Dairy Chitchat 4, an udder new thread.

I take it your a five euro bidder.

Lads none of ye get my point. The OP needs to get bang for buck for his stock. Crossbreds tick those boxes all bloody day and I’ll debate anyone on that. @jaymla627 will you sell the OP 70 cows for €2.5k seeing as they are the right thing he should have. Or will you be looking for something closer to €3.5k to make it worth your while? How does the OP feel spending an extra €70k of borrowed money to get cows that’ll give the same return. With the new job coming up do you feel you’d be same to leave the herd managed by someone that never managed cows before. That’s what you’re setting the OP up for.

I’d love for any of ye to present accounts like Kerry Desmond in Gurteen farm from yere first year of dairy farming.

I’ll stand by my statement that Litres shouldn’t be coming into any conversation. That doesn’t mean you don’t need any. Obviously they drive Kgms but it’s a bit like saying my tractor is great to drink diesel. Given it drinks diesel I have great power. But everyone here would say my tractor has great power. The diesel consumption doesn’t matter cause I need power. Similarly the litres don’t matter cause I need KGMS.

Poor Budford - the self appointed CEO of boards.ie 😂😂 if there was ever a fella with too much spare time on his hands it’s him 😂😂

To think I was going to donate 75 thousand euros from my last milk cheque to keep boards running for another 12 months.

I'd be saying stay away from the cross breds. It's not much with12 months since jex calves couldn't fetch 2 euro/HD in marts and went wholesale for kebabs. No body needs that hardship of unwanted stock. To echo the kgms vs litres debate beef is much the same a good price for f all is still f all in terms of cull cows weight too. Beef receipts this year were more than welcome on all dairy farms so not to be laughed at. The good average black and white ebi herd now has closed the gap big time 4.7f 3.7 protein so are within a hares breath of the sacred 5f 4p of the crossbreds and in or around high 400s to 500kgms delivered.

I commend all.of the posters on here running high yielding and high % herds but I personally like a lot of people wouldn't have the skillsets or time to achieve the management required. Time is also an expensive input on dairy farms

Thank you- finally someone understands my point!

Crossbred cows are suitable for anyone that wants to make plenty of money.

The most profitable crossbred herds are everybit as profitable as the best herds in any system. Milking 130 crossbred cows on established dairy farm here, from listening to some of the whinging that goes on here about income and lifestyle from posters running other systems don't think I will be changing anytime soon

Absolute nonsense to suggest they are only suitable for new entrants and very large herds

a well established x bred herd will make money on smaller nos no doubt …talking about the elite here circa 6500 litres and 550/580 plus solids ..new entrant getting in don’t know ….your still going to pay handsomely for good x bred heifers ..lots of these will slip out of system early for variety of reasons and will have a subdued cull cow and calf value ….plus they won’t have capacity to put decent amount of litres or solids in tank to pay down debt ,allow in farm investement and allow a wage …not buying that litres don’t matter ..nor cull or calf value

Your freisan will have more capacity to milk and leave far better cull and calf value ….you may pay bit more but that’s what I’d buy …better all round package ….2/3 years down line once established then go with your x bred on those fr ….quite sure you’ll get good x then butvstarting out you need money coming in from milk and stock sales

I don’t think it’s nonsense to suggest x breds more suitable for larger herds ….can only talk about my own 100 cow operation ….x bred would have no place on it …I have milk decent % and will sell 620/630 solids this year ….as well as averaging over 1700 for culls out of parlour ….managing a 7/7500 litre cow isn’t much different from managing a top x bred herd doing figures quoted above (6500 litres 550/580sooids

And what does it say 🤔

Sound job thanks for that 👍 👌

Sher that's lovely, but it's the man starting off milking we are talking about. Handy cows would suit him better. He's hardly going to be pumping fluids back in high yielders or growing maize in year one. Most here have generations of experience. The Vet brings the drugs but most of us farmers have seen it all before.

Wether it's fr or frx or mox, if he sells 400kgms per cow, he's doing well.

It's the lifestyle change will be the biggest thing imo

no it’s not. Buford is an old poster and mode here. He used to be very frequent on here. Posts of his were deleted earlier on th week too