Greenfield kilkenny

awaywithyou

delaval wrote: »

When grass grew it grew very well but when it didn't it really didn't. A lot was put into bales as when it grew well it couldn't all be grazed only to be fed back out. Luckily we have enough feed saved. Growth figures are good on an annual view but month lots of spikes and troughs. One good thing is that utilisation was excellent.

Regarding your mate 'what else would he say?' No notion of doing that here been there done it even milked 3 times a day and had the diet feeder and loads of toys. Never again, well never is a long time.
Really pleased to have changed farm and system.

what was your profit margin per cow like compared to your current system of farming???

why never again.... what was wrong with it? we've a diet feeder with 20 yrs and funnily enough dad wouldnt miss it whereas i swear by it....

bob charles

delaval wrote: »

No but they cost 40k and you get a free feeder

Do keenan actually employee a nutritionist with qualifications and letters after their name?:rolleyes: maybe one or two

delaval

awaywithyou wrote: »

what was your profit margin per cow like compared to your current system of farming???

why never again.... what was wrong with it? we've a diet feeder with 20 yrs and funnily enough dad wouldnt miss it whereas i swear by it....

Nothing wrong with diet feeder, really good tool in that system. We used it a lot and great control with diets.
I was on a small but of land with a lot if quota so had to milk 3 times for one year. I was also zgrazing for most if the 90's. if I was confined with land would prob still be at it with the exception of zgrazing. I would use bales instead.
Margin per cow was good.
I moved to a much larger farm that was rented so margin per ha became my goal. Land being my limiting factor. My profit and free cash is greater now, the system suits me better.

I just found the old system relentless with great cash flow but I wasn't able to shake off a hard core of debt that had built up through capex. My level of management probably wasn't up to speed enough for the cows I had. I am into a larger herd now where it's easier to adopt a one size fits all approach.

So what I'm basically saying is that I was actually the weakest link not the cow or the system!!!!

bob charles

delaval wrote: »

I moved to a much larger farm that was rented so margin per ha became my goal. Land being my limiting factor. My profit and free cash is greater now, the system suits me better.

I just found the old system relentless with great cash flow but I wasn't able to shake off a hard core of debt that had built up through capex.

allot of the full time land restricted farmers could write that paragraph.

The main decision maker on most farms nowadays it the supply of land.

journalman

if ye want to see commercial farms under scrutiny, look at the better beef farms, some have dug themselves out of right holes this year with regards fodder n grass problems and still managed to keep a high stocking rate (2.5 LU-3 LU/ha) and make more than enough silage. These are commercial farms working under cashflow constraints and are still not running out of grass mid season. granted they intorduce meal and buffer feed with silage but that is all part of working with what you got rather than what you dont. I know this because i live next to one of them and discuss his progress regualry

Farmer Pudsey

journalman wrote: »

if ye want to see commercial farms under scrutiny, look at the better beef farms, some have dug themselves out of right holes this year with regards fodder n grass problems and still managed to keep a high stocking rate (2.5 LU-3 LU/ha) and make more than enough silage. These are commercial farms working under cashflow constraints and are still not running out of grass mid season. granted they intorduce meal and buffer feed with silage but that is all part of working with what you got rather than what you dont. I know this because i live next to one of them and discuss his progress regualry

In other words when in a hole stop digging

F.D

journalman wrote: »

if ye want to see commercial farms under scrutiny, look at the better beef farms, some have dug themselves out of right holes this year with regards fodder n grass problems and still managed to keep a high stocking rate (2.5 LU-3 LU/ha) and make more than enough silage. These are commercial farms working under cashflow constraints and are still not running out of grass mid season. granted they intorduce meal and buffer feed with silage but that is all part of working with what you got rather than what you dont. I know this because i live next to one of them and discuss his progress regualry

One thing i dont like about the better beef farms is most of them have off farm jobs so technically there not totally reliant on the farm to keep them going..... none of this seems to be stated in the press you read about it
i have been on one of these farms for a discussion group so i know

So how much of there own income pays insurances etc to make the gross margin look better, or how many jobs do they do to make the farm run better that they fund from the off farm job

Farmer Pudsey

F.D wrote: »

One thing i dont like about the better beef farms is most of them have off farm jobs so technically there not totally reliant on the farm to keep them going..... none of this seems to be stated in the press you read about it
i have been on one of these farms for a discussion group so i know

So how much of there own income pays insurances etc to make the gross margin look better, or how many jobs do they do to make the farm run better that they fund from the off farm job

If they are showinf all costs it should be seen in gross margin. Most farmers that have a second job myself as well show all expenses that happen on the farm to the farm. None will pay cash for any item as you end up paying 52% on any profit. So often if these lads have a high margin/HA they would actually be reducing it as much as possible to reduce Tax Liability.

journalman

not all these lads in the better farm prog have off farm jobs, though admitedly some do, ie contracting etc, milk recording etc. The lads with the off farm jobs tend to be on the smaller farms or poorer land types that may have questionable viability in any enterprise. When they do up a profit monitor, all costs are counted for, i.e. insurance, esb, depreciation etc and the farm has to cover it all. Granted an off farm job may help the farm in terms of cashflow at certain times of year when they may not have any sales but the farms are all run as standalone businesses and any costs incurred are fully accounted for so the presence of an off farm job will have no real effect on profitability. From what i gather, the farmers with the off farm jobs generally do less well on a per hectare basis than those without due to time constraints of working off farm.

jaymla627

So 43 cent a litre is the cost of producing a litre of milk this year on the greenfield dairy according to darraghs article today in the independant , "low cost grass based system" is a phrase i dont think teagasc can be throwing around the place anymore when referring to that project.

delaval

jaymla627 wrote: »

So 43 cent a litre is the cost of producing a litre of milk this year on the greenfield dairy according to darraghs article today in the independant , "low cost grass based system" is a phrase i dont think teagasc can be throwing around the place anymore when referring to that project.

So what's yours including all labour land charge on every ha and yes your own wages?

jaymla627

delaval wrote: »

So what's yours including all labour land charge on every ha and yes your own wages?

ha im very much in the red at the moment, purely down to the fact that north of 200 grand from cashflow has been spent on developing the place the past 15 months along with rearing/buying 45 heifer calves plus 55 cows, but im in my 1st year milking and am front loading all investment the first three years with minimum borrowings, if i discounted all the money thats been diverted into development/rearing surplus heifer calves proberly coming in at 33c/l.

delaval

jaymla627 wrote: »

ha im very much in the red at the moment, purely down to the fact that north of 200 grand from cashflow has been spent on developing the place the past 15 months along with rearing/buying 45 heifer calves plus 55 cows, but im in my 1st year milking and am front loading all investment the first three years with minimum borrowings, if i discounted all the money thats been diverted into development/rearing surplus heifer calves proberly coming in at 33c/l.

So when you discount the capex from cash flow it costs nothing????
What's you land charge per acre?

jaymla627

delaval wrote: »

So when you discount the capex from cash flow it costs nothing????
What's you land charge per acre?

40 % of total area farmed is rented works out at 100 euro across whole block, land charged per acre i personally think is flawed logic when you've a good sfp per ha in our situation if say we packed it in and rented the whole place we would need 700 ha to get the same amount as our sfp but then would be down the use of the land, totally accept its a cost that would be occured on a start-up operation with no sfp but i could argue after 10 years in beef basically working for less then noting im totally entitled to a good sfp to compensate for what was basically a loss making enterprise.

delaval

jaymla627 wrote: »

40 % of total area farmed is rented works out at 100 euro across whole block, land charged per acre i personally think is flawed logic when you've a good sfp per ha in our situation if say we packed it in and rented the whole place we would need 700 ha to get the same amount as our sfp but then would be down the use of the land, totally accept its a cost that would be occured on a start-up operation with no sfp but i could argue after 10 years in beef basically working for less then noting im totally entitled to a good sfp to compensate for what was basically a loss making enterprise.

This is not a discussion of your or my views of SFP.
You clearly aren't costing your land as the green field
You are not placing any charge on the capital you've introduced. Had you borrowed it or invested elsewhere it would need to be considered

I'm in no way standing up for Greenfield, their figures are there for us all to see. I wish you well in dairy farming but you need to charge for all capital introduced as they or any other business would.

bob charles

Those above posts I could rip into. Anyway Dela-boy, sure land has no charge, you get it from your father

darragh_haven

bob charles wrote: »

Those above posts I could rip into. Anyway Dela-boy, sure land has no charge, you get it from your father

And if your cute enough, and pick the right girl, you'll get it from someone elses father

bob charles

darragh_haven wrote: »

And if your cute enough, and pick the right girl, you'll get it from someone elses father

it's cheaper borrow money, than marry it.

jaymla627

You could argue the toss all day, the simple fact is if you want to be a farmer in 99% of cases its down to weather your born into land, then you"ve got the 1% that work there way up but those cases are few and far between.
The whole costing land you own cause daddy "gave it" to you is crazy, last time I checked you cant include the imaginary 200 euro a acre rent on owned land as a cost in your accounts because you choose to farm it instead of rent it.
Farming is a volatile/low margin/extremely low paying industry, I doubt I'm making any-more then 3 euro an hour for every hour I work at the minute but I do it because I love it and hopefully in ten years time when the dust has settled I"ll hopefully be pulling a good living out of it.

delaval

jaymla627 wrote: »

You could argue the toss all day, the simple fact is if you want to be a farmer in 99% of cases its down to weather your born into land, then you"ve got the 1% that work there way up but those cases are few and far between.
The whole costing land you own cause daddy "gave it" to you is crazy, last time I checked you cant include the imaginary 200 euro a acre rent on owned land as a cost in your accounts because you choose to farm it instead of rent it.
Farming is a volatile/low margin/extremely low paying industry, I doubt I'm making any-more then 3 euro an hour for every hour I work at the minute but I do it because I love it and hopefully in ten years time when the dust has settled I"ll hopefully be pulling a good living out of it.

Then how can you slate the greenfield when you are comparing apples and oranges.
At least back up your assertions!!!

delaval

darragh_haven wrote: »

And if your cute enough, and pick the right girl, you'll get it from someone elses father

Our scan man told is of a guy with two daughters that he scanned 500 ewes for every year. Last time there he was told that that's the last time you'll scan for me.
When questioned he was told "I'm not going to lamb ewes for two pluckers I haven't even met yet"

jaymla627

delaval wrote: »

Then how can you slate the greenfield when you are comparing apples and oranges.
At least back up your assertions!!!

What assertions, your trying to say my costs per litre and situation having started this year having spent 100k on a parlour plus putting in 80 cubicles another 40,000 rearing buying/ heifers along with 20,000 grand reseeding all done without a single acre being put up as security, that im some kind of condesending prick who hasnt a clue for questioning a place that in year 5 of its conversion has 43 cent a litre production costs when it was projected back in 09 that at 30 cent a litre they would be rolling in it and at 26 cent it would make money.

mf240

jaymla627 wrote: »

What assertions, your trying to say my costs per litre and situation having started this year having spent 100k on a parlour plus putting in 80 cubicles another 40,000 rearing buying/ heifers along with 20,000 grand reseeding all done without a single acre being put up as security, that im some kind of condesending prick who hasnt a clue for questioning a place that in year 5 of its conversion has 43 cent a litre production costs when it was projected back in 09 that at 30 cent a litre they would be rolling in it and at 26 cent it would make money.

Love it or loathe it the greenfield site started with no owned land no stock and all hired labour. The fact that their costs are higher than projected are just proof than the dairy game is not easy to break into.

At the very least they should be commended for the transparent nature of their finance and performance reporting.

It will hopefully give grounding to those attempting similar in the coming years.

keep going

mf240 wrote: »

Love it or loathe it the greenfield site started with no owned land no stock and all hired labour. The fact that their costs are higher than projected are just proof than the dairy game is not easy to break into.

At the very least they should be commended for the transparent nature of their finance and performance reporting.

It will hopefully give grounding to those attempting similar in the coming years.

To be honest I think the these farms are some of the best things that teagasc have done because the lesson s that are being learned here are that it costs a fortune to establish a dairy farm even if you do"low cost", it very hard to make money out of paid labour in irish dairying and just how good some of the lads that are at it already are.I dont think teagasc are going to make alot of money on these farms but hopefully fellas will see their mistakes.if you think a high input -high output w ith the associated high capital costs is the way to go then off you go but you better have a good stomach for managing borrowings.

freedominacup

keep going wrote: »

To be honest I think the these farms are some of the best things that teagasc have done because the lesson s that are being learned here are that it costs a fortune to establish a dairy farm even if you do"low cost", it very hard to make money out of paid labour in irish dairying and just how good some of the lads that are at it already are.I dont think teagasc are going to make alot of money on these farms but hopefully fellas will see their mistakes.if you think a high input -high output w ith the associated high capital costs is the way to go then off you go but you better have a good stomach for managing borrowings.

High capital costs compared to what?

delaval

jaymla627 wrote: »

What assertions, your trying to say my costs per litre and situation having started this year having spent 100k on a parlour plus putting in 80 cubicles another 40,000 rearing buying/ heifers along with 20,000 grand reseeding all done without a single acre being put up as security, that im some kind of condesending prick who hasnt a clue for questioning a place that in year 5 of its conversion has 43 cent a litre production costs when it was projected back in 09 that at 30 cent a litre they would be rolling in it and at 26 cent it would make money.

You're taking me up wrong. I'm not saying any such thing about you. I am just challenging you. As you say the amount if money you've spent is large and a lot of guys going into dairy have no idea of the scale of the investment.
You state your total costs at 33c, I doubt you are calculating all the money that you've put in.

F.D

I know they cant really change off the path they are on or from the goal they are trying to achieve, but it would have been interesting to leave half the herd as they are farming it now (as the control) and maybe try something different with the other half to increase production and maybe profit, lower stocking rate vs cost of fertilizer etc or show the path they are on is the best way

Markcheese

As a slight sideways move ... Does anyone know what the organic matter content of the soil was like starting off and now...I'm guessing pretty low if it was in continuos tillage for years ...
From an experiment point of view it's a great stress test for the business we came out of the longest wettest winter to immediate drought...and a dry farm with low organic matter/poor soil structure wouldn't be best placed to perform
well...

How many other dairy farms have been on target with their overall production costs/ profitability over the past couple of seasons...(

st1979

Markcheese wrote: »

As a slight sideways move ... Does anyone know what the organic matter content of the soil was like starting off and now...I'm guessing pretty low if it was in continuos tillage for years ...
From an experiment point of view it's a great stress test for the business we came out of the longest wettest winter to immediate drought...and a dry farm with low organic matter/poor soil structure wouldn't be best placed to perform
well...

How many other dairy farms have been on target with their overall production costs/ profitability over the past couple of seasons...(

You are right. Was told they were shocked at the reduced output due to low organic matter. We just take it for granted in a grassland farm that we would have good enough levels. Having said that I have no clue what ours is.
I think the Greenfield is doing a great job. But would like teagasc to be more open minded. Sometimes I feel they set out with a result and try to prove it on the way.
Been at meetings with really good uk farmers. And 1 guy was really impressive grass based 400cow farm and he said in his discussion group there were extreme nz 1000 cow herd with no sheds to a guy with a 200 cow herd of 2000 gal pedigrees. And his opinion was no one system suited all farms. And all the guys in his group were making money as long as they worked the system well. Not a 1 system suits all
I know farmers who at one time said they would be embarrassed to say they fed meal in summer. Even though there cows needed feeding as they were high output

Timmaay

Out of interest, what are the main factors that have caused that rise in production from say 26 to 43cent? Is it mainly inputs, or mostly down to the drought?

Milked out

Just thinking there, how many cows is it taking to pay the labour units?? If for arguments sake it took 100 cows to pay for the labour on its own, and the other 200 were covering the rest of the costs. If those 100 cows were removed with the labour units, the land lease, contract rearing, and debt would all be reduced proportionally, Would it be possible for one man to manage 200 cows with no young stock to rear with a block such as the Kilkenny site which is set up to be labour efficient?? if one could those 200 cows with those lower costs would leave a better margin The cost of labour is the big thing with expansion, as unless you can go to a scale

freedominacup

Milked out wrote: »

Just thinking there, how many cows is it taking to pay the labour units?? If for arguments sake it took 100 cows to pay for the labour on its own, and the other 200 were covering the rest of the costs. If those 100 cows were removed with the labour units, the land lease, contract rearing, and debt would all be reduced proportionally, Would it be possible for one man to manage 200 cows with no young stock to rear with a block such as the Kilkenny site which is set up to be labour efficient?? if one could those 200 cows with those lower costs would leave a better margin The cost of labour is the big thing with expansion, as unless you can go to a scale

What sort of an existence/penury would you suffer running 200 cows on your own? Lifes too short for that sort of nonsense. All an experiment like that would do is give processors a rod for our backs. "You don't need a better price you need to become more efficient look at that lad in greenfields". In any Teagasc led dairy farm experiment like this a standard Teagasc employment contract should apply which is basically a max average of a 50 hour week in any 6 month period, 2 days per week off together every week, and 133 days off per year in total. Anything we are willing to do above this should be money in our own pockets. They won't work anything above this themselves so they have a cheek to suggest we should. We certainly can't get hired labour to do it, legally.

Farmer Pudsey

I have not got all the details about this project. But looking at a few raw figures. They have 200 cows. Not sure of there production however.

If the 200 cows produce 1100 gallons (4950litres)/cow then at 33 cent/litre the will turn over 326700 on milk alone. Put calves and culls in at 35K (100/calf for 150 calves and 500/cull cow) this would give a turn over of 360K

Now an extra 150 gallons will increase turn over by 45K so turnover is nearly at 400K. If we assume that this year they are averaging 40c/litre then they should be at a turnover of 430K for 1100 gallon cows. They must be doing affair few thing wrong. My own belief is that they are failing to adapt.

Now in a way this is good as dairy farmers are learning what not to do. My own belief is that they need a commercially orentiated manager that will not get caught up on theory. I see this in a large managed herd near me the people looking after the place are not commercially focused.

It is not about doing everything right but rather when something is not working and you are in a hole throw away the shovel and get out of the hole and have a rethink. I am no dairy farmer but some of the mistakes could be rectified fairly easily.

The figures are there to sustain a profitable business. If you can get costs down to 17c/litre at 1100gallons/cow you should be able to generate a gross margin of 190K. Getting tied up in labour costs etc is silly. Could a good farmer/manager run a herd of this size with 2 labour units??. If he was a miller to work could he manage it with 1.5 labour units.

A lot of you lads and lassies are running fairly large operations you know the figures do the maths and figure it out.

My own opinion and I am only a stupid beef farmers is that with milk averaging 40c/L this year no matter if the f##king cows had to swim to the parlour every day they should have been able to do a little bit better.

mahoney_j

too many chiefs on that farm and a very good farm manager who is treated like a relief milker.Teams of so called experts come in every week and make all big decisions then the bugger off till folowing week and leave farm work to thw 2 boys on farm.Agree that this biggest mistake there making on the farm is their failure to adapt to irish conditions.A lot of those so called experts took the lazy way out looked at new zealand and said sure ah yeadh if it works there itll work here.ship the lot of them to new zealand if they want and leave them there.Its still an intriguing project and one im monotoring closely but it has very little influence on the way ill manage my herd and farm

journalman

agree about too many chiefs part, at least they didnt put some gob****e from moorepark with a phd in measuring constituents of faeces as the farm manager like they did with some other herds. the lad is prob trying his best but has an organisation to contend with if he wants to buy a shovel not mind make management decisions

funny man

journalman wrote: »

agree about too many chiefs part, at least they didnt put some gob****e from moorepark with a phd in measuring constituents of faeces as the farm manager like they did with some other herds. the lad is prob trying his best but has an organisation to contend with if he wants to buy a shovel not mind make management decisions

where was that Ballyhaise?

delaval

Considering it's up and running from scratch and totally leased with all labour paid I think they did very well. 93k surplus, i know the milkprice was at an all time high but a lot of feed had to be brought in. They certainly made some mistakes and probably didb't act in time during the year, but wgice of us made all the right decisions?

bob charles

delaval wrote: »

Considering it's up and running from scratch and totally leased with all labour paid I think they did very well. 93k surplus, i know the milkprice was at an all time high but a lot of feed had to be brought in. They certainly made some mistakes and probably didb't act in time during the year, but wgice of us made all the right decisions?

what is the leased land charge, is it representative of the area. You also have to add in the favorable treatment that they would receive from suppliers of all goods and services just to be seen involved. anyone kind enough to refresh me - whats area farmed and numbers of cows milked

moy83

delaval wrote: »

Considering it's up and running from scratch and totally leased with all labour paid I think they did very well. 93k surplus, i know the milkprice was at an all time high but a lot of feed had to be brought in. They certainly made some mistakes and probably didb't act in time during the year, but wgice of us made all the right decisions?

Is the 93k after all repayments and everything is paid ? Nothing wrong with that .

jersey101

delaval wrote: »

Considering it's up and running from scratch and totally leased with all labour paid I think they did very well. 93k surplus, i know the milkprice was at an all time high but a lot of feed had to be brought in. They certainly made some mistakes and probably didb't act in time during the year, but wgice of us made all the right decisions?

I think the place will really come into its own next year, they have ample replacements now and they know the farm. Next year might see them hold onto more cows and be able to sell some heifers.
Will they upgrade the pad next year to cubicles if they are to hold onto more cows? The IFJ says it is stocked as high as it can be now with 220 cows, they will have to do some thing if they do keep more cows on

delaval

moy83 wrote: »

Is the 93k after all repayments and everything is paid ? Nothing wrong with that .

After bank and before tax

delaval

bob charles wrote: »

what is the leased land charge, is it representative of the area. You also have to add in the favorable treatment that they would receive from suppliers of all goods and services just to be seen involved. anyone kind enough to refresh me - whats area farmed and numbers of cows milked

Bob they are actually paying a little over the odds for the land in that area.
115ha 320 cows

jaymla627

They must be banking on a really good spring, 100 ton of wholecrop plus 100 ton of silage wont last 250 plus cows more then 40 days so realistically they will be out of fooder the 15th of Febuary.Can see a nice bit of that 93k being spent on silage/soya hulls/beet our whatever they can get their hands on.

mahoney_j

jersey101 wrote: »

I think the place will really come into its own next year, they have ample replacements now and they know the farm. Next year might see them hold onto more cows and be able to sell some heifers.
Will they upgrade the pad next year to cubicles if they are to hold onto more cows? The IFJ says it is stocked as high as it can be now with 220 cows, they will have to do some thing if they do keep more cows on

The problem this year was they had too much cows and couldn't grow enough grass.300 cows is proably the very outside of what the farm can handle until organic matters are sorted and they can consistently grow 15 tonnes plus of grass.still 93 k cask surplus after all the droughts this year is impressive.i feel though that they were too slow at making some big decisions like when to introduce meal etc,but as long as they learn something from it .see the farm manager has said farewell too,very impressive guy but treated like a relief Milker from what I saw

bob charles

delaval wrote: »

After bank and before tax

so 80 ish k net profit for 320 cows and 290 acres. €250 profit per cow or €285 an acre net profit. do those figures excite people?

what is the labour charged out @ €15 an hour? Consultants come free I suppose:rolleyes:

bob charles

jaymla627 wrote: »

They must be banking on a really good spring, 100 ton of wholecrop plus 100 ton of silage wont last 250 plus cows more then 40 days so realistically they will be out of fooder the 15th of Febuary.Can see a nice bit of that 93k being spent on silage/soya hulls/beet our whatever they can get their hands on.

are you serious? they have 200t of forage for the rest of the winter for 320 cows. surly not

mahoney_j

bob charles wrote: »

are you serious? they have 200t of forage for the rest of the winter for 320 cows. surly not

Sure Jackie and co think the farm is on the north island of New Zealand and that once they hit feb 1 there've all off to grass and an odd half a kg of Soya hulls will do if it gets very wet or very cold!!

Dont be daft

mahoney_j wrote: »

The problem this year was they had too much cows and couldn't grow enough grass.300 cows is proably the very outside of what the farm can handle

How does there 15 year business plan stack up when a revised stocking rate is calculated?

From what I remember they were planning on a figure of 350 cows so at 300 their down 50 cows which is a massive cut in production.
Surely this puts the 15 year plan out the window and what they are relying on now is a strong milk price to keep them in business

jersey101

bob charles wrote: »

are you serious? they have 200t of forage for the rest of the winter for 320 cows. surly not

220 cows there now. Pit not opened yet. 200 bales of silage being used first. I would say they will be okay. As soon as the cows calve there diet won't include any of that silage

mf240

They have added A herd of cows to their assets though.