Accounts attached - The current reality facing beef farmers - Any advice?

Everyone is telling the other person to reduce, cut , cull change to organic. Completely change everything that his father has set up after a single year farming.

there are plenty of lads chop and change from system to system chasing the next big thing and never really get good at any one thing and in doing so never really make the big money.

this lad has 75 sucklers on 250 acres, he’s far from overstocked. If it’s weanlings your selling then it’s weanlings you need to be selling , not bunches of random stores. That means getting them all gone before October and calved in January. That way the op is only left with cows to winter. But you need continentals and good ones to make this work.

another option I’d be seriously considering in the ops situation is to trim back the cow numbers to around 60 and run a good Angus bull and finish everything.

the op is 28 with a good off farm job. You’ve a serious opportunity to make this work but it’ll take a lot of tweaking and a serious amount of work.

At first glance he's not overstocked.

But then he is spending €25,000 on meal, €10,000 on straw and silage & €11,000 on fertiliser?

That's over €600 a cow/pa on those expenses alone.

Seems outrageous

OP seems to have a long winter. This has increased his costs. He says that the land while very good and is capable of three cuts of silage changes rapidly and become incapable of keeping stick outside in winter.

3-4 years ago we had lads advocating straw bedded houses in preference to ATS. He has s in Donegal. He probably gets 60''+ of rain in twelve months. Straw probably costs 10/ bale to transport from tillage areas to where he operates.

His figures are horrific but his output figures seem ok about 1k/ Suckler weanling. Yes he is stocked low. Calving in January means he will have those cows calved and needing silage and ration for 10-14 weeks.

It easier to keep a weanling over the winter than a suckker cow feeding a calf.

You can’t refuse to sell but you can refuse to produce . The OP is getting 40 k per annum to keep the land barely ticking over and yet persists with keeping 70 suckler cows to lose 30 k of it .

He can't be if he has such supplementary fodder requirements, he may be stocked low compared per average across the country, but it sounds like his ground is incapable of supporting the stocking rate he has.

Spending €11k on fertiliser, €10k on silage and straw & €28k on meal to keep 75 sucklers is not a low stocking enterprise.

Although OP does say he gets 3 cuts of silage which is impressive for a place with long Winters.

Aw well sure everyone cant be as intelligent as your good self. Or maybe you should loosen up a little for once.

I have adapted my system 3-4 times over the last 13 years. The present system is the longest I have got and there is another 1-3 left in it. At present I am wondering about an 18-20 month system finishing Friesian bulls off grass and 450-600 kgs of hulls/ barley/ maize. It's would allow you to draw the 100 euro sub 24 month payment that is proposed. I could finish them at 290 kgs O+2+ at a fixed price.

It is not the fittest or most efficient that survive but those that can adapt

I would not consider myself intelligent, arrogant yes. I try never to ( maybe I have but I am sorry if I did) be sh!tty to new posters ( on f&f) I might not agree with them but I give them a bit of leeway

It's is often hard to leave an efficient system. OP is 28 he has taken over the place I imagine,.and is shocked at the reality.

Land can change very fast. Reseeding can make land very soft. I be forgiving of his inexperience. I was 41 when I bought my place I am twice to three times the farmer I was then to now

Across 250 acres it's about 45/ acres. It's not outlandish. It's is outlandish on a per cow basis. A forum like this should be able to solve this detail.

It's probably nearer 1.5-1.8 million. 30 years ago it would have been half that. Really it's only a matter of trying to make a sustainable profit

Give the sucklers the gate, buy enough weanlings to fill quota (keep for 2 years). Rent out some land/silage ground. Rent out some of the sheds..Bnb or whatever.

Your left with almost no work , f**k all expenses, 40k ,plus rent money, plus bnb money, plus whatever you make on the 20/30 weanlings...tis a no brainer from what you're at.

Or go extensive/organic with the sucklers.

To look after 75 cows plus all followers is surely a full time job if it’s to be done well . Must be hard to hold Down a full time job and look after the farm efficiently, maybe that’s partly the problem. I can’t understand how he’s paying €5000 on insurance every year , maybe he’s been screwed on most of the costs as there isn’t the time to get value elsewhere

Hi James,

Suppose I better give you my serious response seeing as a bit of light-hearted input is not welcome!!!

I’m actually not going to get into the farming side of things as this has been well covered by many posters. I work off farm in a well-paying job at management level but like yourself, it’s an area that if I dropped out of, I’d get it very hard to get back in, especially near the level I’m at now. You are 28 years old on a salary of €75k. That is exceptionally high at your age and will probably increase incrementally year on year – well done you but please look after that in the first instance. 250 acres is a big farm and if you continue to farm it progressively, it will eat a lot of time. You will, no doubt, end up leaving work a little early to attend to things and your work will suffer. And that will not go unnoticed either at work. Reducing to 4 day week is only an option if your employer hires someone for 1 day per week to cover you and as you’ve said yourself, you will still be expected to get the job done in 4 and it will only increase your stress and ultimately take from your performance.  Salaries of €75k are fantastic but I’d imagine that you are working damn hard at that as it comes with the territory at that level. Management won’t be interested in your farm but only what you can give to them. I’m going to assume you’re in the private sector so job protection is not as strong as in the public sector!!!

Factor down the line with wife and kids, something will have to give.

I farm 20 sucklers on 60 acres finishing all stock. I clear about 10-12K on the cattle and have about 16k on subs and I easily do it on average of 10 hours a week. Albeit I have a family member and good Neighbor to keep an eye during calving season. The job doesn’t suffer and apart from the missus giving out now and again, it’s all within reason. But calving 75 cows would be a huge challenge whilst working full time and in my view is not sustainable or safe. Health is your wealth and work-life balance feeds this so don’t forget about your own health in all of this.

Best of luck at whatever you decide.

If you read down a few posts from the OP they clarify that 5k included loads of stuff that’s not diesel like tyres, repairs to a quad etc.

I suspect the same can be said for all the top level categories.