I paid €140 in Dec. That was for foundations for an extension to the dwelling house. Incl VAT but not levy.
I’ve plenty to pour around the yard this year so I’ll be pricing around. @Grueller - was the €118 from Doyles?
I thought today was the open date for slurry. Ah well 🤣
Advice is for giving. I had to break a yard because of blocked pipes. It was dog rough and one lorry would do it. A fella should write down what he does before he covers it with concrete. It would save a lot of time in the future.
More good advice I probably won't do.
Take your own advice and keep your money in your pocket
Dry 1st calver down in the shed this morning, dunno what happened here. Took her out to field and made an attempt but failed to rise. One leg very weak whether she got flattened by another awkwardly or what I dunno.
Have spoken to lads about the urban milk shuttle and are happy with I but its serious money, I think 8k plus. But some had there 10 Yr olds feeding calves no bother. Was thinking of the connacht agri one myself but it's a few bob as well. Parlour a good distance down the hill from sheds here. Another option would be a buggy type thing and a trailed milk trolley with pump. The buggy may suit them/ and you for driving around the farm roads as well if they want if they could be found price right
€118 including levy plus vat in the south east before Christmas. Not sure since
Any one get a price for 35New concrete. Is 140 including vat + levy, anyway close?
Have milked in a few places with setups like that have a reel for hose in dairy so it can be reeled up and kept in from the elements during frost etc. Have pumped milk up to 70 metres from dairy to calves using this method so 100m should be doable I’d be thinking but maybe someone else with experience could confirm this for you.
Thats an option i hadn't thought about but could work
Thanks
Distance is probably less than 100 meters once you take into account corners etc
How far is the parlour from the calf shed/pens? The options you’ve given would be my last resort you could set up a submersible pump and run yellow hose you’d have on volume washer if not too far and attach a nozzle at other end for filling into pens. It wouldn’t even be a 20th of the price of the carts and works very well and no pushing at all involved even if it’s minimal with the carts.
Whole milk to calves for first week to ten days then on to automatic calf feeder
Look they are costly options but parents are pushing on to be lugging buckets around the place
Are you feeding mainly whole milk or milk replacer to calves ?
Anybody any experience with any of these models
Still blessed to have parents feed the calves while i concentrate on the cows during farming
Main problem is karting the milk to calf house as its rough and uneven ground
My other thoughts would be one of these and have barrell on ot to move around but not sure how well it will work
any thoughts would be greatly appreciated to help make the spring that bit easier
I'm neither good or confident enough to recommend Irish bulls I'm sure there out there but I'm not confident in irish bulls anymore without the family back up. plus your the only man who knows what he wants in his cows or out of his cows.
For instance what do your cows look like and they they big square fr cows or smaller type cow with the back sloping towards the back. Then what would you like to do with your cows.as in do you want to add milk, size without loosing condition, or just matain your output while increasing solids. There's many ways to improve cows but it's about what you want yourself. I hope I'm sorta making sense if it was me I'd be looking for power milk solids and locomotive your fr cows are probably good hard wearing cows anyway
Same here
Ye I'm kinda one generation into crossing pretty much British Friesians with Holsteins, so all the younger cows and heifers are about 40-50 percent friesan. I'm sorry I wasn't more particular with the the bulls I used on them older cows. Just went with the high ebi from the ai man..anyway lesson learned.
Any recommendations, would you use any Irish bulls?
You have a cow that suits your situation perfect- what I can’t understand is that your doing 570kg ms and haven’t any bulls in Ai- at 570 your best cows would be doing 750 kg ms on a grass based system
why don’t you show us some of your best performing cows
Renegade incalf heifer below, the sire of conway their American daughter proofs are unbelievable re solids and milk
Be on ground in next few days …be 2026 before I can make a firm comment on them ….but I’m expecting big things …..going to use some renegade as well this year
Biggest benefit I seen this year with it, was been able to keep quality grass into the cows and plenty of it after getting caught in June/July waiting to take out ground on the grazing block allowed us to top away aswell and not been worried of running out of grass
I simply brought in half the second-cut ground as zg grass and done likewise with the third cut, cows milked as good as any other year when they usually would of been getting 1st cut silage and 2kgs of ration through the feeder as a buffer....
Contractor done 80 load from April to October, saved us having to feed out circa 300 ton of 1st cut silage
Until you’ve tried it yourself you won’t know what it would be like everyday. Every herd would react differently to it. We zero graze in the backend every year and no matter how good the quality of the silage it won’t hold milk or even give you a slight bump compared to the zero grazing. I think it’s a great tool in the shoulders but I wouldn’t like to be incorporating it into the everyday system on the farm. Lucky here we have a great contractor who does 4 or 5 farms locally and is priced very fair.
Be interested to hear about them mj when they are on the ground I've a rep pestering me about that bull
Ya Don't need to use big type of Holsteins ask around there's loads of nice framed bulls about be a class cross on your herd
British freisan or fr crossed with the correct holstien are a very underrated cow
Now there's one thing we definitely agree on grass is king I've never disagreed with you on that even the lift It gives autumn calve cows in spring is unreal.... grass brings its own problems and won't stand alone...zero grazing has benefits you but It can bring big headaches . It's something I'm really undecided on.
Have a good shot of conway/renegade heifers to calf down this spring they look like having great potential
And that is probably not Inc culls if you have the landvto finish them.
I see a couple of lads near me that got rid of the beef operations 6-7 years ago. I not sure if they are any better off. They are running around like blue as5ed flies. They were milking 100ish and added 50-100 more. Actually one of the places seemed to have disapproved, another lad is in his 60's and neither of his young lads are interested it seems.
And it's spud and beef farmers that seem to be buying the land around here.
They have a few nicely balanced bulls …used Conway across all my heifers last year …few rager reds on my reds
Pine tree legacy would be a good option from them using him here on the more extreme cows to bring down their size , won't breed massive cows and has great solids/health/milk
