Signs you are dealing with a 'Rooter'

Same story here, I was 17 when it fell upon me to take it on. I really struggled mid twenties when I really wanted to do some travelling with my friends who were at it but felt there was no way to get away. I would have sold out cows for a few years except I'd have lost milk quota so that really felt like a weight around my shoulders. Like you hope the next generation here get to experience what I didn't.

build your shed with heavy duty locks ,fuk the dairy lads bounding dont give them an inch when your time comes .What age is the quare fellow and are there other siblings to be fixed up when your time comes

Reading through the replies it seems like im making it out to be a succession issue, its not that at all its the issue of money being wasted in unneccesary areas of the farm while important areas are being neglected. I made it out NYE to town and i was introduced and recognised as one of the lads with the tractor with no doors on it. I was also talking to a friend before Christmas a tidy operator would be running a nice calf to beef system as his own along with the parents enterprise great hands and a great head on him and hes on about going to Australia this spring for as long as theyll keep them as the auld fella wont let him do a big clean up on the yard at home.

I am a farmers son and have one door fully missing. Lower pain of glass broken on the second door. Rear window missing (mission to get this fixed, hinge broke and it’s been off ten years, we used have a back end grab window was open always).

now I have no idea of how good your tractor is/age/HP.

But a new tractor won’t improve bottom line, tidying yard won’t improve the bottom line.

If your tractor always starts, even in frosty weather than it’s worth it’s weight in gold. I considered changing ours as it’s a rough enough Massey and instead doubled down on it and in process of getting engine rebuilt. That will prob cost 5k when finished but will be money we’ll spent if she lasts another 10 years versus buying an expensive second hand one (that will come with its own problem).

I remember a neighbour when I questioned why he never put up a shed and slats (he has a yard with ring feeds and scrapes into a slurry pit). His answer was “will the shed make the cattle fatter”. It stayed with me.

for meImprovement need to

1) either improve revenue or profit

2) make life significant easier or save time.

I am not disagreeing with you lads. All I am saying it’s not worth falling out with the old lad over.

Some scrap machinery around the place won’t ruin it. Your time will come to clean it up.

If the tractor starts and is mechanical sound then it will do for now. A new tractor will come with different problems.

Succession planning is difficult I guess. Forget about investment/tidy up until you are financially responsible for the farm. Maybe I am lucky with my old fella that he doesn’t pass comment on anything I do. But he is 83 now so despite being fit for his age realistically is able to do little but invaluable to spot sickness or changes in animals.

He doesn’t have a successor. So definitely a factor. But he does invest where makes sense.

The lad you describe is other side of the coin but it also sounds like the son is not interested And want to walk into a place that is perfect. The place is managing to milk 140 cows all alongside there is no way 400-500k is needed. Son doesn’t deserve it. 140 good cows, plus tillage land and he is moaning still 😀. If he don’t take it another son will and he will end up with a “site”…. But that’s the choice.

I don't want to say exactly JJameson, if anyone else knows him it would identify him straight away. Public sector role with a nice bit of work from home and flexibility.

Biggest perk I mentioned is he would be eligible to retire at 58 on a pension of about €49k. Be retiring on that at the same time all investment be paid off.

He wants the father to get out of milk and go all tillage. He likes the cows but with all tillage he can stay in the job and tip away on holidays. The volume of work he would have would keep contractors loyal to him.

The father wants to stay in cows. That's the crux of it.

Land purchase and an extensive property empire of 3 shops and a lot of rental houses.

I don’t think ye are seeing the point @Grueller is making. The son is in an €80k per year job and can retire in 16 years time with €49k per year of a pension.

Why would he leave that to go through the rest of his life killing himself mucking around the yard like his father is doing for at best similar money but without the pension at the end? If he wants to take over the farm and make life simpler to do it then €500k is probably a reasonable estimate of what is needed. He will then put his earnings into paying that back for the next 10-15 years so will have a much smaller salary himself and still nowhere near the pension available to him now and will have nowhere near the same lifestyle and time off with family etc. that’s available to him now.

@older by the day like yourself I inherited not much more than round feeders and a handful of stock and built it up from there myself. There’s nothing I’m happier at than farming so I was always going to go that road but financially if I had the other option available to me that this man has I would have been an idiot to turn my back on it to stay farming.

The moral I take from @Grueller story, as a non dairy farmer, is for all the money the rest of us are being told the dairy men are making, there’s none of it being made without hard work and major investment in the first place. If a lad is in his 20’s getting the farm he has time to make that investment, work hard, pay it off and still should have plenty of years to build up a retirement pot from it and enjoy his farming. For a lad in his 40’s, if he’s to make that commitment then he’s due to retire by the time the hard work is done and he has it paid for so will never get them relatively debt free years to enjoy what he does and build up his retirement pot. He’s also not going to be as fit and hardy as he would have been in his 20’s and 30’s to put the hard hours in so it will take more of a toll on his health.

I personally think that man would be an idiot to leave his job to go back to the type of messing his father is at.

The father has questions to answer too, if he has made enough of money to build up a property portfolio he could easily have handed over the reins to the farm 10 years ago when his sons were early 30’s. I would see him as either an idiot, or plain and simple greedy, for not handing it over sooner. Why wait until his sons have good off farm jobs and live’s established before looking for one of them to drop all that and farm. In my eyes the 3 sons would be better off away from the father and let him kill himself at it or do what he likes with it.

As farmers we all worry and complain about the age profile of farmers as it’s getting older every year but if lads are going to wait until the next generation are in their 40’s before giving them control then what do we expect.

The farm probably has a turnover of 750k per year. Plenty capacity there for investment straight away and make the job easier while still having a good income.

Made clear to him that the investment properties are split between the other 2 brothers.

DBK1 has hit the nail on the head with my point. Why take on the hardship when his life is set so well already. If the father had offered him this chance 10 yrs ago he would have took hand and all. He is just too far down the other path to leave 20 years work and promotions and a pension to start all over again.

By the way I am not criticising the father. He is a phenomenal man to have built what he has built. Made of iron and the mother equally so. They are not falling out over it at all and the son nor father have no I'll will toward each other. I just see it as an example of poor planning on succession more than anything.

Edit: The father is not a rooter by the way. Far from it, but he can see no harm in spending 12-14 hours every day working. Great cows, great land, well fenced but couldn't see a return on investment in the yard. In my opinion only that's a large part of the reason the son doesn't want to go home. He still does 3 milkings every weekend though and takes 3 weeks holidays during calving. . . . .

Some interesting comments or takes on the situation described above.

Anyone getting the chance to inherit a farm is in an extremely favourable position to the majority of people in Ireland at the moment. I grew up in a cottage with an acre of land but always had a keen interest in farming since a child. Now have 13 acres of our own (Albeit mortgaged) & have 20 acres leased. My plan is to keep tipping at work as my main focus and farm part time and hopefully buy more land as and when i can. If i was in the person aboves shoes with that sort of land at my disposal i think i would be looking at going full time though.

We were talking about this yesterday, local farmer, big farm, good set up. Son at home with him but gets no say at all. Father's way or no way. Only a matter of time before the son leaves. He already is under alot of mental pressure and imo would be better off a million miles away from the place

I think though if you're in that situation you need to move on, lease out the place and or whatever. No point killing yourself working into your 80s. I often say it to my young lad are you sure this is what you want.

You'd swear it was a burden, given land rental prices and what rental income you'll get from a well set-up dairy unit to lease, should it not be seen as fair enough the kids have went down other avenues and it will leave said farmer with a great pension whenever they decide to retire, I'm 35 now 3 kids aged 1-5, if none of them show a interest ill be leasing the place before I hit 60 lifes to short

yeah i see the same around me, i said it before theres definitley a huge differeence in the culture of the youth locally here than further down the country towards farming, i see huge interest by young lads and girls in midlands/border areas, not half as much in east. I have only one farm mearning me being farmed the rest are set out. id say at rough estimate totalling around 600 acres. I was thinking of buying a bit myself as an investment soon, i dont think i would bother farming it for a while but set it out on 5 year lease to spuds or carrot men? dont you get first 40k on leased land tax free? if i were to buy an apartment and rent it out the monthly rent will be taxed? i work off farm so would end up giving taxman a hefty amount each year. is thier anyone here who has bought land and rented out to get the value of this tax free rental income?

I know a fella looking for 200 acres to lease

I said it on a thread here a few months back, if any one of us on here was to stand in his yard and go around in a circle and name out all the farmers joining them, the vast majority don’t have an heir to the throne.

Land is making crazy money around here, any block of land that comes up for lease is easily making €600 per acre now. I know a couple of men who are leasing a bit for a few years with the intention of selling then. One man told me he wants to sell first when it’s still worth money as in 20 years time there’ll be that much land for sale around him due to no successors that it’ll be worth nothing.

It’s probably too late for a lot of us posting here but davidk if you’re in your 20’s now you could have great opportunity before your 40’s to buy land at a reasonable price.

No sorry funkey. Married, two children.

Mod snip

I want to protect the individuals identity.

G.

For years it's been said land will get cheaper with all the ageing farmers but I can't see the price dropping much anywhere that's suitable for tillage or dairy. A few hundred acres more with the gear the big tillage lads have now is nothing and nearly every dairy farmer could do with more land

Sorry - must have got muddled with some other posts.