Time to say goodbye

grazeaway

The girls say hi. About 20 of them are ours and will be coming on stream next spring. The rest are ones the FIL is contract rearing. There are another 100 or so in another field. We will start to reduce these are our own herd rises. Milking about 40 at the moment (well her self is) plans is to get to 60 next year then 70-80 the year after. We will see then after that. I reckon we could get to about 120 easy enough with the current set up but parlour is small so it will take up a lot of our time. Will be looking at robots next year and see if a robot or conventional parlour I'll be the way to go.

Username John

Glad to hear from you Graze. Sounds like things aren't going too bad

grazeaway

Username John wrote: »

Glad to hear from you Graze. Sounds like things aren't going too bad

Not too bad so far but I have been very busy with work since I got here. Off again next week but will be home then for a few weeks so will give me a chance to get going here properly. Some of the local lads think we are mad to be looking to have the cows grazing outside for most of the year but it's actually the older farmers that are the most encouraging as they all say "there was no zero grazing during the war"

grazeaway

Was trying to find photos of the zero grazing set up we have up my phone died recently so lost everything I had in it. Valtra has a front linkage and we have a front mower on that, old silage wagon behind to pick up the grass and then leave it out along feed passage.

Being making silage bales here for a few years now but before that it was the wagon that was used to put silage into a pit like at home. But there's was a lot of waste if there were a number of cuts. Silage over here tends to be lots of small cuts throughout the summer they are amazed when I tell them about the heavy cuts we have in Ireland.

Going to put maize into the silage pit this year, a but if an experiment but we ll see how it goes.

Odelay

This makes great reading, nice to see how farming elsewhere is done.

just do it

Good on you grazeaway. Interesting to hear how it's done over there. It sounds like you're getting on well with the neighbours

kay 9

Just come across this thread now grazeaway. Very interesting and wish you the best of luck, health & happiness in your move. I guess it's nice when you're moving from farm to farm (helps a little I mean)..

grazeaway

Well folks are ye all happy to see a bit of drying? Was home a few weeks ago and driving down from Dublin airport there was still a lot of flooding around.
Sister was saying that they are hoping to have the 1st lot out on grass this weekend.

Cattle won't be out here till the end of the month, still cold enough here but it's been a mild enough winter not much snow but plenty of rain in December and jan. Locals keeping saying I have brought the irish weather with me.

So a bit of an update on winter round here. Not much different to home in that the cows have been in since November but they won't be out for a bit yet. Most cattle are inside all the time, sheds are much warmer here as they a made from wood (or maybe it seems that way). Heifers are actually out on kale during the day and in at night. Calving season has just started for us this week 5 heifers and a bull so far, plan to have them all calved by the end of the month. Been doing a lot of traveling since Christmas but will be based at home for next while so that will be good for checking the cows.

Still getting used to the cultural changes but I'm usually home every 5-6 weeks for a few days with work so not too bad.

After the last few months of milking and weighting up our options I'd say it's nearly 75% sure that we will get a robot in a year or 2. We will take the dairy herd to about 70 and graze the fields around the yard for the summer then milk from the shed up to Christmas and in spring. OH wants to run a beef herd too and is planning on setting up a farm shop with a few other locals. I really noticed that milking 40 cows 3 times a day during the summer takes up a lot of time so if we upped to 100 or so the cost of new parlour wouldn't be much more then the robot, and much more support for them here as they are much more common.

Have been using a diet feeder for the 1st time recently OH has been earning few extra bob feeding cattle on neighbouring farm. A full load does all his per day so he said we can use it on ours afterwards. So she brings it back here fills it and feeds ours a that does 2 days, empties it tomorrow before doing the neighbours. We made some maize to mix with the silage and I reckon we will do the same again next year.

Big difference over here is that amount of machinery sharing, very different to back home. BIL is a contractor so we borrow stuff from him if we need it but I do notice that plenty of the neighbours share gear. Most farmers will have just the one tractor (usually a decent sized one with a loader) but would only have a small bit of other gear of their own. Stuff like mowers, wrappers, seed drills, slurry tankers and combines are owned and shared by a couple of similar sized farms. There wouldn't be a culture of folks taking the piss.

grazeaway

Well folks it just over a year since the big move and all going well. Currently on my vacation time ( us Nordics tend to take them all in one go in the middle of the summer ) so I'm busy here on the farm. Been a short year TBH and I'm still trying to settle in not that easy as I can be away a lot with work from time to time, spent a lot of the spring over and back between china and the states but I have been able to stack up time off which I'm using now. Will give it another year and then see how the farm is going. Herself was doing a lot of hire work last winter and again during the summer so if we have that again next year I'll be looking at packing in the job and becoming a full time farmer......


My folks were over for a week at the start if the month and it was glorious 30C for the week. Spend the time showing them around my dad likes the Wallender TV show so I took him down there.

Farming wise we are flat out, I haven't been able to spend a huge amount of time on it over the last few months so these few weeks are good for me and it gives herself a break too. Like the lads at home we are seeing a big squeeze on the milk price since last year but our cost base isn't as high as our neighbours who really need to pump out the milk to keep the cash coming in. A number of the older farmers round here reckon we will be better then the lads with the big sheds and robots. This is one of the biggest farming areas in Europe so we can grow plenty of good grass.

We made a decent purchase earlier this summer when a farmer up the road upgraded his milking parlour and moved to 3 robots to cut down on labour costs. So we bought the milking machine and built onto the shed. Milking 60 now with a 12 unit with auto removers, makes a big difference this time of the year as we are milking 3 times a day.

Did a good bit of reseeding in the spring as the older paddocks weren't great for milk and they are now starting to really bloom.

One I really do notice here is the beef stock, unlike Ireland there isn't a massive emphasis on beef herds so much if the beef cattle are from dairy herds. We threw in a few limo and sim AI straw last year and we really see it in the quality of the calves. Will defo add in more in the coming years once the dairy herd settles down as we already have takers for those calves this year from a few if the beef finishers.

Anyhow said I just let ye all know how it's going

stanflt

grazeaway wrote: »

Well folks it just over a year since the big move and all going well. Currently on my vacation time ( us Nordics tend to take them all in one go in the middle of the summer ) so I'm busy here on the farm. Been a short year TBH and I'm still trying to settle in not that easy as I can be away a lot with work from time to time, spent a lot of the spring over and back between china and the states but I have been able to stack up time off which I'm using now. Will give it another year and then see how the farm is going. Herself was doing a lot of hire work last winter and again during the summer so if we have that again next year I'll be looking at packing in the job and becoming a full time farmer......


My folks were over for a week at the start if the month and it was glorious 30C for the week. Spend the time showing them around my dad likes the Wallender TV show so I took him down there.

Farming wise we are flat out, I haven't been able to spend a huge amount of time on it over the last few months so these few weeks are good for me and it gives herself a break too. Like the lads at home we are seeing a big squeeze on the milk price since last year but our cost base isn't as high as our neighbours who really need to pump out the milk to keep the cash coming in. A number of the older farmers round here reckon we will be better then the lads with the big sheds and robots. This is one of the biggest farming areas in Europe so we can grow plenty of good grass.

We made a decent purchase earlier this summer when a farmer up the road upgraded his milking parlour and moved to 3 robots to cut down on labour costs. So we bought the milking machine and built onto the shed. Milking 60 now with a 12 unit with auto removers, makes a big difference this time of the year as we are milking 3 times a day.

Did a good bit of reseeding in the spring as the older paddocks weren't great for milk and they are now starting to really bloom.

One I really do notice here is the beef stock, unlike Ireland there isn't a massive emphasis on beef herds so much if the beef cattle are from dairy herds. We threw in a few limo and sim AI straw last year and we really see it in the quality of the calves. Will defo add in more in the coming years once the dairy herd settles down as we already have takers for those calves this year from a few if the beef finishers.

Anyhow said I just let ye all know how it's going

Great to hear from you- best of luck

Dawggone

Great to hear from Sweden Graze!

I often wondered what kind of soils are you farming? Any stones and what depth of topsoil?
What precipitation?

Keep posting.

grazeaway

Dawggone wrote: »

Great to hear from Sweden Graze!

I often wondered what kind of soils are you farming? Any stones and what depth of topsoil?
What precipitation?

Keep posting.

Well this part if sweden is part of the North European plain so very like northen Germany but I'd say closet to home would be like the east of England or north county Dublin. We are on more rolling hills so more livestock here then the massive tillage farms (10,000 acres is common enough) down the road.
Not quite as cold down as it further north, our winter was a bit like home last year as we didn't get that much snow but it still was a late spring even by Nordic standards as the land took a while to dry out.

Dawggone

grazeaway wrote: »

Well this part if sweden is part of the North European plain so very like northen Germany but I'd say closet to home would be like the east of England or north county Dublin. We are on more rolling hills so more livestock here then the massive tillage farms (10,000 acres is common enough) down the road.
Not quite as cold down as it further north, our winter was a bit like home last year as we didn't get that much snow but it still was a late spring even by Nordic standards as the land took a while to dry out.

White sandy soils like N Germany?
All Northern Europe seemed to have a late spring this year.

How's the language coming along?

naughto

Never mind the farming how are all the blonds treating ya iam not on about the one on 4 legs either.
Went over to Sweden a few yrs back with the lads just unreal they where

grazeaway

Dawggone wrote: »

White sandy soils like N Germany?
All Northern Europe seemed to have a late spring this year.

How's the language coming along?

Yeah pretty much, we have white sandy soil but there is also limestone here as well. Still plenty of sugar beet grown around here.

As for my Swedish, well it's getting better, I can't really hold a proper conversation (sad in a way as have been with the Mrs for nearly 10 years now), but I have a good idea of what is being said. I work in English so it's only when I'm home that I get to practice.

grazeaway

naughto wrote: »

Never mind the farming how are all the blonds treating ya iam not on about the one on 4 legs either.
Went over to Sweden a few yrs back with the lads just unreal they where

Well as the mrs is a brunette I can't say much on that topic.....ha ha ha

1st thing the struck when I 1st came here in the late 90's was that I expected more blondes.

Dawggone

grazeaway wrote: »

Yeah pretty much, we have white sandy soil but there is also limestone here as well. Still plenty of sugar beet grown around here.

As for my Swedish, well it's getting better, I can't really hold a proper conversation (sad in a way as have been with the Mrs for nearly 10 years now), but I have a good idea of what is being said. I work in English so it's only when I'm home that I get to practice.

What would be the average yield of sugar beet?

Only the young can percutaneously absorb language...