Proposed New suckler Scheme

he actually mentions that there is no tradition of sucking until the 90's which is what I have issue with........I have no interest going back to way my father started farming or for that matter has he. For the exact opposite reason I have no interest in the factory farming that SOME of the dairy farmers are following...........tonne after tonne of fertiliser etc etc. What we do works well with the land we have......low input and high value output. I just dont want to be a tool for the dairy industry trying to put meat on greyhounds (and again NOT ALL dairy farmers). I really hope that milk prices stay strong for a long number of years and that the race to the bottom is a long way off. Either way I'm out..........long live the division of the Irish farmer, god help us if we worked together as one voice....we could actually achieve something worthwhile.

While there was a tradition of some suckler's along the west coast pre 1990, there was no tradition on better land of Suckler cows. I came from a hill farm in Kerry. There was 10-12 Suckler cows, 100 mountain ewes, we would rear anything from 12-20 Cal es as well. At one stage in the late '70 we were milking 3-4 cows for the creamery along with 1-2 cows for the house because it was more profitable than feeding the milk to the calves. We would normally milk 4-5 cows for the bucket reared calves. Milk was so strong in price there was no bucket reared calves bought in we only had the ones off the cows.

But most farmers were going to the creamery rather than suckler's with there 30-50 gallons of milk every day. Quota's and bulk tanks wiped out the smaller producer. Most lads forget that during the quota era while you had to pay through the nose for milk quota in Glanbia, Dairygold, Golden Vale ( the co-op on the better land) you got as much as you wanted in Kerry and Connaught Gold for nothing as smaller milk producers exited production and switched to believe it or not suckler's.

The advent of them on better land was that as dairy farmers got more efficient at production they stopped selling there calves/ stores so the drystock farmer on better land had to either go into sheep or suckler's.

Where I ordinated from there was 30 -40 small dairy farmers there is none there now

I didn't go to rearing calves though did I

Subsidies are subsidies whether the are for the cow, the shed the cow goes in, the product the cow produces or the for the farmers that farms the cow. The point I was making was that dairy beef is also subsidised. Not directly as heavily as sucklers maybe but to portray as non subsidised and standing completely on it's own four feet is inaccurate.

The cow is only half the equation. The easy calving bulls been used heavily is a bigger issue. Watched a video of farmer Phil on a farm walk a few weeks back and he said he compared the performance of freisian stock bulls to ai AA and HE bulls aimed at the dairy market and the stock bulls out performed them well. He was making the point that he was finding these AI dairy bulls been used as poor performers compared to even a friesian stock bull. That wouldnt fill a man with confidence on the future quality for the dairy calf.

Another who will stay at sucklers until they are losing money .Would 100 a cow sub. keep you at them if they were only breaking even ?

If 20 cows can pay all the household bills ,pay for two cars and the holidays etc then what the fcuk are all the rest at ?

Thats what ? 40/50k a year so a net margin of 2k per cow .If I knew sucklers could give that return then I would keep a few in the morning .

This is it, the BETTER calf to beef farms were only set up in the last couple of years. There was absolutely no research done in the 2010-2016 period when Teagasc and Jack Kennedy were pushing the Greenfield model and the JE cross breds. There was multiple research done on rearing dairy heifers and huge attempt to try to encourage beef farmers to go rearing dairy heifers for these better dairy farmers. However the spending was miniscule compared to the spending on Suckler research.

There has being absolutely no research done on dairy calf to beef until 2-3 years ago except for U16 month FR bulls. I actually had a discussion with a Teagasc advisor involved they were showing a margin of 10-150/ unit. I made the point that such a system was unsustainable, his point was you needed numbers. I made the point that 200 would leave you 25k.......for that you had to rear 200 calves and feed 200 bulls at the same time. After thinking about it for over a minute he just walked away. You need to be working at it full-time from Jan-May.

All the research at present Is for finishing as many as possible off grass during the second season.....what a about all year around beef supply. Instead we seemed to be looking for an answer in the lowest priced time of year for beef. There is more research done on meal feeding to cattle( mainly Suckler bred) than on dairy X cattle production. It's hard to believe 65-70% of our total beef production is from the dairy herd.

Including SFP. If I wasn’t farming I wouldn’t be getting a SFP. My neighbour owns a shoe shop and he doesn’t get it.

What you are saying makes common sense, but common sense is not that common. With a movement of BPS from the east of the country west there is a case for no further increase in Suckler cow funding. Most farmers along the west coast have seen an increase in there BPS over the last 5years and will again see an increase over the next few years. If a farmer wants to subsidize the Suckler cow and processor's out of his BPS so be it.

I was down in Kerry a couple of weeks ago and there is an increased interest in sheep with the stronger sheep price. A lad able to wean 0.8-0.9 lambs per ewe is making a few bob. You would keep 8-10 mountain ewes where you keep a large Suckler cow. There would be less work. Store lambs are making over 2/kg. On 100ewes that is probably 6k plus in sales.

When you getting your flock number?

Sheep farming isn’t easy, like all other farming in a good setup it can be ran alongside a full time job

I often ‘tune’ into Elphin mart on a Monday evening - what I cannot understand is the price of in-calf sucklers heifers there - you rearly see one going for less than €2000.

€2000 to €2500 seems to be a standard price.

just thinking now - I would be better selling in calf heifers instead of running sucklers 😁

I see the Rag is trying to create panic again about Suckler farmers. Basically they are highlighting that full time intensive larger suckler's farmers will see there BPS payment fall. No mention that extensive, smaller part-time lads will see there's rise and similar with extensive sheep farmers. Once again they are taking the example of the 1-2 per parish as opposed to the majority.

It an article by some Tool of a journalist so we should not be tool surprised. Selective analysis of a situation. The Rag must have some research done that only intensive Suckler farmers buy the rag

I had sheep from when I was 12 years old. Absolutely loved them and constant battle with the father to see could keep more ewes.

got out in 2008 and if I got 100 ewes for nothing now, I firstly shoot the lad that gave them to me (in case he brought more) and similar faith to the ewes then.