Grass on the stem

Tippcon said:
Is 15 bales to the acre not a hell of a crop to be expecting for 2nd cut? What kind of fertiliser are you talking about?
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Put me down for a couple of tons of it , whatever it is.

Quare name , but great stuff.

6 or 7 bales would be average enough for a 2nd cut , maybe 7 , would it not ?
 
Tippcon said:
Is 15 bales to the acre not a hell of a crop to be expecting for 2nd cut? What kind of fertiliser are you talking about?
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Granular. ..not that liquid stuff anyway.
Sorry cudnt help myself.
Be expecting around that sort of number anyway .I'd be very disappointed with 10 bales acre crop .
Any paddocks gone a bit strong would yield 5 bale acre
 
legsandland said:
Ye that's the sort of figures I'd be happy with .€3 for fert €11.50 mow bale n wrap Inc extra plastic €2 for drawing and stacking =€16.50 +€5 for the grass =€21.50 /bale
This is old style meadow . When it's baled dry it comes out smelling like tobacco and auld lads will say sure wouldnt u ate it urself but cattle eating this alone for the winter will come out a bit bigger but the same weight .
I'm not tryin to screw anyone but when a farmer thinks a bale is worth €25 it's hard to tell him his grass inside is only worth a fiver . Says a lot about the cost of baled silage .
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The stuff we bough is 4 year old clean grass but hungry ground so I put out 3X0-7-30 1st cut and 24-2.5-10 2nd cut. I was happy enough and so was the land owner, it gets me out of a hole and 1 can't over look the future.
 
Another way of looking at it would be how much would this land make without entitlements?

Let's say 90/acre and it would be tied up for two months, so that's 15/acre. You could argue closer to 20/acre as it won't do much for two of the 12 months.

If you can guarantee or near guarantee no rodent damage to the bales, the storage has to be worth a token payment too.
 
legsandland said:
Granular. ..not that liquid stuff anyway.
Sorry cudnt help myself.
Be expecting around that sort of number anyway .I'd be very disappointed with 10 bales acre crop .
Any paddocks gone a bit strong would yield 5 bale acre
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Cut dog heavy first cut last week and it averaged 12 fusion bales per acre.
 
Mf240 said:
If I told a lad I'd take silage of him then I'd take it and pay up. Might is a bit Irish .
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If you didn't , when your cattle were feeling a bit puckish next February , I know where he would tell you to go. Quite rightly so to.

Give E8 a bale , and land owner puts out 2 bags 24-2.5-10 acre. Clean meadow , but 40 yrs since the plough.
 
Blackwater boy said:
How would you go about buying wholecrop? Say a standing crop of winter barley? No one seems to have an ideal way or how would you value it per acre?
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Estimate the yield, green price per ton for the grain and the value of the straw on the flat. Buyer pays for harvesting.
 
ithastopay said:
Estimate the yield, green price per ton for the grain and the value of the straw on the flat. Buyer pays for harvesting.
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A dairy man asked me last week about a field of winter barley Beside him that I was looking at for man this year, I told him all going to plan it will do 4.25T and €100 an acre for the straw. I told him €700 an acre and he cuts it. He taught not a hope.
 
Another bit of a notion, fairly big dairy area here, farmers with rented ground that's only grazed by heifers and can't be accessed by cows, seems to be a bit of an interest in zero grazers, would buying one be a total act of madness, there's nobody else with one in the area, I also have a 20ac block or grass rented it's getting tired and the owner wants to reseed it, a neighbor started milking but is limited to 45-50 cows I reckon he might be interested in buying in that grass which would allow him to increase his numbers, it would also mean I wouldn't be tiring out ground taking 3 cuts of silage from it anymore, might just have too much thinking time on a Sunday night.
 
Claas Grass said:
Another bit of a notion, fairly big dairy area here, farmers with rented ground that's only grazed by heifers and can't be accessed by cows, seems to be a bit of an interest in zero grazers, would buying one be a total act of madness, there's nobody else with one in the area, I also have a 20ac block or grass rented it's getting tired and the owner wants to reseed it, a neighbor started milking but is limited to 45-50 cows I reckon he might be interested in buying in that grass which would allow him to increase his numbers, it would also mean I wouldn't be tiring out ground taking 3 cuts of silage from it anymore, might just have too much thinking time on a Sunday night.
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There are 3 different lads local to me considering zero grazers at the moment. Two are dairy and one beef. You'd need to be flexible as regards availability and the time youre Willing to cut etc. But I wouldn't rule it out entirely
 
jay gatsby said:
There are 3 different lads local to me considering zero grazers at the moment. Two are dairy and one beef. You'd need to be flexible as regards availability and the time youre Willing to cut etc. But I wouldn't rule it out entirely
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At the moment we are 70% tillage and 30% cattle, I have nothing to do with the cattle so I'm fairly flexible anyway, if I was to supply grass I was kind of thinking that they would want it and the start and back end and there would be an opportunity for one cut of silage in between maybe, don't know as I'm as far removed from a cow man as you will get. I would want to be the first to get one as with anything when someone else moves first you are trailing behind.
 
Claas Grass said:
At the moment we are 70% tillage and 30% cattle, I have nothing to do with the cattle so I'm fairly flexible anyway, if I was to supply grass I was kind of thinking that they would want it and the start and back end and there would be an opportunity for one cut of silage in between maybe, don't know as I'm as far removed from a cow man as you will get. I would want to be the first to get one as with anything when someone else moves first you are trailing behind.
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The timings would be right although anyone I've seen at it seems to go nearly all year. Your other issue is one place might want a load in the am and the other for evening milking or whatever. You could end up with a tractor tied up on it all the time
 
How much does a zero grazer cost to buy, and how would you charge for the service? By the hour or the tonne or the load? Would potential customers baulk at €50/hr?
 
Claas Grass said:
Another bit of a notion, fairly big dairy area here, farmers with rented ground that's only grazed by heifers and can't be accessed by cows, seems to be a bit of an interest in zero grazers, would buying one be a total act of madness, there's nobody else with one in the area, I also have a 20ac block or grass rented it's getting tired and the owner wants to reseed it, a neighbor started milking but is limited to 45-50 cows I reckon he might be interested in buying in that grass which would allow him to increase his numbers, it would also mean I wouldn't be tiring out ground taking 3 cuts of silage from it anymore, might just have too much thinking time on a Sunday night.
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contracting zerograzing seems to me to be a pain of a job, I used have a contractor come and do it for a month to six weeks in spring and autumn. If I had to do the job myself there is no way I would have done it. Grazers are light tin boxes that seem to give allot of trouble. Only reason farmers think zg grass is great is because they are making shite silage. I never saw the exceptional performance that claimed, but it was a great way to acclimatize cattle to indoors or outdoors
 
Tippcon said:
How much does a zero grazer cost to buy, and how would you charge for the service? By the hour or the tonne or the load? Would potential customers baulk at €50/hr?
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30 to 35 k I think I heard mentioned for brand new but no idea of size or output. I think you'd want the 40 - €50 or something similar
 
Has there also been questions raised on here regarding the suitability of some of the machines for contracting use?
 
JohnBoy said:
Has there also been questions raised on here regarding the suitability of some of the machines for contracting use?
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I would reckon they would be in bits after a few years on the road, €12 a ton would be about the fair price. Front mower and forage wagon if going contracting would be the best. Pottinger do a machine that can be adapted nowadays. Nowadays I just consider it as another way to add cost and burn diesel
 
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