A lost farmer

Are you self employed off farm or an employee.

Is it a Suckler, store or finishing system in place. What is the land type if there is 90 cattle on the farm it is a substantial operation. What sort of housing in place. Is all the land in one block. Do you use contractors or is a lot of work done in-house.

If you are not registered on agfood.ie, get registered, it will help with paperwork. Also consider a smartphone app like Herdwatch, very useful especially if you need to register calves.

While a fathers input is important, his priority may be different to a son's who is working off farm. Its impossible to give advice until you know the details of the land or the present system. Some advice will be generic such as fecing, maybe paddocking, water, maxisimising payments, keeping costs low etc. But designing a system around what you do not know is impossible. For instance I be loath to advise anyone to go with a summer grazing system on an 80-90 animal farm. The shear capital investment during the summer would be massive. A farm capable of running 90 stock all the time(even if a suckler unit) would take100K in stock every summer. That is a huge risk and outlay.

Probably one of the highest risk. You are buying from a lad trying to make a margin and selling to a lad trying to make a margin. You are buying at the highest market price and selling into the lowest.

You are also carrying the risk of if you are restricted having to sell into feedlots which are restricted and literary have you by the b@lls. Grand to carry the risk on 20-30 cattle doing that but with 100+.

The other big factor with a summer based system.is the loss V profit risk. If you make a loss of 150/ head on 100 cattle that is 15k, you are unlikely to have all higher tax to write that off against. If you make 150/ head profit the 15 k will be taxed at the higher rate. Stock values cannot be used to soften tax liabilities on a once off like a lad will cattle all year around.

Add to all that the time it will take to buy 100 off cattle in spring and sell them in the autumn and work as well.

Have a look here,

you might be lucky and find your local advisor to be what you're looking for.

Some are good, some not so.

Either way good luck with your venture, it'll be hard work, but very rewarding.

In organic already so need 0.5 LU. For 60Ha need 30 cows. Get around 10k payment for organic scheme, do would need a lot of cattle to make up that payment.

Would it not be better to buy them in as suck calves instead of weanlings - granted there is a bit of work with them at that stage but you cut out a person needing their slice of the pie. Is there not better chance of increased margins rather than purchasing at weanling stage? The first year will be tough until you get into the 2nd year and have some stock to go out with.

We would buy in heifers as suck/drop calves. Rear them up and any poor ones get taken out as and when needs arise before the others either go finishers or less likely to the bull/AI to be sold as springers. I'd like to finish some myself, but how many would you need to have to finish yourself?

It depends on what type of cattle you buy. But most consider weanlings better value than calves. As well you have to be aware that the OP is working as a tradesman as well. On my own system I buy 60 ish stores and finish off grass the following year. 24 HA go in on my BPS but that is stretching the actual land base. Last year I finished 60, the year before 70. I have 65 bought this year. The last 5 I only bough because they were real value.

Can I ask why? We would always buy in some calves every year and then sell on at mart around the 12-14 month old mark. Just wondering what we have missed. Is it because you can avoid the ones that take too much to the dairy side?

(Apologies for sidetracking the thread here.)

It more to do with people taking cattle to finish. Buying at calf stage adds a lot of labour into the system. A lot of 3-10 months old calves are bought at virtually the cost of production. If you are carrying cattle to finish then you need to keep very young cattle away from potential disease burdens. It is relatively cheap to carry bucket fed weanlings for first winter and losses are generally not a factor compared to losses at calf stage.

TBH I cut out that stage and much prefer to watch for value at the 14-18 month stage. Last summer I bought two bunches of yearling Friesians in early July. One bunch 500 euro @ 330 kgs, 2nd bunch 490 euro@300 kgs., I probable picked up another 10-15 cattle at 450-550 euro from 290-370 kgs.

Would have advised organics if you had a few Sucklers. Like, with 60ha u would get 13k for 2 years and 10k thereafter for doing nothing. You would do very well to make up that amount of money by operating a more intensive and non-organic system.

To keep ur stocking rate at 0.5 and rinse those organic payments, u would need to source a good number of organic weanlings though (depending how many yer finishing). Wouldn't be easy.

Would be putting out twice as many blocks if I were you, Push in the second evening and they'll have it cleaned out the next day. ,

Grass is the cheapest feed you can have, measuring is the key to getting the most out of it.

See if there is a discussion group near you, ideally with at least a few younger lads in it that would be at a similar stage. You would get around and see what different lads are at and get a bit of input for yourself as well. A positive thinking group in that its one that looks for solutions as opposed to a lot of complaining if you can find one locally

Can you split a holding like that, and put part conventional and part organic? I didnt think you could?

Be very difficult in that you'd have non organic products in the yard, it'd be difficult to see it accepted by an inspector.

I know it's being done but it makes a farce of the whole thing

What age is your father?

Is there a succession plan in place or in process? When will you have or do you currently have financial control (and I don’t really mean to benefit from the farm income but more to allow spending and investment where required).

Sorry just getting back to here, tractorporn is correct. I was trying to suggest a system that might work. The father would have a lower number of stock to watch and manage on a day to day basis and the son could operate the organic side completely. Setting the grain and harvest are two small bursts of work in the spring and autumn. Three cuts of silage bales on the red clover ley every five weeks through the summer, two/three days each time. Less for these tasks depending on contractor use.

On the cattle side, a paddock or cell system with a long rotation.

I would not go for a double sided slatted. OP has some sheds anyway. I think handling facilities are top of his list.

On a shed I go for a single lean too type shed. Face it NE or N in that order. You can go up to six bays long. 16'6'' slats go at least 9' deep or up to 10 if you have a longer winter. Ever 6'' gives on a four bay gives you over 3k gallons of slurry capacity.

You can leave 10+ feet of room behind for to hold extra cattle if you expand. I would slope one pen into the tank. You could rubber mat it you hold 40 weanling in one pen and sloped floor. You could rubber mat the floor if you wanted to. I scrape it every day or every other day with a hand scraper. You would clean it in twenty minutes and weanling get used to you being close by, great way to check them as well

The least weather comes from that direction. South West is the worst followed by west and then south. East is preferably to any of the above but you can get very cold wet weather from that direction. NE is the best as you virtually never get weather from there. You can get snow from the North but it's not a yearly even. Over a winter you only get 4-5 days with weather from that direction.

You seldom end up with wet silage from the N or NE