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

mf240 · 25-05-2016 07:40PM

Buford T. Justice V wrote: »

That's if they survive being fed as calves.

They are absolute ************* ***** ******* to feed as calves.

I banned the AI man from even coming into the yard if he had Brown Swiss straws in his tank in case he got one mixed up with my straws.

Sweet mother of Christ, I'm getting flashbacks now:(

You wouldn't be a fan so.

Did you end up lying on a couch telling a physiatrist about them!

What are they like as cows?

Buford T. Justice XIX · 25-05-2016 07:44PM

mf240 wrote: »

You wouldn't be a fan so.

Did you end up lying on a couch telling a physiatrist about them!

What are they like as cows?

By all accounts, quiet and easily managed.

One lad I know has a few milking and he likes them but he doesn't use many straws of them which tell a tale in itself.

Maybe I just picked two bulls with bad vigour or something but life is too short and I'm kinda attached to the patch of hair I have left.

kowtow · 26-05-2016 07:12AM

mf240 wrote:

Have you looked at brown swiss or montys.?

mf240 wrote:

The brown swiss are supposed to produce ideal milk for cheese.

Had a lot of brown swiss around me in Switzerland, I like them but to me they would look odd here.. and without bells.

Keep being tempted by monties but never took the plunge to buy any, some people don't like their temper but you do get more cheese from their milk.

Have a rotbunt and a little red minx to fill the diversity quota for now... There's also some sense in not getting caught up in a specialist breed in Ireland.. at least with b+w the bloodlines are all here and plenty of stock to choose from.

Dawggone · 26-05-2016 07:31AM

I was at a Coop meeting last night and the top table were emphatic about the huge stocks of powder being built up in storage. Ireland was mentioned quite a lot actually.
The consensus was that Brussels needs to incinerate that powder and remove intervention immediately.
I thought that wasn't a bad idea.

If intervention is removed what price will milk be in Ireland?
I, for one, would be all for the removal of intervention. How come there's no intervention for grains or meat?

visatorro · 26-05-2016 07:54AM

whelan2 wrote: »

Long day here hoofcare man here and debudded all calves. He was well impressed with my mortellaro programme, which involves a 2 litre plastic bottle and the top from a sippy water bottle and linocin powder, all mortellaro is dead:) he said people are moving away from foot baths as it spreads it more so than cures it.

Are you spraying hoofs in the parlour? All the cows or just ones showing symptoms?

Milked out · 26-05-2016 08:33AM

Dawggone wrote: »

I was at a Coop meeting last night and the top table were emphatic about the huge stocks of powder being built up in storage. Ireland was mentioned quite a lot actually.
The consensus was that Brussels needs to incinerate that powder and remove intervention immediately.
I thought that wasn't a bad idea.

If intervention is removed what price will milk be in Ireland?
I, for one, would be all for the removal of intervention. How come there's no intervention for grains or meat?

Could do a new Zealand on it, altho seen as Europe has a flatter supply curve it will effect Europe too much. Dump all intervention product on to the market at the start of nz season

whelan2 · 26-05-2016 08:33AM

visatorro wrote: »

Are you spraying hoofs in the parlour? All the cows or just ones showing symptoms?

Just the ones with symptoms, the sippy top is better than a spray, wash them off first when they come in to parlour splash the stuff on and then milk them, that way it has about 10 minutes on the hoof clean before they go out. Do it for 6 milkings, although hoofcare man said 4-5 might be enough. Hate setting up footbath

Dawggone · 26-05-2016 09:19AM

Milked out wrote: »

Could do a new Zealand on it, altho seen as Europe has a flatter supply curve it will effect Europe too much. Dump all intervention product on to the market at the start of nz season

Ah no,no!
Most of Europe supply ayr.
You'd be hitting the majority of dairy farmers hard.

I meant to ask last night what is the storage life of milk powder? I presume it's fairly perishable.

Milked out · 26-05-2016 09:27AM

Shir we'd be fine here near the end of our season. The kiwis be knocked out and away we go the following year

not sure on shelf life 2/ 3 months? That intervention price AFAIK doesn't account for logistical cost so the return to farmer would be 2 or 3 cent less than quoted, around 18c or so

mahoney_j · 26-05-2016 09:29AM

Dawggone wrote: »

Ah no,no!
Most of Europe supply ayr.
You'd be hitting the majority of dairy farmers hard.

I meant to ask last night what is the storage life of milk powder? I presume it's fairly perishable.

I think it's 16 months

White Clover · 26-05-2016 09:32AM

whelan2 wrote: »

Just the ones with symptoms, the sippy top is better than a spray, wash them off first when they come in to parlour splash the stuff on and then milk them, that way it has about 10 minutes on the hoof clean before they go out. Do it for 6 milkings, although hoofcare man said 4-5 might be enough. Hate setting up footbath

Would they be kicking much / sting them after that Whelan?

whelan2 · 26-05-2016 09:48AM

White Clover wrote: »

Would they be kicking much / sting them after that Whelan?

No. They were fine.

leg wax · 26-05-2016 10:06AM

i would love to see what happened in the past when the powder started to go out of intervention how long did it take to clear and how long afterwards did it then take for the price to rise for the farmer,

freedominacup · 26-05-2016 10:24AM

leg wax wrote: »

i would love to see what happened in the past when the powder started to go out of intervention how long did it take to clear and how long afterwards did it then take for the price to rise for the farmer,

At a certain price point milk ingredients get pushed out of certain processed foods by veg alternatives. It's a relative thing. When this happens it tears the hole out of demand. Until buyers see value in dairy products for these foods we will have an overhang. A lot of the drop in demand is not so much that the demand has gone away more that it is being satisfied by other product.

keep going · 26-05-2016 10:29AM

browned wrote: »

Yeah bought the whole farm. 'Twas a shame 50 acres of the original farm was planted as I reclaimed poorer ground than that planted. Not to worry If I'm around Youll find me chilling in the hammock

Although im promising myself we ll go for a spin over to that is it 3 castles place that deep had photos of , is that near you

Water John · 26-05-2016 10:42AM

I think the shelf life of powder has been extended by the new packing system with inert gas. Was 6 to 12 months. i think they can now go to 24 months with SMP. WMP shorter life.

Yes, the stored product should be removed from human food chain. Can it be used as cattle feed? Sorry grain guys.
At worst, as you say Dawg, incinerate it. Convert to electricity. I suppose it would qualify as renewable energy.
That should be traded off with some voluntary national restraint on over production. Nobody has a divine right to produce as much of anything as they want and expect some one else to ensure it pays them to do so.
Am I talking of production rights on each farm? May be.
Quota should have been eased gradually, with an assessment at the end of each year. Gradual build up of production over time, depending on market.

kowtow · 26-05-2016 11:23AM

Water John wrote: »

Quota should have been eased gradually, with an assessment at the end of each year. Gradual build up of production over time, depending on market.

It's difficult to say for sure but the market structure man in me says that wouldn't actually make a difference.

The key to this is the understanding of "marginal milk" - surplus milk which must be stored in order to be traded long distances to find a market. At one time, the stores of marginal milk were largely butter and factory cheese, and these performed the price correction function by filling up and rapidly lowering the price for surplus milk so that farmers got the message. In recent years powder has taken on this role.

Cheese had the advantage of global consumption - i.e. factory cheese was consumed at one level or another in virtually every country where fresh dairy products were consumed, including producing countries. It might not be the top of the range, but people consume factory cheese because they want to, at a certain economic price point.

The underlying question here is to what extent milk powder (leaving aside it's more esoteric forms, baby formula, whey drinks et. al. - and the quantities which will always be used in manufacture) is really a commodity in it's own right, and to what extent it is simply a value store.

The difference is important, because while the former can be driven by it's own demand, constrained by supply and price, the latter tends to be driven by supply and constrained only by demand (at any price). You couldn't give it away.

That's why we are talking semi seriously about incinerating it or feeding it to animals, because we are unwilling to accept that there is no demand.

It is possible, perhaps, that the "powder boom" upon which New Zealand - and now Ireland - has built a business plan was a temporary aberration, making it appear that a product which has always been used to dump a certain quantity of surplus production was actually something which consumers worldwide wanted to buy in it's own right.

I could well be completely wrong on this score, but that is the feeling I get from the structure of this market.

Water John · 26-05-2016 01:41PM

I think you mat be very correct there, Kowtow. MP in any form isn't really a product you want to be stuck with.
Most of our 'surplus' milk has been put into it, ie most inc production, post quota.
Grand for Big Phil to blame the farmer. But the message the farmer got from the processors was, 'you produce it and let us look after the sales'. They even did that before quota abolition with that bill now hanging over farmers.

Above all, Minister cheer led it, with his 2020 and 2025. Great new dawn!!!

whelan2 · 26-05-2016 01:57PM

Water John wrote: »

I think you mat be very correct there, Kowtow. MP in any form isn't really a product you want to be stuck with.
Most of our 'surplus' milk has been put into it, ie most inc production, post quota.
Grand for Big Phil to blame the farmer. But the message the farmer got from the processors was, 'you produce it and let us look after the sales'. They even did that before quota abolition with that bill now hanging over farmers.

Above all, Minister cheer led it, with his 2020 and 2025. Great new dawn!!!

It wasn't just processors. Teagasc blew it up too. I remember our discussion group being brought in to Teagasc and they got us to work out how many we could milk with the amount of land available to us. My figure was 260 cows. 260 would never work here with heavy land. How could they put out a one figure suits all when there are so many variants at farm level

kowtow · 26-05-2016 02:59PM

whelan2 wrote:

It wasn't just processors. Teagasc blew it up too. I remember our discussion group being brought in to Teagasc and they got us to work out how many we could milk with the amount of land available to us. My figure was 260 cows. 260 would never work here with heavy land. How could they put out a one figure suits all when there are so many variants at farm level

One thing that did strike me this morning was how did we get here in the first place?

When quota was introduced in Europe? What was it based on? How did Ireland end up with so many dairy farms?... I know we were huge butter exporters historically... perhaps that's part of it.... but one way or another we got the quota to produce 10, 20 times what we consume. If I am wrong on this someone please put me right as I was a long way away when quota came about!

But if not.. and if our quota was larger relative to consumption than other EU nations should we in fact be blaming quota not for restricting us, but for removing competition from other EU producers and creating a bloated export dependent concentration of dairy farms and processors in Ireland which.. with the removal of quota.. was likely to become a liability?

Water John · 26-05-2016 03:12PM

Well in a number of agricultural areas we produced a lot more than we consumed domestically. Nothing wrong with that. We mainly helped feed the industrial cities in the UK. This was esp through supplies store cattle to to England and Scotland.
Before that in the late 1700's we supplied the world, esp English colonies with butter. Mainly from Cork port.
We have form and history in supplying food to other countries.

The future probably needs a fresh analysis.

alps · 26-05-2016 03:24PM

kowtow wrote: »

One thing that did strike me this morning was how did we get here in the first place?

When quota was introduced in Europe? What was it based on? How did Ireland end up with so many dairy farms?... I know we were huge butter exporters historically... perhaps that's part of it.... but one way or another we got the quota to produce 10, 20 times what we consume. If I am wrong on this someone please put me right as I was a long way away when quota came about!

But if not.. and if our quota was larger relative to consumption than other EU nations should we in fact be blaming quota not for restricting us, but for removing competition from other EU producers and creating a bloated export dependent concentration of dairy farms and processors in Ireland which.. with the removal of quota.. was likely to become a liability?

Not au fait with the details, but quotas were introduced in 1983 when overproduction in the EEC was stored in intervention stores just like today. The physical volume and the cost of intervention and the continuance of production was countered by imposing a production quota on all countries.
It was a retrospective quota based on a previous years supply and at that previous years butterfat reference.
Dairy output was developing strongly in Ireland so the retrospective quota hit many farmers very hard. Also the butterfat reference was very low...Could have been down around 3.58. There was a reduction in quota again some time later.
Later again, many farmers were paid a lump sum to surrender quota in a further bid to reduce output....

History repeats...

yosemitesam1 · 26-05-2016 03:33PM

alps wrote: »

Not au fait with the details, but quotas were introduced in 1983 when overproduction in the EEC was stored in intervention stores just like today. The physical volume and the cost of intervention and the continuance of production was countered by imposing a production quota on all countries.
It was a retrospective quota based on a previous years supply and at that previous years butterfat reference.
Dairy output was developing strongly in Ireland so the retrospective quota hit many farmers very hard. Also the butterfat reference was very low...Could have been down around 3.58. There was a reduction in quota again some time later.
Later again, many farmers were paid a lump sum to surrender quota in a further bid to reduce output....

History repeats...

Remember reading somewhere that irelands dairy expansion before quota was much faster than any of the expansion in nz or brazil. Think it was in the journal

Edit. Think this was it but dont have a subscription
http://www.farmersjournal.ie/a-dairy-revolution-in-brazil-150090

Water John · 26-05-2016 03:38PM

Yeah Sam, expanded quite a lot through the 70's after EEC membership. There was a lot more potential for expansion after 1983 but quota put a stop to that.
If we had another 10 years at that time, we would have built serious capacity.

Timmaay · 26-05-2016 05:10PM

The bare 3wks AI done here, and I've let the bull on in with the cows. 80% served so far, not fantastic by most spring lads standards however the highest we have ever had it here. At least 4 missed heats also, paint not rubbed off fully and I jsut wasn't sure when they got rubbed off. Compact calving is good but without the autumn calvers the late spring calvers do a nice job to fill my January liquid quota. Will be roughly a 2k AI bill, will be interesting to see how many heifers I end up with next year! I'll be keeping an eye on the tailpaint for the next 3 weeks still, and will serve again if there are a flood of cows bulling and the bull becomes under pressure!

Dawggone · 26-05-2016 07:22PM

freedominacup wrote: »

At a certain price point milk ingredients get pushed out of certain processed foods by veg alternatives. It's a relative thing. When this happens it tears the hole out of demand. Until buyers see value in dairy products for these foods we will have an overhang. A lot of the drop in demand is not so much that the demand has gone away more that it is being satisfied by other product.

Any idea of those products Free?

Dawggone · 26-05-2016 08:00PM

kowtow wrote: »

One thing that did strike me this morning was how did we get here in the first place?

and if our quota was larger relative to consumption than other EU nations should we in fact be blaming quota not for restricting us, but for removing competition from other EU producers and creating a bloated export dependent concentration of dairy farms and processors in Ireland which.. with the removal of quota.. was likely to become a liability?

Interesting perspective.

My tuppence worth is that quota protected the farmer from himself. I'm including sugar beet in this.

Technology always seems to be ahead of consumption/demand.
The biggest lie ever told is that the growing world population will starve because farmland won't be able to produce enough food. Go back through history...most famines were caused by politics.

Overproduction in the 70s and early 80s led to quotas. Then 30yrs later quotas get removed and back to square one.

The biggest fcuk up with quota in Ireland was when they were allowed to become private property. The farmer suddenly 'owned' his protection/market. Worse than being allowed to own quota, they were allowed to trade this new protection and realize an asset whenever they felt like it.
Yumeee!

If national Gov or Brussels held control of quota they could have evened out the eventual inequalities.

If you could roll back to say '95 or whatever, would ye be happier than facing, without protection, the possibility of a few years low milk prices?

Just to remind you that Biddy (former poster here:)) averaged 27.7cpl in '09....that was the catastrophic year that every dairy farmer decided that quota just *had* to go!

Milked out · 26-05-2016 08:05PM

Dawggone wrote: »

kowtow wrote: »

One thing that did strike me this morning was how did we get here in the first place?

and if our quota was larger relative to consumption than other EU nations should we in fact be blaming quota not for restricting us, but for removing competition from other EU producers and creating a bloated export dependent concentration of dairy farms and processors in Ireland which.. with the removal of quota.. was likely to become a liability?

Interesting perspective.

My tuppence worth is that quota protected the farmer from himself. I'm including sugar beet in this.

Technology always seems to be ahead of consumption/demand.
The biggest lie ever told is that the growing world population will starve because farmland won't be able to produce enough food. Go back through history...most famines were caused by politics.

Overproduction in the 70s and early 80s led to quotas. Then 30yrs later quotas get removed and back to square one.

The biggest fcuk up with quota in Ireland was when they were allowed to become private property. The farmer suddenly 'owned' his protection/market. Worse than being allowed to own quota, they were allowed to trade this new protection and realize an asset whenever they felt like it.
Yumeee!

If national Gov or Brussels held control of quota they could have evened out the eventual inequalities.

If you could roll back to say '95 or whatever, would ye be happier than facing, without protection, the possibility of a few years low milk prices?

Just to remind you that Biddy (former poster here:)) averaged 27.7cpl in '09....that was the catastrophic year that every dairy farmer decided that quota just *had* to go!

Ah but biddy had a liquid contract I believe. The average down here for the year received, not base, was 23. And I remember buying bales to feed in july

Dawggone · 26-05-2016 08:24PM

Milked out wrote: »

Ah but biddy had a liquid contract I believe. The average down here for the year received, not base, was 23. And I remember buying bales to feed in july

I've a few hundred surplus bales...buy now while prices are low!
Don't get caught again.

Markcheese · 26-05-2016 09:36PM

Would the price of milk be more or less the same as it is if quotas were still in force... largely, the europeans are bit players on the world traded market for milk... (I know the difference between surplus quantities traded (high prices) and deficit quantities traded (low prices) can be miniscule) , but quota really had to go ... poor prices have been here before.. its a cyclical business... (oil hit 50 dollars a barrel today, hits the yanks and the europeans,)

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

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