blackdog1 wrote: » Farm with my father and I think if I had to get a job I would put the herd on Oad so he could cope. Scc is 74-120 so it might work but I think it would be better if they were on Oad from calving rather than switching them mid season.
kevthegaff wrote: » I see labour as the only one we can control, larger numbers per labour unit. Very interested in browneds set up too, as I say if things hit the fan or in later life OAD sounds feasible
browned wrote: Hopefully. Only 9 days breeding and 50% served, that'd be similar to tad levels so too early to say
jaymla627 wrote: » I reckon it will go the other direction, a good solid herd doing 7500-8000 litres at around 7.5% solids of grass and say around 1.3 ton of nuts would be hard beat I reckon, simply put if I was only sending in 16 litres a cow at the minute even with exceptional solids I simply would have to pack it in as cash coming in simply wouldn't be enough to cover loan payments and all the rest
mahoney_j wrote: Personally when I hit say 50 and no successor showing interest ,no mortgage no/little debt I'd def go oad .great lifestyle
jaymla627 wrote: » Depends on herd profile and breeding, if your starting from a base where yields aren't high and running around 5-5500 litres per cow a year you could probably transition to once a day quiet easily..... Wouldn't like to see the results in a herd like mine where mature cows are knocking out 40 plus litres at peak and are breed for milk you'd end up destroying them with high scc and blown out udders
browned wrote: » From a labour point of view. 110 cows 20 bullers and 30 calves. Start at 6am finished at 8.30am. Then spend the day making myself look busy.
Timmaay wrote: » I'm getting nosey now ha, but you said something in a previous post about buying your farm, did you start out fully from scratch? Was the OAD always part of the plan or just a reaction to the current downturn?
browned wrote: » I seem to recall that I was the one who posted that improving solids would help farmers out financially. I added up all the levies I paid last month and they amounted to 0.371 Cent/litre for me while my solids gave me a 7.91 cents bonus above the average coop supplier. Are you saying i would have been better off focussing on a levy savings of 0.371cent/litre instead of the added value of 7.91cent/litre I got? you've highlight plenty of ways in which coops are inefficient over the last couple of months. can you put them all together and show the total savings that can be got from implementing them. 7.91 cent/litre is roughly 435 million so if we subtract 21million for levies we'll get 414 million. realistically it should be easy to make up 414 million in savings in one year but how do you make the savings in the following years? just to clarify im not opposed to increased efficiency across our coops but it would be nice to see someone put a value on it
browned wrote: » Parents sold up and between us we bought a new farm. They provided 40% of the cash, I got a loan for the rest. Oad was probably in the pipeline Down the line as it's a one man system, parents fully retired, so the thought of calving down 110 on my own wasn't appealing to me. The downturn is a bonus as the conversion costs are reduces at lower prices.
Farmer Ed wrote: » I'm not disagreeing with you at all. Yes higher solids will give you a higher price per litre. If the amount of litres is too small it may not give you the highest amount of kgs of solid produced per cow. But each to his own and if you can run a profitable operation more luck to you. There's lots of ways of skinning a cat. The fact still remains milk of 3.6f and 3.3p would have made the equivalent of 63c per litre in today's money, back 27 years ago. The fact is in real terms the price paid to farmers has been constantly in decline. Your answer to that is to milk the cow's once a day. And you may well have a point if we could get everyone to do it, maybe it would seriously curtail the overproduction of milk that our processors seem to have no use for other than turn it in powder.
browned wrote: » Mild yield is running the same as it was last year. Solids are higher and as a result milk price is higher. Stop avoiding the question ed. you claim there loads of savings to be made at coop level that can boost the price of milk paid to farmer. I agree with you on the point but can you please list the savings. Mandatory Levies total 21m a year or a savings of 0.371cent/litre for each farmer.
fepper wrote: » <br /> <br /> Kerry plc are saying its honoured its leading price,the 0.6l is a hardship payment due to continuing low milk prices
Buford T. Justice V wrote: » Relief milking, off farm income sorted :pac:
browned wrote: » relief labour on dairy farms, Say at busy times. Id often pay a neighbour to help out when I'm bolusing, milk recording or vaccinating the herd. Could easily be an opportunity there especially in within a discussion group.
darragh_haven wrote: » Of the OADers that you know, do they all milk early in the morning? Any ine in the middle of the day or evening. I cant see any reason to milk anytime but early in the morning, but i could be missing something
Farmer Ed wrote: » In all fairness the bit that is itemised on the milk statement is hardly the full picture. You don't see the wages of the CEO or how much he had to pay his external advisers itemised on the milk statement. And you certainly don't see how much per litre it is costing you if that advice turns out to be crap. Then you have the states agricultural budget. How much of that gets swallowed up by quangos and never benefits farmers? The itemised levy's on your milk statement are just the tip of the iceberg. You don't nessacerily need to be able to put an exact figure on what is missing, before you can say your being robbed. I'm very impressed that your milk is making more money this year than last year. What it means is you have made a remarkable increase in performance but very little bonus for doing so. The fact is your basic salary is still reduced. I would like to see some of our agri executives and board members take a leaf out of your book.
browned wrote: » I honestly don't know. I would assume they all milk in the morning to take advantage of night rate cooling. I say if one was milking oad purely as a lifestyle choice 10am milkings would be appealing.
whelan2 wrote: » Had a look at my milk statement from April 2015 , I am down nearly 8k in my cheque this year :eek:
visatorro wrote: » How many units browned if you don't mind me asking.? How much ration are you feeding?
Farmer Ed wrote: » I'm very impressed that your milk is making more money this year than last year. What it means is you have made a remarkable increase in performance but very little bonus for doing so. The fact is your basic salary is still reduced. I would like to see some of our agri executives and board members take a leaf out of your book.
browned wrote: » My volume of milk is roughly the same as last year and my solids are giving me a better milk price so in theory my income is increased. My costs have decreased and my work hour have also decreased. How has my basic salary decreased as a result?
browned wrote: » A ceo on say €500,000 is costing me 0.00009c/l how many do you suggest culling to take us from 23c/l to the 63c/l you think we should be getting?
whelan2 wrote: » Am interested do you miss milking in the evenings?
Farmer Ed wrote: » Again the €500k is just the tip of the iceberg. When that ceo gets so comfortable in his own skin that he can be assured of even bigger bonus if he goes and squanders hundreds of millions of farmers money and he leads farmers in to a financial ambush. The I'm afraid your figure will increase. If general Custard was an Irish ceo. He probably would get a nice bonus for leading his troops in to the battle of little big horn.
