Forget the prices, just hold enough stock to make the schemes!

n1st

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118086505#Comment_118086505

I'm thinking Dexters, weanlings maybe, buy in March and sell in October. Or heifers of some sort.

Something light and easy to manage.

Return on purchase price is a nice to have.

As I said get the schemes and keep the grass ate without silage and fertilizer and slurry.

Any recommendations?

Albert Johnson

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118088694#Comment_118088694

Unless you have a definite end market for the Dexters I'd forget about them tbh. Dexter beef is in demand if it can be marketed correctly and brought through to the end customer. Live Dexter cattle in a mart in October are a different story altogether.

I'd be more in favour of grazing a few handy AA or similar type heifers. They'll not break the bank to purchase, aren't too big and hard managed and they should be fat coming off average type ground in the autumn. You'll then have the option of either slaughtering them or selling live which is important in the event of a Tb breakdown and no winter fodder or facilities.

jaginsligo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118088694#Comment_118088694

I was thinking Dexter as well but as Albert says there's not many markets for them, which is a pity as they would suit here. This year I bought in late March 7 x fresian yearlings bullocks. I avoid heifers as I was afraid a neighbor bull would pay a visit as he has in the past when there was cows here

Great thing was how quite they were & very easy managed, very easy fenced. Sold 3 last month & did ok with 2 but only made €20 on the 3rd one. Paid too much for him 1st day

Hard to find a customer who's willing to put them in a shed maybe for 2 winters.

The best 4 are going this day next week, we'll see how it goes.

As I don't have the facilities to winter, next spring I might try some bucket reared AA or whiteheads, think I'll stick to the bullocks

n1st

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118091127#Comment_118091127

I was thinking that Fresian calves would be very quiet and easy handle. These were in my plan a few weeks ago. Buy cheap sell cheap as all i require is something to eat the grass really.

Albert Johnson

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118091218#Comment_118091218

There's nothing wrong with that strategy but it's important to buy something that will be possible to get sold again when the time comes. If you buy something that's near impossible to give away in the autumn then it's not much use.

I'd try and stick with a middle of the road type animal regardless of colour. Half the skill in summer grazing is buying them at the right price, if you miss out on this you're flogging a dead horse in most cases. The other part being live weight gain from purchase to sale but that will probably be of lesser interest to you.

jaymla627

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118088405#Comment_118088405

The EU have gone off the reservation to be fair, theirs a worldwide shortage of fertilizer in the world and they're now going to launch a investigation into European fertilizer producers for price fixing and market manipulation, its a case of Nero fiddles while Rome burns

K.G.

Neighbour contract grazes dairy yearling heifers near here and runs a Hereford bull with them.they stay 7 or 8 months depending on the year and the dairy farmer spreads the bag for him.no silage no housing no slurry no diesel

Bass Reeves

OP summer grazing system take a lot of management. Most are carried out on good land. Most that are profitable use a spring store to finish. However you require a great ability to buy suitable animals.

You would need serious numbers of younger animals to keep grass in check. Set stocking takes a lot of skill. Topping takes time and money.

On 50 acres 10 cattle will be more hardship than they are worth. Hard to beat overwintering to increase profitability. Costs are not excessive if you make decent silage. I agree leasing is a one way ticket out of farming.

Friesian bullocks have one great advantage, the ability to gain weight and eat a lot of grass. On fifty acres you would manage 30-40 handy with a couple ton of 18-6-12. However they can be expensive in spring 30 could cost you 35+k next spring. I have bought 60 stores at less than 700/head average mostly Friesians

It will cost 100- 120/head to overwinter them. Your system will require you to buy as early as possible. The minute the 1st of March v comes stores climb in price. By mid April it's too late to buy.

Going the sell in Mart route is an accident waiting to happen. To keep grass under control you need to graze as late as possible. Prices drop and cattle do not weight in November.

n1st

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118093355#Comment_118093355

Sounds like keeping 20 acres for hay and getting 10 to 15 weanlings will be more like it for me. Profit from sales is not the priority.

Buy 15 Friesian weanlings or similar in February at 300 each then sell in October at 700.

Danzy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118095161#Comment_118095161

You say profit is not a concern, that's fine but don't work harder to make it not a concern than you would to turn a few Bob and still be very nature friendly and regenerative.

Selling meadows will strip the ground bare.

Albert Johnson

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118095161#Comment_118095161

Without wanting to incessantly rain on you're parade I think you're costings are a bit out. The sort of Friesan weanling you'll buy for €300 in February won't be worth within an asses roar of €700 the following October especially if he's just left to exist on a rough run inbetween. There's a few posters here who buy the sort of cattle in the autumn that you'll be selling and I'm fairly sure they don't give €700 for them.

You need to add value to whatever you graze over the summer namely kgs of live weight. Otherwise you're buying a store at the dearest to time to sell as a similar store 6 months older and at the wrong time of year. Atleast with a middling store heifer she should be fat in the autumn and some way in demand.

Easten

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118095161#Comment_118095161

Except the reality is you buy 15 Friesians in February for 300 and sell in October for ........300

Albert Johnson

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118096092#Comment_118096092

I'd be hoping for somewhere north of €400 sale price considering there bound to stretch out a bit over the summer. However when you take possibly 2 sets of mart commission, haulage, testing ect off that you'd still be better off "At home on full dole" as an friend of mine would say.

Bass Reeves

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118095161#Comment_118095161

You won't buy Friesian weanlings for for 300 in February and if you do they will not make 700 in October. I am buying Friesian stores a long time and yiu need to have a 450 kg plus to make that money and that is this year.

You actually have a better chance buying a 500 euro one and hoping he make 900.

Your hardest thing will be grass control and in 2-3 years everything will be shite

wrangler

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118095161#Comment_118095161

I'm following your thread here and getting convinced that the best small enterprise you could be in is lambing ewes.

We're farming 11 acres here with 80 ewes, we sold about €15000 worth of lambs/ewes

Between my wife and I we've abiut 100 years experience of sheep and there are days we need every bit of it.

I'm advising a neighbour that lambed 20 ewes last year and he's going to be lambing 40 this year so I must alright at it, but he reads every bit of sheep information he can get

Danzy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118096178#Comment_118096178

Think you are on to something here. First year sheep here, a lot to learn, and a lot I only realize I didn't learn in a few years.

They are manageable. Your neighbour is lucky to have your advise.

wrangler

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118096236#Comment_118096236

He's a good student, He had to manipulate his first lamb, he phoned me after and I asked when he got his lambing experience, he answered ''about an hour ago''. I don't think he lost even one lamb

_Brian

the big problem with summer grazing with no winter facilities is the risk of a TB outbreak.

a friend was five years into this, he was buying 25/30 heifers in spring to sell in autumn. TB test went down. No housing and no feeding. It ended costing a fortune and lost far more than he had made in the previous years.

Homer jay

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118096178#Comment_118096178

Hi Wangler, that is a very high stocking rate you are running, fair play to you. I am in a similar boat to your neighbor, first time lambing last year, only lambed 15 last year for the first time and hopefully 24 this year, not much facilities for sheep as always had suckler cows and selling as weanlings in the back end but housed them 2 weeks before lambing and got four pens of hurdles and all went ok. Thinking of getting out of the cows altogether and don’t fancy the idea of spending days in the marts buying dear weanlings and then the associated problems with them. I was just wondering roughly how many ewes I could comfortably run on 40 heavy lowland acres in north mayo ? Thanks.

Hard Knocks

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118096881#Comment_118096881

Don’t get rid of all the cows completely , found here running cows with calves & ewes with lambs work well together. Move regularly and keep fresh grass in front

n1st

Great knowledge and advice here. Very interesting. Thank you all

n1st

I wonder what my grandparents, 80 years ago, did on this farm without sheds and fertilizer, how did they manage the grass for example?

Something feels wrong with where we're at now, seems to be alot of pressure, even if making profit is not a priority.

minerleague

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118097092#Comment_118097092

Doubt they had no sheds, most farmers kept a few cows in tie up byres, spread FYM, but mostly they grew most what they ate + hens and a few pigs. Managed grass by stocking at right levels, clover, burnt lime and slag would have been spread too.

Jim Simmental

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118097092#Comment_118097092

There was no word about the ‘environment’ or ‘climate change’ back then

Danzy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118097092#Comment_118097092

There wasn't 7.6bn to feed, most people lived lives of very hard work, often for wages that would be comparable to the poorer parts of the modern 3rd World today.

Some things have changed for the better, others not so.

Stock numbers would have been a fraction of now on farms. Animal weights and milk yields were much smaller.

Agriculture in Europe never really recovered from the opening up of the west in America to train, there was a flood of grain in to the world and price's crashed.

I asked my uncle one time what did he think most changed farming in his time, I thought he'd say tractor etc.

No, the electric fence. That revolutionized grazing management.

During the famine we produced enough food for 20 million, no fertilizer.

Without fertilizer Africa and Asia would crash back to their 50s population levels.

A big story globally this century is runaway population growth in Africa, a continent without the land type to even come close to feeding it's current population.

wrangler

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118096881#Comment_118096881

Is you land wet, if it's just heavy land, start with 3 ewes/acre and see how it goes. Our sheep are nice in that they're self contained, we breed our own replacement so apart from buying rams we never have to compete with idiots around the ring taht don't have their figures done.

an all sheep system takes management and its far simpler in mixed grazing, less worms, easier grasslad managemnt, if grass gets ahead of the ewes you can put in the cows to graze it off and put the ewes on a nicer paddock where as we have to make them graze it and accept the drop in performance

n1st

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118097195#Comment_118097195

But we as small part time farmers don't need to feed the world, we manage the land and maybe make a small profit.

Technology should be making it easier to do the above.

Should I be able to produce the same levels as my grandparents while using technology to reduce the workload?

I as a part-time hobby farmer with another livelyhood should not be under the same pressure to produce, break my back to make a profit.

Hard Knocks

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118097403#Comment_118097403

Sadly they hadn’t the same regulations and overheads as we do now

Dinzee Conlee

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118097403#Comment_118097403

N1st - have a look at organic farming.

Now, have a look at regenerative farming.

Neither of these would suit your ‘summer only’ plan. You’d be better off reading your own. Better again if you had a mixed enterprise - sheep and cattle…

But it’s closer to the farming your grand parents did…

jaginsligo

Is it possible to apply for organic farming scheme if doing summer grazing? Would it make sense. 28 acres here & only doing summer grazing & pretty much organic as is, no fertilizer or chemicals

Is the scheme changing with the new cap?