Beef General Thread

rangler1 wrote: »

There's very few parents that'd encourage their children to farm these day.
I think there's a lot of misplaced optimism on this forum, there's a serious income crisis in farming at the moment and I don't think dairy farmer have got their heads around this fact, they're still on the euphoria created by the protected market situation that they've been thrown out of.
Supply and demand will always set the price and a rise in price only creates more supply and floors the price...there's still guys waiting on the wings to get into dairying.
On renting land, I despair when I see what happens to land after the owner rents it out....maybe after they putting years of work into it.
Maybe I'm a pessimist, but you have to be realistic too

There is huge negativity around farming. I think part of this is due to the laws of natural selection. There tended to be and assumption that the eldest boy got the farm no matter his ability or interest. Another factor is often he was not encouraged to go and get any other skills. There as well seemed to be an assumption with farmers in certain parts of the country that you should not need to have a job when you are farming.

With changes in machinery and technology as well as the advent of contractors a 100+ acre drystock farms has a relatively low labour input compared to 20 years ago not to mind 40 years ago. The other issue is when Johnny was getting the farm sure there was no need for him to go to college so at 16 he started driving for local contractor for the summer and then with all the money he had he wintered well and nelected his study. By the time he was eighteen he was wealty compared to his peers doing aprenticeship or going to college or the lad that took a clerical position in the PS. He had his 100 or 150 pounds a week or what ever was the going rate for unskilled labour, living at home with mammy and no cost.

If he had ambition he was doing a bit of machinery work on the side, cutting a bit of timber or a bit of turf. The thing was he had 4-5 younger siblings, there was no hope of Dad signing over the farm for another 20-30 years. By the time he was 40 his brother, sisters and friends had all independent lifestyles, Farm was still not signed over and Dad was worried that if he did that Johnny wife Mary might leave and take half the farm.

Dad still made all the big decisions and he has little or no input to business. It no wonder Johnny is not keen on his kids becoming farmers. As well he has transfered his negativity on to them. I see it in my own kids because I am positive about farming they have an interest, youngest lad was not really into farming and still is not mad about farming. But talking to him a few weeks ago he say it a great sidelie with a good job.

rangler1 wrote: »

There's very few parents that'd encourage their children to farm these day.
I think there's a lot of misplaced optimism on this forum, there's a serious income crisis in farming at the moment and I don't think dairy farmer have got their heads around this fact, they're still on the euphoria created by the protected market situation that they've been thrown out of.
Supply and demand will always set the price and a rise in price only creates more supply and floors the price...there's still guys waiting on the wings to get into dairying.
On renting land, I despair when I see what happens to land after the owner rents it out....maybe after they putting years of work into it.
Maybe I'm a pessimist, but you have to be realistic too

My own father didn't want me farming when I left school and tried to stay at home about 15 yrs ago and even now when I'm still at it he is telling me I'd be better selling and moving to France if it was only for better weather .
Reckons he wouldn't want his worst enemy to be living off a farm these days .
It's sad when you see a cheque coming from the mart and you know before you would put anything aside for a holiday /reseeding /new jeep/tractor that most of it will be spend on fert/nuts/contractor and very little left over

Willfarman wrote: »

That is a belter of a post. ...

But I do have to ask do we not have it handy in comparison to our fathers and fathers father?
I'm sitting off here at Quarter to nine on my couch with an iPad resting on my ever enlarging belly! I'm not rich financially but neither were them that were at this game before me.

Good question and it's hard to know who had it better lifestyle wise but I think farmers back in the day had more of a chance to make a pound and reinvest in land and the farm while still taking a living from it .
My father is 64 now and put 2 of us through college and we were never short of anything growing up on 140 acres without himself or the mother working outside the farm .
I wouldn't have a hope of doing anything similar from the farm now and that's considering he has roads , water and sheds all done for me

Bullocks wrote: »

Good question and it's hard to know who had it better lifestyle wise but I think farmers back in the day had more of a chance to make a pound and reinvest in land and the farm while still taking a living from it .
My father is 64 now and put 2 of us through college and we were never short of anything growing up on 140 acres without himself or the mother working outside the farm .
I wouldn't have a hope of doing anything similar from the farm now and that's considering he has roads , water and sheds all done for me

All across work area's o/p has increased. 30 years ago the local carpenter working for a builder was collected at 8 AM in the square and at 5pm he was back there. Nowadays he has to be on the site between these times. After he was collected they may have gone to the local Builders providers to load up some material and then on to the site. They might be lucky to be on site at 10 and gone at 4.30. The carpenter now uses a circular saw and a nail gun. The material are delivered on site and he is on the go from 8-5. More than likly his o/p has increased by 80% compared to a comparable carpenter 30 years ago.

30 years ago the arpenter wife did not work nowadays she has a job as well. As has the bankers wife, the Doctors etc I think a lot of farmers need to stop comparing to previous generations. It really is an issue with farmers that come from good land. I came from a farm where farming and outside employmenmt went hand in hand in the 70's. It was not viable to make a living off that land then not to mind now.

Willfarman wrote: »

A still when a little boggy field comes up for sale there's wads of cash!

I think the biggest downfall nowadays is there's so much hurry and lack of sociability.

This is down to the demand for lifestyle. We can slow down but it costs money. This is not just an issue with farming. The lad driving a van for the bacon suppliers is doing a run that is more than likly 50% longer than 20 years ago if not double the distance. It is the same accross society except for some protected area's like teaching where hours have not changed to a great extent.

The nurse, the doctor, the tradesman etc are all going hammer and tongs as well.

Farmer Pudsey wrote: »

. It is the same accross society except for some protected area's like teaching where hours have not changed to a great extent.

Teaching has also changed even in terms of hours but much moreso in terms of whats expected and most definitely in terms of the difficulty of the job while you are at it.

Its hard to know if this has improved it much for the student either never mind the teacher.

Farmer Pudsey wrote: »

This perception with in farming and teaching often comes from a insular working area. those involved have little or no interaction with other area's of work while working and fail to grasp the changes that have happened else where.

Well as a former teacher and current farmer and knowing just enough about both areas to be dangerous I suppose ill have to rebut the rebuttal

as I mentioned previously I wasn't really talking in terms of contracted hours (although they very much have increased in recent years, the easter thing is part of a standardised school year that came of shortening other holidays to bump it to two weeks - theres also an extra 40hrs due to cps and hras some of which tend to generate extra hrs themselves and in any case contracted hours don't represent the hours of prep, correcting, planning "meetings" etc etc expected now which weren't in the past - definitely not to the same level in the past you were speaking of in any event - I went to school myself when the Easter holidays were not two weeks)

It was more the nature of the job and what is expected in terms of that prep, onerous (very little to do with education) box ticking exercises and cover your ass practices due to increasingly litigious parents and students, unnecessary paperwork, disciplinary follow up where the problem should have been nipped in the bud early the system wasn't dysfunctional etc etc not to mention how anyone whose currently looking for a job or has been in one for the 5-10 years has or probably will have to jump through all manner of hoops and promise ever increasing amounts of their time to extra curricular to justify their existence.....its changed as a role and not for the better, for teacher or student imo....

basically what I'm saying is while it may seem to have remained largely the same on paper (not really either if you look at that paper) its a very different thing in real life, its changed and still is changing and not for the better + imo its not nearly as fantastic as people perceive it to be, that was one of the reasons why I decided to seek out pastures new so to speak.....

whelan2 wrote: »

I come from a family of teachers, mother was a primary teacher, sister is a lecturer. Sister in law is a primary school teacher. What repurcussions are there for poor performing teachers? As farmers we get deducted sfp , etc for not complying to regulations. I have never heard of a teacher losing their their job due to poor work. I have complained , gone through proper channels, got advice on what i was doing, teacher still there and so many trained teachers looking for jobs who would give the kids a proper education

Simple answer afaik it was hard and I didn't see it happen in my time although I seen a christian brother go on "sabbatical" in one place and another one take some "advice" to leave.....nothing sinister but they were shockingly bad in a classroom setting and probably not at all suited for it - order ran the school and they were just shoved in there until it was laicised and then they were "phased out"

Now I don't know your issue but as I understand it now there are new procedures for complaints about registered teachers, you can read all about them here

http://www.teachingcouncil.ie/professional-standards/complaints-about-teachers.6395.html

I'm not massively familiar with them but I understand it is or will soon be more than possible to have someone dismissed...principles of natural justice apply though which is a good thing imo given the lies that are told when people don't get their way or are forced to behave even half way civilised or just plain old have a grudge not to mention the small but significant percentage of imo deluded parents/students out there or the significant proportion of my fellow citizens that seem to have an inbuilt hatred of any form of authority (I sort of have a bit of that myself, particularly when it comes to this new trailer license)

As to what constitutes underperformance, how do you measure that fairly or even in a way that won't be wide open to legal challenge from the teacher? - results etc? - only if you start taking into account socio economic background of students, their previous attainment , their disciplinary history as a group, managements input into the situation, their record when it comes to attendance, making a fair effort at homework etc

its a bit of a can of worms imo and you can see how going down that route has unintended consequences for probably (maybe not in your opinion) the large majority of teachers doing their best in the school - tldr - they go around afraid of their ****e some crank will result in job difficulties/loss and it becomes more about the cover your ass paper trail than the teaching a la the UK education system which we are so desperately trying to ape here despite they themselves rowing back on their "progress" in recent years......recording academic etc work done, letters home, disciplinary action, phonecalls, interventions etc etc on top of doing the actual work and the doing of it becoming more and more like chasing your tail all the while given the fact you are an authority figure and expected to act like one and achieve outcomes like one while having very little actual authority....

Anyway, i'm not here to defend the teaching profession, I was just responding to statement that it hadn't changed, I think it has...a lot....and if anyone is thinking its easy or a handy number I think they should try get some experience of it for a decent amount of time with some sort of result expected at the end...not just a day or two watching it or hearsay or recollections of what it was like when they were a student.

larrymiller wrote: »

What type of stores do the factory feed lots target? Anything and everything or are they very select?

Good question , i suppose they would have room for all weights between different pens on a feedlot.
Didn't Goodman have lads rearing calves last year for him , I wonder how they are doing now ?

darragh_haven wrote: »

The calf rearing was an epic clusterfcuk . Calves dropping dead at an unreal rated. Disease spread fast. Don't know who took the financial hit

I can be pretty sure who didn't take a hit financially anyhow

I Angus bull weaklings make 660 for 320kgs

lads is anyone finishing jersey bulls/bullock. what price would you get in the factory? much profit?