Would you break even?

[muckymanor]

Recently we took over my wife's farm which is 50 miles from us. It's only about 60% stocked. Changes that we made this year have seen us with a lot more grass after spreading very little fertilizer - lime spread, rushes sprayed, topping done, slurry out early. At this stage we have grass there for 10 extra cows while still ensuring that the cows there have a lot of grass in front of them. Luckily I have almost that number of dry / cull cows on the home farm that I'm trying to finish off grass and I plan on transferring them into her herd number after the cattle test in a few weeks time and sending them to the factory from there in the back end of the year.

While this will sort out the excess grass problem, I won't have numbers to sort out this problem next year. I'm toying with the idea of buying up to 10 weinling bulls in the mart in early spring 2015, castrate them, feed them on grass for the whole summer, put them on slats and finish them on a small bit of wholecrop silage by January or February 2016 @ 18 to 20 months. From my point of view, it would keep the farm working with less labour input from me than if I was keeping suckler cows. I have the grass, I have the shed space. I have the ground for the wholecrop.

Luckily her parents are able to look at animals.

Would it be possible to break even or am I facing something that is destined to make a loss.

 

[Arthur]

Surely the answer to your question is going to be dictated by the price the beef will make in 2016. Crystal ball needed.

 

[AYF]

How easy is the 50 mile drive? Round here 50 miles is minimum hour quite easily more, diesel costs could hammer the job. And travel could take huge chunks of a day. would it be easier to just let the place out?

Do what needs to be done to make the place top notch, would bring in top price for you?

Or would pay rent on a place nearer home?

 

[muckymanor]

How easy is the 50 mile drive? Round here 50 miles is minimum hour quite easily more, diesel costs could hammer the job. And travel could take huge chunks of a day. would it be easier to just let the place out?

Do what needs to be done to make the place top notch, would bring in top price for you?

Or would pay rent on a place nearer home?

That's the good thing about it. The inlaws are capable of checking them daily - the land is all around their house, so we wouldn't need to be travelling daily. And we are over there twice a week anyway. Letting it out is not an option that we would consider. We have cows there already - this is just an added option to it to utilise the grass and not make a loss!

 

[michael7740]

I'm toying with the idea of buying up to 10 weinling bulls in the mart in early spring 2015, castrate them, feed them on grass for the whole summer, put them on slats and finish them on a small bit of wholecrop silage by January or February 2016 @ 18 to 20 months.

18 to 20 months is pretty young for a finished bullock. A continental breed anyway. Probably easier to achieve with an Angus or something. But they are going to need serious feeding to have them finished at that age....

 

[nashmach]

18 to 20 months is pretty young for a finished bullock. A continental breed anyway. Probably easier to achieve with an Angus or something. But they are going to need serious feeding to have them finished at that age....

I'd agree with Michael on this.

Only way really possible around 18 months is HE or AA heifers unless you want to hand over a lot of profit to the co-op.

 

[slurryboy]

18 to 20 months is pretty young for a finished bullock. A continental breed anyway. Probably easier to achieve with an Angus or something. But they are going to need serious feeding to have them finished at that age....

Easy enough to finish them at that age. Could crop a bit of ground to grow feed for them and finish them sooner than that.

 

[muckymanor]

Was planning on angus. Plan would be to finish them on wholecrop!