Greenfield Open Day

A lorry load of concrete does a lot of walling. 6 calves was too many in my opinion. We have lost 1 or 2 calves in recent years where the cow calved unexpectedly in the cubicles, I would beat myself up over it and learn from it. I think all the other criticism is blown out of proportion, we had to dig through a meter of snow to get to our parlour too, the cows had to walk through 3ft snow drift in the exit yard, we milked OAD until the snow left for fear of a cow slipping. Keeping the silage from being covered with snow was an issue.
 
bruceythom said:
A lorry load of concrete does a lot of walling. 6 calves was too many in my opinion. We have lost 1 or 2 calves in recent years where the cow calved unexpectedly in the cubicles, I would beat myself up over it and learn from it. I think all the other criticism is blown out of proportion, we had to dig through a meter of snow to get to our parlour too, the cows had to walk through 3ft snow drift in the exit yard, we milked OAD until the snow left for fear of a cow slipping. Keeping the silage from being covered with snow was an issue.
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nearly every farmer would beat themselves up over losing an animal but it does happen to even the most careful of farmers, as you say a load of concrete and a few doors on the place wouldn,t break the bank but the guys that do up the budgets and crunch the numbers don,t have to work in those conditions and you can bet none of them were on a shovel those days
 
humungus said:
nearly every farmer would beat themselves up over losing an animal but it does happen to even the most careful of farmers, as you say a load of concrete and a few doors on the place wouldn,t break the bank but the guys that do up the budgets and crunch the numbers don,t have to work in those conditions and you can bet none of them were on a shovel those days
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How many experts dose it take to nail down a sheet of galvanise.
 
bruceythom said:
A lorry load of concrete does a lot of walling. 6 calves was too many in my opinion. We have lost 1 or 2 calves in recent years where the cow calved unexpectedly in the cubicles, I would beat myself up over it and learn from it. I think all the other criticism is blown out of proportion, we had to dig through a meter of snow to get to our parlour too, the cows had to walk through 3ft snow drift in the exit yard, we milked OAD until the snow left for fear of a cow slipping. Keeping the silage from being covered with snow was an issue.
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After reading it, and not coming from a dairy farm, I'd have the same opinion as yourself. I don't understand at all, the wrong calculation on the meal though. It's not as if they were feeding small quantities or numbers which wouldnt have been noticed.

The other thing that struck me was four extra people were on the farm for the period. Most other farms didn't have that luxury at all.
 
All the controversy with the snow and now the jersey bull calf issue is my guess they want to part ways. It’s not good for business if you have a share in a farm big into cross breeding producing low value calves. The keepak deal excludes the cross bred calves also. It’s possibly the first step towards huge changes in welfare and the link towards milk price or whether they will actually take the milk at all. They need to be disassociated with greenfield first before the next steps.
 
Blackwater boy said:
All the controversy with the snow and now the jersey bull calf issue is my guess they want to part ways. It’s not good for business if you have a share in a farm big into cross breeding producing low value calves. The keepak deal excludes the cross bred calves also. It’s possibly the first step towards huge changes in welfare and the link towards milk price or whether they will actually take the milk at all. They need to be disassociated with greenfield first before the next steps.
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Purebred isn't an insulation to low value calves or animal welfare issue. Think this Spring proved that. Don't know why people make that assumption. Started crossing 2 years ago, animal welfare has never been as high and I'm hoping to improve it further, and I'm not the exception.
 
bruceythom said:
Purebred isn't an insulation to low value calves or animal welfare issue. Think this Spring proved that. Don't know why people make that assumption. Started crossing 2 years ago, animal welfare has never been as high and I'm hoping to improve it further, and I'm not the exception.
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It’s not my opinion Bruce, it’s what is said to me. Why do you think they pulled out?
 
From the Wexford People today. Didn't know you could make bread from Jerseys, every day is a school day!
 

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Blackwater boy said:
It’s not my opinion Bruce, it’s what is said to me. Why do you think they pulled out?
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If there is an issue with bull calves, it's with all bull calves, there's just too many in the country and the talk of exporting them is just clutching at straws. There is a problem coming irrespective of them being JEX (3% of the national herd) or other breeds. A once valuable commodity has now flooded the market. We can't expect beef farmers to raise all our extra bull calves for us, the kepak deal is an insult to beef farmers IMO and will do nothing for the value of calves in the long term. Any dairy farmer (myself included) who has expanded their herd and compacted their calving spread is to blame, not a few Jersey sucks, but of course its populous that the 97% can blame the 3%.

I actually don't know why Glanbia pulled out of the Greenfields programme, but it's not a popular thing to have Jersey blood at the moment and people are very quick to jump on this.
 
bruceythom said:
If there is an issue with bull calves, it's with all bull calves, there's just too many in the country and the talk of exporting them is just clutching at straws. There is a problem coming irrespective of them being JEX (3% of the national herd) or other breeds. A once valuable commodity has now flooded the market. We can't expect beef farmers to raise all our extra bull calves for us, the kepak deal is an insult to beef farmers IMO and will do nothing for the value of calves in the long term. Any dairy farmer (myself included) who has expanded their herd and compacted their calving spread is to blame, not a few Jersey sucks, but of course its populous that the 97% can blame the 3%.

I actually don't know why Glanbia pulled out of the Greenfields programme, but it's not a popular thing to have Jersey blood at the moment and people are very quick to jump on this.
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The quality of beef cattle has declined massively in the last ten years, I will give two reasons.
  1. Justin McCarthy and Teagasc doing a 180 and telling suckler farmers to use AA. Might as well have buried them himself. How could you carry the cost of a cow for the year with a calf little better than a dairy cross?
  2. Dairy farmers ignoring the beef potential of their herds and using 100% dairy bulls and yes these included Jersey, a lot more than 3% too as there is a tendency to call anything black and white 'FR'. If they didn't use all dairy then the runtiest AA bull counts as 'beef' for 'cleaning up'. They got their wish, the bull calves are now a by product.
Any market flooded with inferior quality product will result in depressed prices for all producers. Would it be the end of the world to use a Limousin, Charolais, BB, Aubrac etc on some of the bigger cows and have calves worth selling and that another farmer might make a profit on? On the subject of crossbreds being beneficial to welfare, to which 50% of calves are you referring?
 
6600 said:
The quality of beef cattle has declined massively in the last ten years, I will give two reasons.
  1. Justin McCarthy and Teagasc doing a 180 and telling suckler farmers to use AA. Might as well have buried them himself. How could you carry the cost of a cow for the year with a calf little better than a dairy cross?
  2. Dairy farmers ignoring the beef potential of their herds and using 100% dairy bulls and yes these included Jersey, a lot more than 3% too as there is a tendency to call anything black and white 'FR'. If they didn't use all dairy then the runtiest AA bull counts as 'beef' for 'cleaning up'. They got their wish, the bull calves are now a by product.
Any market flooded with inferior quality product will result in depressed prices for all producers. Would it be the end of the world to use a Limousin, Charolais, BB, Aubrac etc on some of the bigger cows and have calves worth selling and that another farmer might make a profit on? On the subject of crossbreds being beneficial to welfare, to which 50% of calves are you referring?
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The
6600 said:
The quality of beef cattle has declined massively in the last ten years, I will give two reasons.
  1. Justin McCarthy and Teagasc doing a 180 and telling suckler farmers to use AA. Might as well have buried them himself. How could you carry the cost of a cow for the year with a calf little better than a dairy cross?
  2. Dairy farmers ignoring the beef potential of their herds and using 100% dairy bulls and yes these included Jersey, a lot more than 3% too as there is a tendency to call anything black and white 'FR'. If they didn't use all dairy then the runtiest AA bull counts as 'beef' for 'cleaning up'. They got their wish, the bull calves are now a by product.
Any market flooded with inferior quality product will result in depressed prices for all producers. Would it be the end of the world to use a Limousin, Charolais, BB, Aubrac etc on some of the bigger cows and have calves worth selling and that another farmer might make a profit on? On the subject of crossbreds being beneficial to welfare, to which 50% of calves are you referring?
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Ah here, I'm not having this conversation again. Hard facts are supermarkets and consumers count beef in grammes and the quality of the meat not by the 'quality' of the breeding. There's just too much beef. Simple.
 
This to me its a kick into the bollox to every dairy farmer. It's as if there just washing theres hands of all problems and walking away. I've no cows but if I was supplying them I would be hugely disappointed. Why not change cow type. Are they going to have some of there own rules and regs going forward regarding the bobby calves and milk suppliers.
 
Carrigogunnell said:
This to me its a kick into the bollox to every dairy farmer. It's as if there just washing theres hands of all problems and walking away. I've no cows but if I was supplying them I would be hugely disappointed. Why not change cow type. Are they going to have some of there own rules and regs going forward regarding the bobby calves and milk suppliers.
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I think it is a hugely positive thing. They're effectively admitting that you can't 'McDonaldize' dairy farming and walking away from it. It will discourage pension funds etc getting into farming and leave it to owner operators to get on with it. The department should have come down on farms where the mortality level of calves defies logic. They know bloody well what's going on. If this continues we'll go the same way as the pig and poultry industries.
 
6600 said:
I think it is a hugely positive thing. They're effectively admitting that you can't 'McDonaldize' dairy farming and walking away from it. It will discourage pension funds etc getting into farming and leave it to owner operators to get on with it. The department should have come down on farms where the mortality level of calves defies logic. They know bloody well what's going on. If this continues we'll go the same way as the pig and poultry industries.
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Good way of looking at it.
 
6600 said:
I think it is a hugely positive thing. They're effectively admitting that you can't 'McDonaldize' dairy farming and walking away from it. It will discourage pension funds etc getting into farming and leave it to owner operators to get on with it. The department should have come down on farms where the mortality level of calves defies logic. They know bloody well what's going on. If this continues we'll go the same way as the pig and poultry industries.
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Heard there yesterday that jersey sexed semen is all that’ll be available in 3 yrs time for cross breeding. The Bobby calf issue with them this year is making the dept do this supposedly. Not that I think jersey calves are the cause of the problem mind .
 
have Glanbia not just handed farmers the greatest length of a ash plant to farmers to leather Glanbia with?

surely with the money they had, they should have thrown a few hundred thousand at the owners or other stake holders, so as to make up a story why they have to unfortunately pull out. If I owned the land this is the route I would be suggesting to Glanbia. seems a huge own goal by glanbia, even allowing for the reason they probably have walked away
 
Ozzy Scott said:
have Glanbia not just handed farmers the greatest length of a ash plant to farmers to leather Glanbia with?

surely with the money they had, they should have thrown a few hundred thousand at the owners or other stake holders, so as to make up a story why they have to unfortunately pull out. If I owned the land this is the route I would be suggesting to Glanbia. seems a huge own goal by glanbia, even allowing for the reason they probably have walked away
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Glanbia don't care about farmers. Metaphorically speaking they are the farmers and we are the cows,
I see my local farmer representative board had the company spin to trott out on the journal today. I'd call in to him to but he has electric gates to keep out the riff-raff
 
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