Starting time

Starting time with me would vary depending on how busy things are/what's planned for the day, normally start around 6:30-7 if I'm busy anytime from around 3am onwards
 
5.30 am start and usually finish around 7 pm
7 days a week 365 a year? That sounds heavy going.
7.45 start and 7pm finish. It can be lax during the day at times of the year but other times the days are a lot longer but that's just for a few weeks at calving, planting or harvest and a few late evenings spraying etc
 
Did dairy farmers work as many hours 30 years ago?
I know my father worked from8 to 6and not later unless haymaking or something.
My hours are ridiculous and not improving
 
Did dairy farmers work as many hours 30 years ago?
I know my father worked from8 to 6and not later unless haymaking or something.
My hours are ridiculous and not improving
They didn’t but herds were smaller obviously and labor more freely available.
Most dairy men that I know are putting in savage hours with the odd exception of those that can pay someone else to do it.
The dairying “lifestyle “ must be one of the biggest myths out there because I don’t know too many availing of it,an odd evening or day off to attend a communion,confirmation or wedding would be as good as it gets.
Holidays are two or three days within an hours drive of home so that you can race back to the yard when the inevitable disaster happens.
 
Most days about 9 or 10 occasionally around 7 but some days as late as 12. We close about 5.30 or 6 sometimes about 4 or 5 but occasionally as late as 7 or 8 somedays or afternoons were not here at all and lately ive been here just about all the time.
Except when im somewhere else
 
Did dairy farmers work as many hours 30 years ago?
I know my father worked from8 to 6and not later unless haymaking or something.
My hours are ridiculous and not improving

We used to milk 25 cows. It used to take 1.5 hours twice a day. Then we had dry stock and sheep and they had to be checked. Dad always had a sideline. From the mid 70's to mid 80's he was in the fur trade. He used to buy foxes from shooters and skin them and sell the fur. The skinning was always done from 7pm onwards and mostly from October to March so it fitted in well with the milking season. After that he used to put together meal bags for the local mill - if you remember the old type of paper meal bags, they were made up of 3 bags and sometimes the inside bag was plastic. They would arrive on pallets and one bag had to be put into another by hand. dad always started at 6.30am and he might be in to greet us from school and do homework, but after 7pm, he was gone again until 9 or 10 at night.

We are not milking anymore. I usually get up around 6am and go to check stock before heading off to work. I work 4 x 8 hour days per week. Usually home by 6pm, have the kids in bed by 7pm and then I'm usually out doing bits and pieces on the farm like moving fences or dosing or tagging until 9.30 or 10pm. I usually try to get a night off during the week where I go for a run or a swim. Biggest gripe I have is sunday work. This last few years I'm seeing too much of it. It's the time when we have help to move cattle or dose, tag, dehorn etc. There's no choice in it. If it's not done then its left undone. The money is not there to pay someone to do it.

But i wouldn't be doing it if I didn't love doing it. Imagine if a PAYE employer expected you to do that sort of work and put in those hours for minimum wage. You wouldn't be long walking out!
 
Did dairy farmers work as many hours 30 years ago?
I know my father worked from8 to 6and not later unless haymaking or something.
My hours are ridiculous and not improving

I'm a hell of alot lazier than my dad I know, who did nothing other than work work work. Farming really didn't appeal to me in my late teens as a result, it wasn't until quotas were on their way out, and I could see that compact spring calving would be a hell of alot more doable than ayr calving that I thought again about it.
 
Imagine what a paye employee would make of the above posts.
Combination of laughter and sympathy I suppose

You'd be surprised what some flat rate salaried paye workers are working - I have a solicitor friend (an employee for a large firm)regularly works past midnight and back in work next morning before 9 along with many colleagues both senior and junior. Granted its 5 days a week not 7, the money is not eye watering either at their level but presumably in the long term it will pay off. My own job often has 5-6am calls with Asia and could finish with late calls with West coast America, however thankfully I do maintain a 40 or so hour a week most weeks for the day job now but in the past it was 50-60+.
 
Ya the the same here we start at 8 and work all night it's sickening when it's 7 days a week.the old lad here never stops
 
Well if I knew 10 years ago what I knew now I would not have gone farming or if I saw these post then I no which way I would be going.evey year seems to be getting harder mainly down to the weather.unless you are on very dry ground dairy farming it's a waste of time I think
 
Back
Top