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Dairy Chit Chat- Please read Mod note in post #1

Timmaay

24/6/16

Recently we saw three posters close their accounts over disagreements in the dairy threads. While there is a lot of frustration and discontent with current milk prices and the processing industry, the recent tendency for dairy threads to become tit-for-tat arguments isn’t tolerable for those not involved.

All farming sectors go through difficult periods and during such times there may need to be changes in how threads are moderated.

Dairy threads are going to be more closely monitored and subject to stricter moderation for a while.

To that end we won’t tolerate baiting of posters, constantly reviving old arguments, posters with agendas or crusading for a cause.

Whether it’s discussion of the business or politics of the dairy or other sectors, we expect civility and tolerance toward each other and other opinions as diversity of opinion is needed as a source of different ways of looking at a situation.

"The aim of argument, or of discussion, should not be victory, but progress." - Joseph Joubert

Also please be aware that what you may post as light-hearted banter can be read totally differently by someone adversely affected by the subject matter and evoke a reaction you hadn’t intended.

The ‘Off-Season’ forum, and its anonymous posting, is available for anyone to chat about their situation.

The Mod Team.

10 away from the 10000 posts! Frazz I think it's fair to say this thread has been a success!

Indeed it was! First thread can be found here- http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056872221

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pedigree 6

keep going wrote: »

why 12 years ,i know ill be right eventually.to be fair heifers may be contract reared-i was on a farm recently and i was surprised how easy things have got since calves were contract reared.its not so long ago 100 cows had to have a "man" but thats well gone now and you have kevin ahearne handling 230 cows in bandon with relatively little labour and anyway we must have plenty time with the amount we waste on boards.im sure anything done by kovu s hands would be delicious

You're agreeing with me now.:)
Read my post in farming in 10 years time.
You're eating that monkey bread.ðŸ˜„

mf240

browned wrote: »

300 xbred, 350acres all in one block, 30 units herringbone with acr's = 10 rows. all cows milked Once a day. Relief milker every 2nd weekend. Calf rearer hired in for the spring, night watchman for feb/March to supervise night calvings.
Flying herd. Self fed pit silage for the winter. Probably a greenfield site for labour efficient farmyard design. All machinery work contracted out.

At 20 cent a litre you could be better off drinking the dole.

browned

kowtow wrote: »

I reckon it could be done but with
About 5-7 million euros of capital invested?

How would that stack up against one man selling 1.2 million litres from 120? Indoor Holsteins?

Land 3,500,000
Cows 390,000
Parlour 200,000
Yard 160,000
Grazing 130,000
Misc 200,000
Total ballpark €4.5 million

Indoor Holsteins
Land 10,000
Cows 240,000
Buildings €750,000
Total ballpark €1 million

browned

mf240 wrote: »

At 20 cent a litre you could be better off drinking the dole.

I'm not saying it's something worth doing just that it's possible. 20 cent a litre base could be worth 25 cent oad.

Water John

Keep Going, you might want to inquire as to how much the 'relatively little extra labour' was being paid per hour????

Kovu

pedigree 6 wrote: »

Only machinery then contracted out.
Rear the replacements yourself.
None of this contract rearing or selling the calves and buying back 2 yr olds.

You show me the one man 300 cow labour unit not management but labour and management in the one person in 12 years time and the looser eats kovu's monkey bread.

Buford T. Justice XIX

whelan2 wrote: »

Would it be strange to get 3 so close together?

Yeah, the vet said usually see only 1 or at most 2 close together. I missed the third one from milking too late in the evening and being in a hurry to finish.:o

mf240 wrote: »

Keep an eye on the rest of them. If you see one with one ear slightly down or disorientated give her an antibiotic.

The wobbly cow will respond to vitamin b1.

Are you feeding silage. Any chance there was clay in it?

They were on silage, surplus bales of frazzled rocket fuel, but I may have forced them to clean out a paddock or two a bit too much:(

They are kept after milking now and run down the race to keep any suspects. I usually keep 1 or 2 to keep an eye on them for a few hours at night.

The cow is a bit improved today, I left her off with the rest but I may bring her back early for a bit of silage. +1 on the B1, got a bottle from the vet yesterday.

Then the car stopped dead on a bypass in the local town, fuel pump buggered. Got towed home and went to feed the cows and the top step broke in the tractor and I fell and broke the second step with my knee.

Yesterday was not a good day. I also found out my car trailer would cost more to repair than it was worth so I will have to buy a trailer soon before I start selling lambs again.

How long to 2017 again?:)

whelan2

most of the points are basic cop on but the one that doesnt make sense to me is the one on topping/pre mowing http://www.farmersjournal.ie/how-to-save-up-to-15-000-in-costs-206923/ also does the might rate electricity not finish at 9am in the summer months?

pedigree 6

Kovu wrote: »

Ah i'm sure you have lovely monkey bread.:)

kowtow

whelan2 wrote:

also does the might rate electricity not finish at 9am in the summer months?

9am would hardly give you enough time to get round with the pressure washer....

browned

whelan2 wrote: »

most of the points are basic cop on but the one that doesnt make sense to me is the one on topping/pre mowing http://www.farmersjournal.ie/how-to-save-up-to-15-000-in-costs-206923/ also does the might rate electricity not finish at 9am in the summer months?

Haven't topped or premowed in 8 years now. Paddock gets hairy it's fertilised and skipped for bales.

whelan2

browned wrote: »

Haven't topped or premowed in 8 years now. Paddock gets hairy it's fertilised and skipped for bales.

Topping has to be done here, some fields wouldnt be able to be mowed ever

browned

whelan2 wrote: »

Topping has to be done here, some fields wouldnt be able to be mowed ever

Plenty of those here as well. Say there's at least half a dozen paddocks that have only ever been grazed and fertilised since they were reseeded. Just have to watch them more closely than others and make sure the cows lick them to the floor every round. Probably the most profitable paddocks on the farm

Timmaay

browned wrote: »

Land 3,500,000
Cows 390,000
Parlour 200,000
Yard 160,000
Grazing 130,000
Misc 200,000
Total ballpark €4.5 million

Indoor Holsteins
Land 10,000
Cows 240,000
Buildings €750,000
Total ballpark €1 million

Considering this debate started about labour, you'd be hard pressed to find one man who'd manage 120 indoor AYR calving HOs, he'd be an utter slave to it. To deliver 10k/cow you'd nearly want to be looking at 3times a day milking?

kevthegaff

It won't be flick of the switch stuff that herds will increase 3 fold over the nxt 10 yrs. Look at the Kingston s herd and how that panned out, I believe in staggered expansion than what we have seen recently. Hearing rumours lately more liquidations in this area, hope it's not true. Too close to home and will this be tip of the iceberg?

kowtow

Timmaay wrote: »

Considering this debate started about labour, you'd be hard pressed to find one man who'd manage 120 indoor AYR calving HOs, he'd be an utter slave to it. To deliver 10k/cow you'd nearly want to be looking at 3times a day milking?

That thought did cross my mind!

Also one man & 120 would barely make sense indoors.

Surely 4 & 480 would do just as well...

Might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb.

whelan2

kowtow wrote: »

That thought did cross my mind!

Also one man & 120 would barely make sense indoors.

Surely 4 & 480 would do just as well...

Might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb.

Where would you get the 4 workers? or any workers for that matter

Buford T. Justice XIX

whelan2 wrote: »

Where would you get the 4 workers? or any workers for that matter

Have a biggggggggg family:D

whelan2

Buford T. Justice V wrote: »

Have a biggggggggg family:D

lol

freedominacup

whelan2 wrote: »

Where would you get the 4 workers? or any workers for that matter

You'd be amazed Whelan. Large scale pig farm just over the road from us. 15-20 working on it. Lads from all over incl one guy from inner city Dublin, he's there almost twenty years. Pigs are different in some ways but regular time off, regular hours, reasonable salary and people will be there. You'll just have to get your head around the idea that in general if you want someone in the yard all the hours you're willing to do you'll need two staff. It'd be cheaper to have two anyway as no overtime.

kowtow

whelan2 wrote: »

Where would you get the 4 workers? or any workers for that matter

Good question.

It wouldn't be my way of doing things in any case.. but the differential between labour & concentrate per litre & land / litre interests me if only because it feeds into our relative competitiveness in Europe.

For the sake of argument I suppose you'd pay them well.. 35k? = 3.5c / litre on 10K litres. The grassland farmer doing 6000 litres would be paying 10c a litre in labour & land, the indoor 3c for the labour I suppose.

So the question is how cheap does concentrate need to be for that 7c a litre to give the indoor man the advantage.

awaywithyou

pedigree 6 wrote: »

Only machinery then contracted out.
Rear the replacements yourself.
None of this contract rearing or selling the calves and buying back 2 yr olds.

You show me the one man 300 cow labour unit not management but labour and management in the one person in 12 years time and the looser eats kovu's monkey bread.

can be done

awaywithyou

browned wrote: »

300 xbred, 350acres all in one block, 30 units herringbone with acr's = 10 rows. all cows milked Once a day. Relief milker every 2nd weekend. Calf rearer hired in for the spring, night watchman for feb/March to supervise night calvings.
Flying herd. Self fed pit silage for the winter. Probably a greenfield site for labour efficient farmyard design. All machinery work contracted out.

30 unit herringbone.... alot of walking.....

50 unit rotary... anything else waste of time

freedominacup

Milked out wrote: »

Down 38L a day now, early spring calver went down in parlour yard yday, got her out and she got up but walking poorly. This evening now she's only throwing herself from side to side in the field. Back injured. The north wind is lethal in the parlour here dries out the yard and it's like ice then when cows dung on it. They are very violent coming in for feed too which is when she got knocked, maybe more so because I'm leaving em off as they are being milked and ones behind are mad to come in and get out again. Getting 6kgs in parlour and going into 1000 covers and cleaning it out. Regrowth is slow with cold weather but ground with a bit of cover is moving a bit alright

Move to twenty four hour breaks. They'll be more relaxed.

keep going

we completely lost the run of ourselves here.its driving down the road ,some guys go at 50, some at 70 and some at 100mph .some of the guys at 100 crash but some through a combination of luck and skill do just fine but just because you go at 50 dosent mean you wont crash either.at the end of the day go at the speed thats suits you .when i was working in the building crack there were some guys that could handle anything and used to cruise th
rough a pile of work effortlessly where as other fellas would be all trouble and strife doing half the work and so there is no magic number for what a man can handle,everyone is different and has a different set up but to go back to the example of suppliers in our area ,the avereage herd that time was 5 cows,no way could you live on 5 cows now so you have to move with the times.

whelan2

kevthegaff wrote: »

It won't be flick of the switch stuff that herds will increase 3 fold over the nxt 10 yrs. Look at the Kingston s herd and how that panned out, I believe in staggered expansion than what we have seen recently. Hearing rumours lately more liquidations in this area, hope it's not true. Too close to home and will this be tip of the iceberg?

These current liquidations are not as a result of the recent downturn in milk price sure the wheels would have been in motion a for a long time before now. Also heard of a few around here too.

pedigree 6

I have no doubt herds are getting larger.
But labour is labour and it doesn't matter if it's paid for with contractors or hired help or yourself or expensive machines replacing labour when labour would be cheaper. Teagasc are too hung up on figures and cows per labour unit.
Next year they will say it's 500 cows per labour unit. It'll sound as if then that they are teaching people to be real good farmers and to the rest of the world as well. But that will include Contract - heifer rearing, milking,feeding, breeding, paperwork, calf rearing, fieldwork etc, etc.
It won't be one labour unit but it sounds really good to say that it is.
Herds are getting bigger and providing employment for the wider community.
What's wrong with that?
Rant over.:D

Markcheese

whelan2 wrote:

Where would you get the 4 workers? or any workers for that matter

Robot milking, robotic bobman, self loading diet feeder, slurry to an auto bio digester. And residue to tillage farmer who provides silage , bull calves off farm at day old.. auto drinkers for calves,
And hope at least one of your kids is an engineer cos they'll make more out of cows than the farmer would ...

rangler1

Alright guys, is it because of your 1c litre bonus that my Glanbia shares are down 10%

whelan2

rangler1 wrote: »

Alright guys, is it because of your 1c litre bonus that my Glanbia shares are down 10%

I blame the Glanbia rep in Nigeria