. Add another two hours to that day and do it Monday to Saturday.

Some amount of sense in that post.

jaymla627

Buford T. Justice VI wrote: »

Did you miss the part where the only cow not entering the parlour is waiting for a scratch? A sure sign of disposable cows alright.

And he stated that there was family labour on the farm in spring when needed and said nowhere that only the student was the only one looking after the calves.

Been around enough of these large operations where the owner isn't in the the trenches with the workers everyday to know what the outcome to animal welfare does be especially where staffing levels per animals on farm are high it's been a non issue re the bull calf problem and kept quietly in the background up to this point, and for 2020 lads will get away with it, but into 2021 it will be a different ballgame

mf240 wrote: »

Are we calling 60 hours a long week now

In a previous life I worked 38 hours anything after that was time snd a half or double time ,granted farming is a different way of life ,I’m now farm owner ,manager ,plumber ,electrician ,Milker ,tractor driver and general worker etc the money isn’t ax easy or as plentiful but I’d never go back .i love what I do now ,saying that the first bill paid every month is my Labour ,I ain’t working my bollox off 7 days a week for the love of cows ,maby some are happy to work for nothing ,not me

mf240 wrote: »

Are we calling 60 hours a long week now

It is all in the context. A lot of farmers imagine they work long hours. They look at the lad working a 4o hour week. However most farmers consider there working hours start when they get out of bed and finish when the go to bed.

Take a normal worker working a 60 hour week. He has to be in for lets say 7pm. If he is a half an hour from work he may be up at or before 6 am depending on whether he must shower in the morning, but the least he need is to eat something as it will be 10 am before he sees anything and in some employments his first break could be 4.5 hour's after starting time. He rocks into work at 7pm to achieve a 10 hour work day he will have at least an hour in breaks to add in some jobs it may be necessary to close down from 1-2 in that case add another 30 minutes to the day if lunch is an hour. So after rocking in at 7am he gets off at 6pm at best and it may be nearer 7 pm depending on mandatory breaks. He hops into his car and is home between 7-7.30.......now he may need to collect milk for the house, the kids from the parents place, the shopping arrive home to take the kids to music or dancing. Now do that for 6 days a week in a structured employment and you get the idea that yes a 60 hour working week is long.

Farmers can often associate activities that other workers are not allowed to do during there working day, drop and collect the kids from school, into the house after milking fir breakfast, putting on the dinner if the other half is working, lighting the fire before starting to milk the cows, dropping to the shop for the paper, a few cigs running into johnny ( couldn't get away from him) for a chat, taking the car to the garage all these activities are not part of a normal workers working day.

As well a 30 minute commute is low by normal standards. If you are doing a 60 hour week with commuting and even simple stuff like putting diesel in the car for tomorrow you could be leaving the house at 6am and not getting home until 8pm. Many doing it would never see there children from one end of the week until the next. You would be hitting the sack at 10pm if not earlier. for the 2-3 hours home time you may need to sort out clothes, lunch and dinner for the following day.

Mandatory working week for employees has to average less than 50/week. We had a few discussion on this forum about farm wages over the years, most farmer get heart failure when you start going above 12/hour. I think we had one lad with an employee on a 8 hour day staring at 8am, with two hours of breaks during the day so on site from 8am-6pm. Add another two hours to that day and do it Monday to Saturday.

jaymla627

GrasstoMilk wrote: »

Hod forbid anyone did a bit of hard work to get anywhere!

Seems to me that beef men want dairy farmers to subsidize there already subsidised farms now because they've let Larry away for so long, they realised after the 'no plan, beef plan' protests that they were never going to be able to change things there so now the dairy man has to pay because they actually do turn profit.
Theres very few guys in my locality that are actually full time beef farmers, it's an after work hobby for most

Say lads give up the hobby tell the likes of yourself to run your calves up your hole and do what you like with them and go and make your fortune bringing them to Larry yourself how would you go, theirs been ignorant and then theirs yourself

GrasstoMilk wrote: »

Hod forbid anyone did a bit of hard work to get anywhere!

Seems to me that beef men want dairy farmers to subsidize there already subsidised farms now because they've let Larry away for so long, they realised after the 'no plan, beef plan' protests that they were never going to be able to change things there so now the dairy man has to pay because they actually do turn profit.
Theres very few guys in my locality that are actually full time beef farmers, it's an after work hobby for most

Ffs what a naive comment

mf240

Bit of the old green eyed monster appearing in this thread me thinks.

mf240

Are we calling 60 hours a long week now

GrasstoMilk wrote: »

Hod forbid anyone did a bit of hard work to get anywhere!

Seems to me that beef men want dairy farmers to subsidize there already subsidised farms now because they've let Larry away for so long, they realised after the 'no plan, beef plan' protests that they were never going to be able to change things there so now the dairy man has to pay because they actually do turn profit.
Theres very few guys in my locality that are actually full time beef farmers, it's an after work hobby for most

What I posted has nothing to do with the beef side of the argument. He may work as hard as he likes I cannot see share milking happening in Ireland to any great extent. If it was going to happen it would have started already.

First off we are not NZ with a large number of farms capable of milking 300+ cows. The second hurdle is finance. Let's say he finds a farmer that will let him sharemilk 100 cows on a 300 cow farm. It's either one of two options he buys the 100 cows costing say 150 k or he tears them from calves. Even if it's a grow option where he starts with 40 and is allowed to breed them all for a few years to get to 100 cows. Remember in share milking he will have no wage the cows provide that.

Remember as well unless there is room for expansion the present owner must drop cow numbers for him to share milk. Then what is the goal to get to 100 cows and lease a farm? He has to get to finance this as well. But farmers leasing will steer towards established outfits. As well he will need to rent a farm that is set up. While in theory Greenfields showed it could be done try walking into a bank manager looking for even s 100k loan for to fund such a venture.

And even if you cross all them hurdles you better hope you pass the TB test that happens before you move to your leased farm.

I am not saying it cannot be done but it's not just a matter of hard work it about access to capital as well

jaymla627

Timmaay wrote: »

Certainly no end to expansion around here, I could easily have doubled or tripled the milking herd here if only I was that bit more driven ha.

You"d of been ponying up the deeds of the homeplace to do it though, their is to many balls up in the air between derogation likely to be scrapped. bull calf issue and a new cap bringing in some wacky environmental measures and capping of stocking rates that would mean a crazy amount of land on "paper" would be needed to keep the sfp been paid out to landlords on rented ground to faciliate extra cows and keep your stocking rates right....
Their is no template at the minute that a solid business plan could be made that wouldn't be blown apart by Europe our co-ops doing a Arla on the calf issue

visatorro

Keepgrowing wrote: »

What I see happening is the majority of dairy farmers will synch and sex semen their heifers. They will AI dairy to cows bred in first 3 weeks then mop up with He/AA BULLS or AI.

Great plan but the cute ones will continue to breed all their stock to dairy as they’re going to get very scarce, just try buying in calf heifers at the moment. They’re making London

Alot of stock heading north apparently. They must have faith in boris.

Although previous year's fodder was relatively tight looking at this time of the year and there was serious value in spring calving stock. Not looking like it this year.

Buford T. Justice XIX

jaymla627 wrote: »

When the cows dont even get the luxury of a roof doesn't take a genius to work out how low down the pecking order the bull calf is, the student been tasked with rearing a few hundred calves really stood out not a single f**k is given in a set-up like that everything is disposable

Did you miss the part where the only cow not entering the parlour is waiting for a scratch? A sure sign of disposable cows alright.

And he stated that there was family labour on the farm in spring when needed and said nowhere that only the student was the only one looking after the calves.

Bass Reeves wrote: »

Not quite correct he hopes to go share milking there in the long term. IMO it is highly unlikely, farm owners will string along lads like him. Even if he goes share milking it is unlikely he will have the finance to lease farm in the medium term. If stocking rates are reduced to 2-2.5 cows/HA it will change the finance of all these outfits and it will also cubicles have to be roofed by 2028 it seems.

The big lads are grand as long as they can string lads along like him for another 4-5 years working 60 hour weeks to build up ''experience'' so they can share milk or set up a lease. IMO the dairy expansion is coming to its end there si a limit to the white gold.

Hod forbid anyone did a bit of hard work to get anywhere!

Seems to me that beef men want dairy farmers to subsidize there already subsidised farms now because they've let Larry away for so long, they realised after the 'no plan, beef plan' protests that they were never going to be able to change things there so now the dairy man has to pay because they actually do turn profit.
Theres very few guys in my locality that are actually full time beef farmers, it's an after work hobby for most

Timmaay

Bass Reeves wrote: »

The big lads are grand as long as they can string lads along like him for another 4-5 years working 60 hour weeks to build up ''experience'' so they can share milk or set up a lease. IMO the dairy expansion is coming to its end there si a limit to the white gold.

Certainly no end to expansion around here, I could easily have doubled or tripled the milking herd here if only I was that bit more driven ha.

GrasstoMilk wrote: »

He was heading for a share milking job..
Not e everyone has a farm to go home to

Not quite correct he hopes to go share milking there in the long term. IMO it is highly unlikely, farm owners will string along lads like him. Even if he goes share milking it is unlikely he will have the finance to lease farm in the medium term. If stocking rates are reduced to 2-2.5 cows/HA it will change the finance of all these outfits and it will also cubicles have to be roofed by 2028 it seems.

The big lads are grand as long as they can string lads along like him for another 4-5 years working 60 hour weeks to build up ''experience'' so they can share milk or set up a lease. IMO the dairy expansion is coming to its end there si a limit to the white gold.