Bull will have no problem whatsoever buy your bull and forget about them ........ obviously keep an eye on the cycle and have them jotted down on a note book
sync them be fecked. It’s the one chance you have to determine their calving date. Get the calved early and you’ve have the battle won. Days in milk = milk solids
One bull is always a risk. By the time you discover he is not doing the job it could be too late. If I were you I would AI as well.
Dont know where they get the money, banks are tightening up big time
Thanks a million for the replies again.
Another option might be to leave the bull in early (say next week) and start calving mid- to late-Jan. With small numbers I could probably muddle thru an early start. And it'd give the bull an extra bit of time to get around to them all.
yes 1 bull will absolutely certainly be able to get around to all 26 of them. We only ever have 2 bulls for our heifers, there would be close to 70 of them. This spring 40 of the heifers calved in 2 weeks so the bulls must of been flat out
And you save on numerous call out fees for AI
A bull would manage 26 hiefers no bother.
You haven't started, and you're already talking about stretching the Calving season. Try and start off good, they will go late themselves.
An alternative for you is to use , tailpaint, scratch cards or blisters and AI a few with fresian sexed semen. Before the letting the bull out.
I would not be trusting a bull with 26. Unless very strong and proven.
Keep them fairly near the crush, a rattle of nuts in the troughs and they will run in.
Just this weekend. Great drying down the southeast this last few days.
I'm kinda between 2 stools on the heifers. There's 26 of them and I'm half afraid 1 bull wouldn't get round to them all. My initial thinking was to AI 12-15 and then leave the bull out. If 8-10 hold to the AI serve, then the bull will surely manage the rest.
I've an Angus bull lined up and I'd be AI-ing them with a beef straw too as I won't have nitrates or time to keep any calves next year. And for the reasons you say, I wouldn't be sure how the heifers will perform here yet so I don't want to pick any yet for breeding replacements. I'll have to buy in-calf or freshly calved heifers/cows in 2 years anyway to increase numbers when I get back the 40 acres we currently have leased out.
It'd make my life much easier if the bull would cover the 26 of them - would most bulls manage that? Even if the calving spread was a little longer?
at 26 euro per heifer for cidrs,drugs and vet to put in cidrs that’s cheap
they’ve read the gospel according to Tegasc and are caught in the headlights …..too much farming simulator as well
maybe time this evening grass could take off with the heat and places are drying out somewhat
Cork airport just short of 600 acres (without business park). Dublin Airport 1600 acres.
Anybody gone out full time?
But he needs replacements coming into the herd in 3 years time or he'll be back buying again and they might not be as cheap as they are this year.
That's all they have seen elsewhere 🙄
everything about dairy farming is expensive. get used to it. Do you not think it may be in your best interest considering it will be your year milking to just let an angus bull off with the heifers until you find your feet. Like the heifers you're breeding now could be no good or not to your liking. I don't breed any stock out of heifers, I want to see what they are like in parlour first to see what type of bull they need to improve there progeny.
I was doing a bit of homework on fixed time AI for heifers and someone told me it works out at €26 per animal, and then the AI man and a straw for her on top of that.
Is it that expensive?
It's good considering the age profile here of farmers,
Like the rise in rents, it's another option for those retiring
With the way things were going ten years ago, I thought there'd be no demand for me to sell or rent land by now.
Farmers without successors is so common now
Funny, Iv met a few young lads in the last couple of years all they want a rotary and a highly stocked farm with plenty of cheap staff and an armchair to watch on from.
Cows took a while because I made a few mistakes early on. They do get there.
Definitely robot and robot debt made me improve the operation here. Like I said you have the Information aswell. Definitely more flexibility. But if you have a problem you still have to down tools fairly quick and sort it out.
Rough quide is 150-160 milkings. 50 cows high yielding 3 times. 70-75 grazing animals 2 times a day. If you have too many the last row of the parlour cows suffer and you'll end up collecting them. That's pointless. That's a limiting thing about the robot you can't just milk an extra row if you were growing numbers . Although that could be a thing of the past anyway.
Grazing is not that hard if your set up is right. It's abit different to paddock grazing but principle is the same
Excellent Thanks. I presume the hardest part was training the cows? Has it increased the efficiency of your time and allowed more flexibility in your working day? The robot farms here would be on 12-13k litres all indoors with ayr calving to keep the robots maxed out 24/7. Meal feeding would be over a ton. It must be fair complicated with grazing and robots. Seems any farm here that are serious about dairy (they’re all threatening to quit, and many have) are putting in robots. They’re seen now as the only way to future proof the farming system…and it’s hard to disagree. Any farms I’ve been onto will have young farmers and robots..the youth see robots as a lifestyle that they could live with. Indoor systems allow for industrial type work environment as well. If I could manage to stay producing AOP with robots it’d become something I should really have a serious look at. AOP only allows 750kg of ration and it must be sourced within a 50km radius, be non-gmo etc etc. Saying that I reckon it’s doable. There’s a young man here who’s very enthusiastic and an excellent cow man who’s pushing for robots..but when I ask him to go into partnership and invest, he gets nervous. Same lad isn’t afraid of work.
More and more robots seem to be a solution for dairy into the future.
curios to see what would ye value this farm at. It was in the farmers journal the week before last. For full disclosure it definitely is not a farm that would interest me, not one tiny bit. I think it’s very hard put a price on it. It’s a bit out of the way just for added context and as ye can see half it seems to be what you’d call “raised bog” and as far as I know that’s protected under the hen harrier thing so the new owner couldn’t touch that half of it pretty much
I was thinking the half it that’s actually land is worth about €700,000 and the half that’s the hen harrier protected area probably €100,000 so €800,000 for the 167 acres
https://www.property.ie/commercial-property/Meenanare-Duagh-Co-Kerry/19095416/ https://www.farmersjournal.ie/property/property/167ac-farm-in-kerry-for-sale-with-prime-agriculture-land-in-pasture-811224#:~:text=A%20167.94ac%20holding%20with,Listowel%20and%2012km%20from%20Abbeyfeale.
There's some (merchants, politicians, dreamers of farmers,) who see this as progress. But they are only fooling themselves. It's tightening up and removing others off land and only widens the gulf between the ordinary homeowner and how they perceive landowners. You go far enough down the line and it brings back in land reform and if not revolution with "white boys" terrorising and killing the large landowners. As happened in the past here.
I don't see why they'd want 1000 acres. It's said they possibly could have 600 acres already. Cork airport I'd say wouldn't have that much land around the airport. But they are saying it's for a business park and hotel development as well.
If it is the israelis. They have a monopoly on agri plastic now I think and Bale wrap was made or maybe still is in arklow.
But for a mine development acquiring as much as possible before development possibly would make sense.
Im fairly sure the same was happening in Poland and they brought in laws such as residency and nationality to stop it. Of course our crowd are asleep at the wheel..
Everyone is mad for land atm (in Ireland). 11,000 acres reported on the Sunday Indo of coolmore in Ireland. Most likely have a lot more. Now your man Dyson has a foothold here too. All going gangbusters to acquire more and more land.
It must be some feeling when you've gone beyond the living wage stage of land ownership and see it as a way of vanity to just be the biggest and best and have those around you in your pocket.
Am I right in thinking that the phrase like "does not extend to mines and minerals" is on every title deed in the country?
Still u suppose the first step is to own it anyway. It'd be hard to see a govt allowing such assets go east when the EU is trying to secure stuff in Greenland.
