Will you be dropping out maize/whole-crop going forward and basically be back to grass on all your grazing ground and support blocks?
Still going to grow 10 acres of maize. It is a great boost in energy November and spring for fresh calvers
i thought you were running a low maintenance herd. There is nothing low maintenance about growing maize, zero grazing, own baler, 2 high powered massey ferguson, and a fresh slurry tanker with trailing shoe, twitter is a wonderful thing 😀
Ah sure we love hardship and gear
dad wanted to keep doing the few bales ourselves and I was sick to the teeth of the old baler.
We actually ended up helping 2 contractors out last year with it 🙈
Worst worry in the world imo I hope never to experience empty slabs and full sheds
I'm the opposite,the thoughts of seating in the tractor for the day make me sick.
We kind of like the break in routine work here. Father is after borrrowing a plough this evening from the BIL and is heading off ploughing in the morning
One man band here. If my brothers were interested there would be plenty of machinery around here aswell.
I think you get a bit of unfair criticism on here. I don't know whether that's because your open about what you do. Maybe because people know you from other platforms. I think you handle it well. I would be of the opinion that I should know what other people are doing and why they are doing but I don't have to do it. I enjoy the rattles between you and a couple of posters here. No one is 100% wrong just bouncing opinions
Sold 12 calves in the mart. I owe them 10 euro. Alot of people make money out of calves but it's not the dairy farmers. CBV doesn't seem to be helping either. All the lads at the ring want is a big soft lump of a fat calf on ad lib milk.
Next week's weather prediction from Mt cranium will leave farms in serious bother if it plays out, could be after the middle of April on wet farms before cows are out
Is there anything to be said for another mass
What kind of calves were they, light Fresians? I got 80 euro for AA with a Jex dam showing on the board
And they're dead right too, as the saying goes "well begun is half done".
Planting of spring crops and availability of straw next fall a big concern now as well …. Maize ground not sprayed off and no slurry on it yet either
What about an ounce of breeding is worth a ton of feeding.
My calves all got 4 litres of tested colostrum tubed back their throat after birth. 6 litres a day for 3 to 5 weeks before going to the mart. All eating crunch and hay/straw. I'd consider them superior calves than those on ad lib milk and not an ounce of crunch or hay/straw.
When you are in a dairy area its hard to get paid when the glut comes. I'd say the lads buying don't even look at the board.
I spent too much time partying and holidaying in January and now every tank in the place is touching the slats.
You’d have been as well off to sell them as soon as the mart would take them you’d have probably got the same pittance for them, the only hope you have of recouping more than half the costs of freisan bulls is to have a buyer who’ll take them out of your yard. Very frustrating to be doing calves well for 5 weeks and getting SFA for them.
I know ya. Smaller numbers here so wouldn't bother going to the mart with a handful. The oldest were 5 weeks. Got 10 euro for them. The youngest were 5 euro. I kept 8 fr bulls at home to run with the fr heifers for the year. I just can't stomach dumping them all.
I have yearlings to take to the mart next week now, we'll see what they make.
I heard on ifj that farmers are pre booking straw at 50 euro a bale.....
Must be true so ….nearly believe it around here …lot of tillage ground gone to hungry dairy farmers …..who are now going to tillage farmers looking for straw and to contract Maize or beet or whole crop ….as one of them told me where do they expect me to sow it for them …the lawn
Surely their can be a arrangement where the dairy man takes the ground/map acres , and buys the fert/inputs and the tillage man contract grows the crop, doing the above here with a local tillage man the past 5 years and its working great only 2-3km of a draw with slurry from my yard, the mentality of the system needs to change theirs great scope for partnering up between tillage/dairy farms
I presume your talking about like for like breeding and geography?
I was only responding to your comment, I don't mean to be knocking your calves or system at all, it sounds top drawer. But they'd only drink an extra 2 to 3 ad lib, they'd still be eating hay and crunch. Thats only 50l of milk each, how much more would they make?
Weight and condition is worth money in calves, its slow and hard to get it back on if they get a setback.
Rushy land will pay its way yet!
Not in derogation. Have too much land for stock so I put 10 acres a year in wheat. Crimp the grain and feed it in the winter and bale the straw for myself. If things get tough re fodder because of draught ill just whole crop the lot and buy in wheat and straw. I can tell u it costs a bit but you have some peace of mind.
That nursing home situation is not everything. Think of the long life before the nursing home reflections.
There can be immense satisfactions got from satisfying days of long work and goals targeted and achieved.
I often remember with pleasure many such.
Might miss them 1 day a month from August to October when Arrawbawn had all the fertiliser deductions taken from the cheques. Cash flow on a beef farm with my system tends to be a bit tight that time of year.
This year everyone is watching the board in the mart, when the Jex or Frx ram calf enters the ring the price drops even if they are BB or Lim. The AAx or HEx out Fr cows went up this week, a lot of buyers have got caught the last two years with calves that got very little colostrum being given or batch fed colostrum, one lad that buys 120 calves every year watch’s tag numbers and avoids the calves from the big herds for this reason after getting stung with poor thrive calves.
I'm getting caught that way with FRx on the boards and the x is from Montbeliarde back breeding. It's seriously depressing.
I changed marts last week and I marginally improved prices. I'm easily loosing 50 euro just because people think my FRX is jersey back breeding. I may change strategy for next year and try and sell at home because it's not on either that when you are going to the trouble of breeding good calves and paying good money for bull sires that I'm being lumped as jersey breeding when there's not an ounce of it here.
I pride myself on my calves as I don't have the land to rear them so make sure to have the best I can so that no matter what the market that they will always be very saleable and hopefully give me a good income as size wise it's a small herd here. Change in the mart brought me 290 for a Lim calf.
Yeah - approaching Spring 2013 levels of misery out there. Only good thing is there is a general trend of good summers following wet/cool springs
