Mass exodus to Dairying !!!

Bullocks wrote: »

If I was to go back milking just having my own company would be a huge bonus.
Cows are way easier talk to than some of the dicks walking this earth these days!

When working in an office you cant take the odd wanker to the factory.

cosatron wrote: »

What allot of lads don’t understand is dairy farming is a way of life and if you don’t enjoy everything involved with dairy farming, your wasting your time

Noticed that with a couple of lads i do work for they are not able for the work pressure they are after putting thereselves in for, its like anything if you do not enjoy it puts family, buisness unbearable.

einn32 wrote: »

I know around my home place there is one man milking 50 cows on 100 acres of tough land in a wet year and does all his own machinery work and repairs. In his 50's. Another lad is milking 80 cows with his brother in their 50's. He probably has close to 200 acres. They just do the milking really now and said to me once he stopped investing a few years ago. He is in his 50's too. Then another guy is working full time and his parents milk for him during the week. He put a lot of money in to the farm. He is probably in his 40's milking 100 cows maybe. The rest is all minimal stocked beef farms. There is a few big operations further away but I don't know anyone who has converted to dairy. In fact it has mostly been people who milked for years selling out and going to minimal stocked beef.

A little bit away from me is a lad taking over the father place. He is mid twenties,father in early seventies. They have about 250 acres about 150 near enough the parlour. At present they milk 100ish cows and a beef operation. Cows milking about 5500 litres

Really low cost operation silage cut early June, all baled and hauled by themselves slurry as well. Young lad went to Teagasc advised up cow numbers, reseed, cut silage mid may bla bla bla.

Another farmer looked at the place his advice was soil test farm and get fertility right. Spray all grass land for weeds yearly over next 2-3 years. Start stitching some of the pastures. Get first cut silage date back to before 22-25th May Improve cow genetics of cows to get to 6000 litres/cow and increase F&P as well. Get a contractor to spread slurry and do silage. Stick with bales if they like and do haulage only themselves by getting a 10 bale carrier rather than flat trailers

On the beef side they were finished heifers at 18-20 months and cull cows off grass on an out farm and finishing bullocks out of the shed. His advice was change to a good quality AA bull with the aim to kill nearly all bullocks and heifers off grass at 18-20 months

Look at the second farmers advice output will increase by 200/ cow and it may reduce costs by 50-70/ cow in the dairy operation. Beef operation will be streamlined and returns will be much the same as at present or a tad better. He plan also takes a lot if labour out of the enterprise as well as being a fairly simple low cost upscaling of it

Since I've decided to take the leap into dairy a lot of friends in the Midlands are changing who were beef men to the core. A lot of 70-100 cow units will start. For me it was my only option or lease out the farm.

Bass Reeves wrote: »

A little bit away from me is a lad taking over the father place. He is mid twenties,father in early seventies. They have about 250 acres about 150 near enough the parlour. At present they milk 100ish cows and a beef operation. Cows milking about 5500 litres

Really low cost operation silage cut early June, all baled and hauled by themselves slurry as well. Young lad went to Teagasc advised up cow numbers, reseed, cut silage mid may bla bla bla.

Another farmer looked at the place his advice was soil test farm and get fertility right. Spray all grass land for weeds yearly over next 2-3 years. Start stitching some of the pastures. Get first cut silage date back to before 22-25th May Improve cow genetics of cows to get to 6000 litres/cow and increase F&P as well. Get a contractor to spread slurry and do silage. Stick with bales if they like and do haulage only themselves by getting a 10 bale carrier rather than flat trailers

On the beef side they were finished heifers at 18-20 months and cull cows off grass on an out farm and finishing bullocks out of the shed. His advice was change to a good quality AA bull with the aim to kill nearly all bullocks and heifers off grass at 18-20 months

Look at the second farmers advice output will increase by 200/ cow and it may reduce costs by 50-70/ cow in the dairy operation. Beef operation will be streamlined and returns will be much the same as at present or a tad better. He plan also takes a lot if labour out of the enterprise as well as being a fairly simple low cost upscaling of it

We've been members of teagasc a long time and the advice was never to increase cow numbers.
It was always to get the core business /basics right first.
I've never heard an advisor just blatantly say up cow numbers

Fresh reseeds will do as much for increasing milk yield as improving breeding like you suggested to the lad

FarmerDougal wrote: »

We're u not happy with the sheep? You had all fenced and a handling yard? Same position here with sheep and cattle thought about cows but fragmented farm and between the investment needed and the labour involved i put it on ice,

Yeah it was fenced and handling facilities were there. The sheds needed to be redone and there wasn't enough of an income for myself and my parents. Also the enjoyment of working with sheep was gone. Neither myself or parents weren't interested in them anymore.

Timmaay wrote: »

It would be interesting to take all the dairy farmers in each county and compare their profitability, hours worked etc if they are teagasc/dg members or not. You certainly have plenty of lads who are doing a fine job without the influence of teagasc, and productive criticism of the teagasc model is useful in the grand scale, but across the board I could nearly guarantee going the lads who are in teagasc and a dg will be better off on average.

Most people started by being educated by teagasc and then with experience you move on,
There's not a lot happening in sheep/beef production so there's a level where you learn more in discussion groups from the experience of others in the group than from the facilitator.
There's cute hoors out there too that boast about never touching teagasc or the journal, Their farm sometimes reflects their attitude. Some farmers have a natural ability (you don't need to be a genius to farm) but there's some that really need the help and would benefit hugely from being in a group with good operators. One of those cute hoors came to me one day telling me that he forgot to send in his SFP application, It was lovely to tell him than if he bought the journal or in teagasc dg he wouldn't have forgot

davidk1394 wrote: »

Yeah it was fenced and handling facilities were there. The sheds needed to be redone and there wasn't enough of an income for myself and my parents. Also the enjoyment of working with sheep was gone. Neither myself or parents weren't interested in them anymore.

Fair play for making the switch best of luck to ya

Gods Gift wrote: »

You could have rented it for 10 yrs tax free instead of looking at cows tits for the rest of your days.

Yes I could and get well paid to sit down and enjoy my free time but I don't want too. I want to build on what my parents gave me. I want to farm because I love it. I don't want a 9 to 5 job.

Speak about Teagasc I think the new entrants to dairying course is a good course to join, you pick up handy bits of information, mainly off other farmers instead of the advisor. I think teagasc have this idea of pushing farms to the last. That isn't my style I want to start with a manageable number and go to my target number over a period of 5 years not 5 months.

Mortelaro wrote: »

well there was a lad in carnew mart selling 5 year old 950 kg Hereford bullocks for over 2000 euros each and not a moutfull of meal gone into them

Shur where would you be going milking cows

Stick at the cattle..

5 years is a long time to be waiting for a pay check

Bass Reeves wrote: »

You still have expenses, grass costs money to grow and silage costs extra to make. If you feed a barley/ maize/ hulls mix at 220/ton 300 kgs costs 44euro. Never feed ration to stores. 340 kg DW hex bullock O+ at sub 30 months makes 1350 euro at present. So 650 euro to carry him 3 extra years fortune to be made there. At 950 kgs LW he should definitely be an R.

A neighbour is breeding and feeding Wagyus now and getting €6/kg so getting €2000 for 340 kg

patsy_mccabe wrote: »

Would you get wagyu to that weight?

Not pure.....
Wagyus out of lim and angus cows

wrangler wrote: »

A neighbour is breeding and feeding Wagyus now and getting €6/kg so getting €2000 for 340 kg

It grand as long as it works for him. However we have been down this road with deer, Ostrich, Llamas and buffalo. It great if you get in early and make money from producing breeding stock as well. But lots of lads lost there shirts following the next fad that came along