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Viability of small dairy farm
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yosemitesam1 wrote: »Change that while you are still young. You'll see farming differently when you're a couple of years out of college meeting very few people everyday and have largely lost contact with the bulk of your classmates.
Better to do a more general ag degree than the dairy course also. Gives you more options down the line and wider perspective. No matter which you do, the vast majority of the most important things you learn will be picked up yourself, not handed to you by someone with little real world experience
Already meet very few people everyday, family is about it, well used to it, most of us would stay in contact
After the dairy course i was planning to do the agri engineering course in pallaskenry aswell, one fella on here was VERY against working as a mechanic (**** pay and **** working conditions, things could be different now though), most fellas i have talked to IRL about it would say that working as a mechanic is a very good job so
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you've to venture further afield to get a decent heifer. plenty of women into farming now, most are tidier operators than their male counterparts.
How many of them are into farming and how many of them are into the value of the farm
I dont doubt it, I have seen some rough farms, a farmer in cork recently went to jail and his fully grown dairy cattle weren't even the size of our yearlings0 -
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Already meet very few people everyday, family is about it, well used to it, most of us would stay in contact
After the dairy course i was planning to do the agri engineering course in pallaskenry aswell, one fella on here was VERY against working as a mechanic (**** pay and **** working conditions, things could be different now though), most fellas i have talked to IRL about it would say that working as a mechanic is a very good job so
The Level 7 degree in Agri Engineering would be in a lot of ways quite similar to a level 7 in Mechanical engineering and people used to be able to transfer between courses. (They did when I was doing mech anyway)
That would open up quite a wide area of courses in mechanical, manufacturing process engineering and a wide area of jobs as manufacturing engineers, design engineers, maintenance techs, field service engineers. Its fairly broad.
Reading the thread I think that other poster was spot on with his advice and he seems fairly up to date with his knowledge of the civil side of engineering.
I would get some good quality careers advice and talk to someone in the college if I was you.0 -
Hi OP!
Loving the thread. Getting people thinking and talking anyway.
I did my leaving two years ago and there was one lad in my year who spent the six years giving out about school, studying etc. His plan was to go to Ag College. Go out to Saudi Arabia as a farm manager and make a fortune. Come back and buy a big farm. He had it all thought out.
Anyway went to Ag College and after 2/3 weeks a few of the students (I think) were offered to move onto a level 6/7 degree in a Dairy Business style thing(I’m not sure ). He took the option with both hands after spending 6 years complaining about studying haha and he’ll go for a job as a saleman kinda thing. My point is that what you think you might like now and you’ll actually like are two different things.
Imo a mechanic is a dirty and often frustrating job and by 45 most of them are crippled. It might suit you to make that sort of decision if you grew up in a yard with a heap of machinery that was always breaking down but otherwise I’m afraid you mightn’t have much experience of it.Machine Diagnostics might be worth looking into as it’s cleaner, easier, better paid and is much more future proofed.
Your figures are way off also btw.
Assume €1500 per year per cow in milk for the first few years and maybe if you’re lucky you might get €600 for 9 month old weanlings. For 24 cows you’re talking €50000.
If your farm has been so lowly stocked for so long your grass is probably in ****e as all the bad grasses would be after taking over so don’t expect anything above 3.5% protein until the whole farm is reseeded
Also there ain’t many Fleckvieh heifers for sale in Ireland. The majority are imported so you’re talking €2300 a head. Btw they’re not all they’re made out to be. Good ones would barely match the best Holstein Friesian you could get milk wise and the calf value is only a very small thing in the modern dairy industry and it’s hard to get the big calf value without a lot of milk. Also at the mercy of calf dealers a lot of the time.
I assume you’re in the Irish Farming Discussion Group on Facebook and the amount of people crying on that page that they’ve devoted their life to the farm only for it to be sold from underneath them is frightening. Until you have a proper succession plan with your dad I wouldn’t be banking on anything.
Btw 300 points would get you into agriculture in CIT easily and if your family can’t afford it SUSI will cover a lot. If your family can afford it then you’re you’re not too badly off- it might be easier than handing over the farm straight away haha.
As other people mentioned look into relief milking and working for farmers in your spare time. They’ll teach you more than anyone on here will!!!
You said you’re not interested in making a fortune but when someone mentioned earlier pulling out of school and working for a farmer your first response was “oh I’ll easily get €10 an hour doing that”. That shows that you’re more interested in money than you’re letting on!!
Btw don’t be penny wise pound foolish with this getting into dairy before you’re 30. If you mind an off farm wage and build it up slowly and you’ll be able to build up to a wage that’ll easily get you into dairy much easier than your current means !!
I was stone mad for farming and still am but I’m doing a degree in Financial Maths.
I had considered doing Ag Science but did my work experience in Moorepark and that put me right off. Did three days there and it was incredibly worthwhile from the pov that it told me what I was letting myself in for.
Farming is all I know and my Facebook and Twitter feeds are full of farming stuff but I wanted to see a different side of the world besides always talking about cows and the weather.
During the summer spend three weeks at home on the farm without going anywhere and you’ll see what full time dairy farming is really like. You and your father are used to off farm jobs and meeting people everyday of the week. It’s a big change and you would t be long losing motivation when you get sick of doing the same thing everyday. There’s supposed to be a good career guidance Councillor in Bandon. I don’t know their name but a lot of people around me went to them and found them very helpful. A quick google may find plenty of them!
In conclusion, best of luck but I hope you see sense and try something different. The farm will always be there but your youth won’t be!!!
Your not wrong, opinions can change easily, for the moment i hate studying but who knows i might surprise myself, pretty sure the course in pallaskenry covers machinery diagnostics (90% sure will look into it more) I'd only be planning to do the mechanic work until im arounnd 25-30 which is when i'd be planning to get the dairy up and running, youd easily get 800 for decent weanlings in my local mart, youd get them to 350kg with a bit of ration
Its good grass at home, none of it is after being taken over by bad grasses as no nitrogen put out keeps the growth rate low enough just about for them to keep on top of it, 20 sucklers and their calves would be roughly equal to 24 cows and their 24 calves with a small bit of fertilizer spread, some fields would need weeds sprayed off but i could do that myself with our own sprayer
Not in the discussion group at all, none of this work would happen until the farm is in my name and my father hasnt said it directly but my mother has said that he plans to pass it on to me
Would be able to get the SUSI grant, what is the career possibilities after the agriculture course in CIT? From a quick google search its pretty much a more basic dairy course that covers all sides of farming instead
Not sure about the dropping out of school and going working for a farmer, from memory that was about a job that could earn 15 euro an hour or so (office job) my thinking was i could go work on a farm or with a contractor and maybe get a small bit less but get valuable experience instead and enjoy the work i would be doing, or atleast that's what i meant by it
I have often spent a few weeks at home and I didn't mind tbh, i'm well used to the isolation and i dont mind it, tbh with ya its been probably 3 nearly 4 weeks since i have met anyone outside of the family
Is Roisin Kelleher the guidance counsellor you were talking about?
What was wrong with moorepark also?
And thanks! 0 -
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Say my name wrote: »Have no idea.
Tandem axle puts more rubber on the ground tho. More rubber, less pressure per square inch on soil.
Most of the time the tandems tend to have a lot smaller tyres also LGP ~560 tyres at a guess would be the general size i have seen on them, never seen tractor tyre style tyres on them and i find tractor tyre style tyres tend to mark the ground less too i find as in softish ground the LGP tyres tend to sink down and "Ball" up the soil infront of them if they do start to sink, if they stop turning your really ****ed but there is the factor of more weight on the single axle and the tandem has the weight spread across 2 axles, anyone got exerience with both and find one better than the other? 0 -
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Most of the time the tandems tend to have a lot smaller tyres also LGP ~560 tyres at a guess would be the general size i have seen on them, never seen tractor tyre style tyres on them and i find tractor tyre style tyres tend to mark the ground less too i find as in softish ground the LGP tyres tend to sink down and "Ball" up the soil infront of them if they do start to sink, if they stop turning your really ****ed but there is the factor of more weight on the single axle and the tandem has the weight spread across 2 axles, anyone got exerience with both and find one better than the other?
The big tractor wheel are rough on a long draw on the road,hop hop hop
Twin axle is smoother on the road, but I'd imagine they could just stop turning in the field these days0 -
I haven’t a clue who the guidance councillor was but I’d be getting a couple of pieces of professional advice if you’re not sure.
It’s great you’re used to isolation anyway which is the a good thing haha.
I hope I didn’t come across as too dismissive In the last post!
Grasstec and companies like FRS, Lely and Dairymaster or Ag merchants take on a good few CIT graduates afaik. It’d be less sciencey than UCC or Tralee and more practical. Go onto LinkedIn and set up a profile and go for a browse through where they are employed. I’ll see can I dig out a link. http://www.mycit.ie/contentfiles/Careers/Your%20degree%20in%20Agriculture%20-%20%20What%20Next.pdf
I’m in Mid Cork so not a million miles away and very few (if any) dairy bred animals under a year of age make €800 which would mean wintering the cattle which I’m not sure yere set up for. You might be used to selling sucklers but In Macroom or Bandon you won’t get that sort of money too handy for dairy bred animals.
I’m afraid if you’re getting started in dairy you ain’t gonna get 3.6% protein unless you start with Xbreds and an extreme attitude to grass. You need new grass (or else constantly well managed pasture) to get good percentages
Moorepark maybe I was naive but they weren’t really set up for work experience students ( and Teagasc supposed to be the education agency��) and I was put painting gates. It was at a lot of measuring grass too.
Didnt sound dismissive at all, what you were saying makes perfect sense, i have seen ****e quality dairy bullocks make nearly 900 ~350 kilos as i suppose fellas think that no one else will bid on them and that theyre the only ones that see them and will get them for cheap, god only knows what goes through those bidders minds
I did the income for a 31c milk price which would be 3.3P and 3.6BF which would be easily achieveable
Teagasc are a waste of time, was putting a roof on a shed for a fella one day with the boss and the father, got chatting to the farmer anyway and he told me he had asked teagasc for advice on a pit, something like 12 cattle and a few bullocks
Whatever bolloxing they did with their calculations the pit was twice the width it should of been and the silage in the next face would be gone off by the time he would be finished with the first face and that was with a shear grab! Imagine the waste with a tine grab :eek: he had to go back to bales anyway which is costly but not as costly as the wasted pit silage
Ah yes painting gates, the cornerstone of any farming business
Im fairly decent at judging how many days grazing is in the field by a quick stroll around the field (not to toot my own horn) no real need to measure it i have found
If push came to shove we could do what we have done before and winter the weanlings on the silage ground with a bit of ration and then slurry on once the ban lifts, roll it then a few weeks after works very well, quite a dry field, worked very well we found
Im used to managing grassland, topping once they come out of the field and would have fertilizer out straight away if we had to spread it
Will look into that course aswell so for 2 years time as i have already applied for the dairy course so dont want to be changing that0 -
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