Dairy farming

Imagine is right it almost sounds too good to be true ! Not far away from that system because of labour ? On the other side of it then what farmer is going to calve dose,vaccinate train them to the parlour and then sell them to you ? Maybe there is
 
Tim818 said:
Fantastic point, and the reason why I have rarely ever regreted buying in. I like breeding myown replacements, but our herd is from a liquid milk Ayr background, and there is simply no way my replacements can beat the replacements from a chap down the country who spent the last 30yrs+ breeding for fertility fertility fertility. If I ended up in the morning with a serious labour shortage, then I'd have no problem at all operating a pure flying herd, do a deal with any good dairyfarmer to buy 20 of his Incalf heifers every Jan, use nothing but stock easy calving bulls with the cows and all calves go out the gate at 10days old.
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Breeding was the one area I knew I was going to fall down so just decided against it. We had to buy the initial herd, found 3 good herds, looked at no figures, just at their herd performance, worked out well. Just go back to one of them before calving and buy yearlings from him. It suits him as he wants to make a bit of space before calving and its a nice cheque to get that time of year. Wouldn't buy freshly calved, you're getting into the realms of dealers then. On our side all the calves are treated the same and are worth more from a beef point of view. Cuts down on the labour especially that period where you are breeding and still feeding calves.
If you buy 15, one won't be in calf, maybe another won't end up milking for long but its no different to rearing your own.
Atm here the calves are on grass only for 3 weeks and the in calf heifers are in with our own beef heifers at grass so we are down to 3 groups including cows and no meal feeding so just have to move wires etc.
Wouldn't be a big fan of the minimal machinery approach, if the milk price dropped you would be glad to have your own gear, do every thing here other than silage and hedgecutting, we do a bit of tillage as well, it would be different if there was only one person going around.
 
It makes alot of sense what ye are saying but is a lad going to put the same time and effort into a beef calve as a fresian heifer calf like what i am saying is you must still give the cow minerals and the calf good beastings ..
How does the heifer rearing compare to this system ?
 
I would imagine a big thing with buying in heifers in your situation is if you wanted to retain control of breeding and rearing is to only do it for a year or two, give yourself some headspace to deal with other issues and then when everything else is more manageable you can choose to resume breeding your own replacements.
 
podge 23 said:
It makes alot of sense what ye are saying but is a lad going to put the same time and effort into a beef calve as a fresian heifer calf like what i am saying is you must still give the cow minerals and the calf good beastings ..
How does the heifer rearing compare to this system ?
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I don't get what your point is. Maybe that is the reason we see so many 3 year old 'heifers' weighing under 400 kg knocking around marts. If someone keeps their calves why wouldn't you look after them properly?
 
There are too many replacement heifers out there, simple as is, this is because in general dairyfarmers are happy enough to knock out extra heifers than they need, in particular if they have the extra land outside of their milking block then they are OK with hanging onto more heifers over what they will need, they justify this because its almost no extra labour to run a group of say 60 replacements than 30, it let's them have the pick of the best 30 out of that 60 (the earlest calving, biggest, highest ebi or whatever). And when they sell the excess at say 1300e they are covering their costs.

The way I see it, the whole above can be used to your advantage if you currently have too much of a workload, with say too many parcels of outside rented land, and a reasonable average herd youself. In this case I think its nearly a no brainer to consider doing a deal with a good dairyfarmer to buy replacement heifers off him, stop breeding yourown, and give up renting one of them outblocks, in particular if its a few miles away. Its a win win for you in that you save time in both looking after the heifers, and bollixing about travelling to and from the out block.
 
Of course it is a no brainer if you can buy calved heifers for €1300 but the reality is all these heifers are chancy .I have gone down that route but their is fair share of rubbish heifers .After paying €1300 for a dud ,you bring her home and find out a goat would have more milk or she some other problem,you then have the hit of off loading her for €300.Not too much money or time will be spared by buying calved heifers anyway
 
6600 what i am saying is you have to do every cow with rotavirus vaccine and look after them and there calf well,so is it a waste then not breeding your own recplaments after putting so much time and effort into them as calves espically ? Like obuvisouly every 1 will look after the beef calf just as good but you will be selling them at some point .
 
dstig said:
Look lad it doesn't matter if you buy in or breed your own unless you sort out your time management ie milk early in the morning and milk early in the evening, your only going to make hard work of everything you do and end up hating your job which I think is starting to happen
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Neighbour came in on a local lad still in the parlour at 10am, are you finishing early for today he quipped...:laugh:
 
Grassnslurry said:
Just as i started reading this thread im in a yard agitating slurry and at 8.55 cows coming in, lads make the day very long on themselves when they can't get out of bed in the morning
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I know what you mean but a 12hr day is 12hrs whether you start at 5am or 8am, just feels longer because you have no time for socialising.
 
Paw said:
I know what you mean but a 12hr day is 12hrs whether you start at 5am or 8am, just feels longer because you have no time for socialising.
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And just because you start at 8am doesn't mean you have to do a 12hr day ha, I'll be finished up for 6pm tonight. 9 and 15hr milkings here usually, I'd consider OAD but I can't afford to let myself get any lazier.
 
podge 23 said:
Thats a great piece of usefull info bagenal !
Right good point bog man so here it is
Get up at half 7 we have the breakfast beforehand so usally milking for around half 8 ,milking takes between two and two and a half hours this time of year that's all in now from start to finish washing etc. So that takes us up to 11 o cock we have to wash down yard with tank and tractor every second day then feed calves and check maiden heifers when this is done it usually is around 12 and we have the dinner then around quarter past/half 12. Onto after dinner so bout half 1 i go topping for about 3.5 hours so roughly its 5 when i finish or the same time spplies with any other job , we have the supper then around 5.15/5.30 so its 5.50 somethimes earlier when going out for cows and about half 6.15/6.30 when we start milking so give or take its usually 8.30/9.00 when we finish cows. There can often be a hour again onto this if at bales or silsge slurry etc .
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Tis little wonder you be burnt out. Is there a reason you milk so late. We have cows back in the field before you start
 
lads go easy here or you,ll have every teacher and civil servant throwing up their jobs and going milking cows, average wages 85k, your own boss , wonderful lifestyle, no commuting, done in time for the school run, loved by all your fellow agrarians and 2 months off every winter, sure butlins would have nothing on us :yes:
 
humungus said:
lads go easy here or you,ll have every teacher and civil servant throwing up their jobs and going milking cows, average wages 85k, your own boss , wonderful lifestyle, no commuting, done in time for the school run, loved by all your fellow agrarians and 2 months off every winter, sure butlins would have nothing on us :yes:
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AFAIK there's a school teacher in South Sligo milking with a robot.
 
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