is entering dairying still an option

Ya it was a project that was designed to let the larger farmer with finance know the way you could set up multiple stand alone projects. They forgot about the labour issue, housing, slurry, calves, and environmental changes it is coming back to bite these farmers.

90 k is great wages for a semi skilled worker. You have to work near enough the same hours to get the same wages. Most of the workmanship on a farm is 10-15 euro/ hours work. Tractor work, milking, calving, land maintenance etc.

They are very few that have skills that really pay. Most would end up working in manual or semi skilled work in the 11-17 euro an hour work.

I used to always say to lads complaining about there jobs over the years. Far away hills look green. One lads said it back to me after he took a deal in his early forties and ended up driving a taxi.

Ya it's easy to know you have and are working outside farming.

A lot of lads make work for themselves by not contracting out certain jobs. Yes it costs more but if you want a certain lifestyle you have to pay for it

Its like retiring you will never have the money you had when working.

No point looking at this year in isolation for costs or profit, look at the last 5 or 10. There have been more years closer to 25 than current prices

Re the work itself a lot is dependent on what stage people are at and what they need out of it. All points by everyone above are valid but can be circumstance specific.

Just re the labour point. We are at full employment, and while the energy shitshow is putting a lot of places under pressure, wages aren't likely to come down. Local petrol station with shop was offering 14 an hour to find people, no such thing as lads working for minimum wage anymore so if you want people you'll have to pay for em, and in some cases that means not standing still

It’s probably all dependent on your position in your setup. If a lad is still in development phases there’s a lot more work than an established man. And that goes for all categories of farmers, not just dairy. But then there’s also lads that are able to drag the work out to create the image of being busy.

We’ve one neighbour here that would be well established and would tell anyone that’ll listen how hard farming is and how he’s wore out from it with 12 - 14 hour days every day. He has about 20 suckler cows, 40 or 50 dry stock and buys in about 200 lambs to fatten on kale over the winter. He’d tell his part time farming neighbours that they don’t know how handy they have it in their off farm jobs compared to him out in all weathers every day of the week.

I don’t think he realises the part timers he’s talking to have more stock than him and are able to have all their farming done in an hour or 2 in the evenings after their off farm work.

It also leaves you at the mercy of the contractor's schedule.

Similar for buying in feed. You might buy it in cheaper than you'll make it, but it can be pot luck what you'd get.

Yep I agree. That same lad I’m referencing would be well set up, a decent modern tractor with loader, keeps a fresh jeep and cattle trailer, farm would be well fenced and well paddocked out, and he has plenty of his own machinery for doing his own work.

I suppose the point I was making is what one man considers a small job another man, that maybe wouldn’t have ever been used to working off farm so only ever worked to his own schedule, could consider the same job as a lot of work.

Contractor here used to do everything tractor related was getting 35k plus a year, and every year the service got worse where you where literally begging to get things done, all in-house now bar silage wagon contractor who brings in and rakes but you could set your watch with this lad once he gets any bit of notice at all

It would depend on how much you are doing ......

It would be a bit silly to apply an assumption as to what someone else is doing without knowing what they do!

It doesn't have to be 80 hours a week every single week to constitute "busy" anyway. It's hardly "only 79 hours and sure you're free to do anything else"

What straight said was that dairy farming was like having 2 full time jobs. That is 80 hours every week. I was merely pointing out an exaggeration, not saying he wasn't busy. I fully accept he is busy.

I'd rarely do less then 80 hours a week, but that's due to herd size and tractorwork nearly all done in-house, 20 hours a cow a year is ment to be gold standard with all machinery work contracted out, so in my case my problem is to many cows, lack of relief labour

Teagasc done a really good study into it a few years ago

Your wife would want to be on board 100% if you are considering it.

Actually, she’d nearly want to be 200%.

Would 100 cows be feasible off a 30 ha block without serious hassle? The current 9 unit is limited by space unless we break through a slatted tank to the back, so would probably call for a whole new building.

What does a relief milker cost these days?

If you can grow the grass it would be fine, 3.3/ ha for main growing season, a bit of buffering in the spring and late autumn but weather may have doing that anyway at a lower sr so would aim to setup to do that. 85ha total with plenty replacements would still have you stocked fine overall. Is the 30 ha the biggest block?

Would get on to local teagasc office and see if you can find a good local discussion group, would help you flesh things out a bit better

In your mid 30's in a semi-state job is there promotional prospects. Do you have far to travel to work. Will your earning increase as your career develops down the line. Is your job trade or professional qualification based. Is WFH a long-term option

Is the farm split in many blocks. Are the outside blocks set up paddocked, water etc.

Under present farming payments your BPS will be a out 21k. C3 ANC will give you about 2.6 if you qualify for it. So no matter what system you choose you will have 23.6k in payments if ANC is applicable.

At 220 kgsN/ HA on 30HA you could manage 70-80 dairy cows and easily bring in some fodder from other sides of the farm. However if you are worried about lifestyle then investment is probably required to upgrade parlour and to keep labour I/p low. Also if you add more cows will there be extra Capital investment If you decide to expand cow number durther

You and your father will already know the profitability of you calf to beef system in place. You are probably finishing cull cows as well. Which is the most likely to appeal to you or will you continue both. You may need extra housing but it's easier to access TAMS as a drystock farmer. There is limits being put in place for dairy farmers. Therefore beef will require little capital investment and even at that its easier to spread it over time as opposed to dairy being mostly up from.

Staying working gives you options of continual steady cash flow. If WFH is a long term option I would definitely stay at the job and a beef. If you are not traveling a distance to work, and it has good career opportunities and your hours are fairly ok I still opt for the beef operation.

A dairy operation may tie you to milking cows into your mid/late sixties to sort debt and investment.

Any calf to beef or cull cow operation should bring in a decent margin 40k should easily be attainable. Biggest factors is if your present housing is all in the one place ( not a disaster if not). If you can gather most of your silage from around your sheds therefore it's easier to spread slurry etc

Contract out as much as is feasible. It's important to treat it as a business as much as a lifestyle.

90 minutes from opening the dairy door to closing it in the morning, slightly less in the evening, that would include moving the strip wire these days. Autowasher is a big help

13 rows next year, wouldn't be spending that long washing, wash as I go and a big wash every so often. Fitting a new volume washer and pressure washer with a head just on the trigger with hose on a reel to speed that up. Crossing roads slow things esp this time of year once they realise they are not going straight out they really slow down

I'm WFH 4 days per week at the moment, commuting 90 mins each way to work when I do travel. Money isn't great and it gives me plenty of sleepless nights, but it's hard to give up a solid paycheck, especially with the wife still looking for a permanent teaching job.

Common sense tells me to stick with the job and drystock, but something in me likes the 'numbers' involved in dairying and I never minded the work - it's the bloody weekends that are the killer.

We've a bigger block on the outfarm (about 4 miles away from home) that would be great for a 100 cow setup, but the investment scares me a bit - especially when the mortgage is going to be a stretch over the next few years.

Ours is a 2hp pump we just got from EPS. 1 inch pipe.

Yeah, the need for a weekend will never really work with farming!

Upskilling is always an option, but finding the time at the moment, with 2 very young kids, building a house, job and farm would be tough. Bringing in around 70k gross, that'll rise to 80-85ish without promotions. So it's kind of in the middle where it's tough to leave, but doesn't make things comfortable.

If I was on 70k with prospects of rising to 80/85k I would be sticking with that and working away with any capital projects on the farm getting it ready for a time when there's less pressure from a mortgage and young family where you can then walk away.

I am only taking in 45k gross atm but that's my strategy, once the mortgage is sorted I will look at dropping the job.

Don't let the mortgage be that big of an issue mentally. I remember thinking that I would be able to do the devil and all when I got mine cleared, but the reality was that kids were now into their teens and were getting expensive to run. College bills looming also hopefully so the reality is that the job will always be important unless you have scale to be a really viable full time farm. That's probably not an option in anything except dairying in my opinion, well at least not to compete with an €80k job.

I gave up the day job 6 years ago to milk cows. You kind of have to be built for farming and dairying even more so. I certainly wouldn't go farming for the money anyway. But 20 years at any job is nearly enough for most lads. Biggest problem I see for the OP is the 90 min each way commute. That is just not on imo. Farm was fairly set up here when I took over but it still took alot of investment from cash flow between stock, sheds, water, roadways, machinery.

I could pull the plug anytime I want and certainly won't be milking cows in my 60's.

Children are still in national school and I do all the drops and pickups/homework, etc. Actually enjoy getting to spend so much time with them and they are getting interested in farming so that will probably encourage me to keep going if they keep an interest.

At the moment