The good old days.....

Yes many bullocks in the 80s were 3 years old when hung. They were good days but very few had money. I don't subscribe to the post where 8 to 10 bought a new tractor. That happened in the early 70s from stories relayed here.

I remember the 80s where diary calf to beef was all the rage. It didn't last as stock were too old dying. Its different now with 21 month beef. If you arrived in a factory with a 21 month old fr bullock then you'd be ran.

The factories tried to control the trade but Purcell was king. When they arrived in the marts the factories were deflated and the scrambled for stock. Beef went through the roof.

After Purcell the factories regained control but they had no markets except for specialised uk markets. Intervention arrived. I remember bullocks at 80p per pound dw. Heifers at 75p. Then hormones arrived for the farmer to make a few pound. A big finisher said to my Dad one day..I couldn't make a penny from beef without the dust.

Great memories but I was only a kid.

The price of diesel comes to mind straight away.

Are you sure you had bales of silage in the 80s?

'The good old days', bollocks to that. Mouldy hay, thinning turnips, grating turnips, mucking out the cow stalls, thinning sugar beet, pulling sugar beet by hand and snagging it in November/December.

BTW silage bales were an invention of a Northumberland farmer named Frank Lloyd in 1973. He put them in bags and sucked out the air. Bales and wrapping arrived in Ireland late 70's/early 80's.

Similar comparison,

they were the big tractors of the 80s like the big fendts of today,

a poor man's tractor today would compare to a mule in the 80s

Presume we should , as each, were/are out of reach to a poor farmer.

It's funny, because the whole thread was started about how new tractors were more affordable in 1973, which is what I was disagreeing about. I think small farms today are far more likely to have a nice-ish tractor than in the 70's, but there is a far bigger range of tractors available too. Tractors similar to 70's machines would mostly be scoffed at these days. (I know there will be some exceptions too.)

Don't remember many farms still being farmed using mules in the 80's either.

Affordable yes, but also the income from cattle and milk and crops was bigger to compensate for these purchases. I understand your opinion though.

Sorry it was Llloyd Foster invented baled silage. his valuable contribution should be recognised. As per the Old Brehon Law, 'to each writer his copy, to each cow its calf'.

Most of us were substituting labour for capital.

The finances have completly gone banannas....

I well remember filling a 5 gallon drum of diesel for under £5, fertiliser for £45/ton and bullocks going out the gate at £800, no idea what age they were but not factory fit anyway. I also remember interest rates at 23%..

I don't miss forking stuff out either....😁

Don't f** go there😉

I did all that too. I even milked a cow by hand, for the house for a few years. In contrast to all that, I remember last year sitting up on the contractors new Fendt with air conditioning and nearly nodded off with the comfort. You can keep the hardship of old.

I previously posted about mortgage interest rates hitting 23%. My off farm work take home pay covered the monthly repayments and left IR£35 in my bank account. On the flip side deposit interest rates hit 15% which was great for any with money in the bank.

Anyone who got the cow numbers up early in the 70s was ahead of the posse, by that I mean over 40 cows.

Yes they were well off farmers with good set up for the times. They were not the norm however, I'd say every parish had a couple.

Comparing cattle prices as a measure of tractors is like comparing sports stars of the past versus now. You just can't do it with accuracy.

Bales silage was bagged up to the late 80’s, it wasn’t until 89 that the wrappers arrived.

Back breaking labour. Welts on your hands from using the pike. Death trap tractors and trailers falling apart on the road. Using dangerous chemicals without ppe. DDT the miracle substance. Fcuk all that.

The old people were very hard on animals too. Anything that moved was flaked with sticks, including dogs and children.

Yes i heard they were on 1k a week back then....massive money... i doubt there is any of it left either!...they enjoyed it in the moment

But tractors are very different, for a start there were no "luxury" models in the 70's just a small selection of HP options.

Tractor development through the 60's, 70's to the mid 80's consisted of new tinwork paint colours and adding indicators / brake lights and improved cabs plus a few new higher HP models. From the mid 80's they very much split into ranges with features never seen before alongside the more basic models. By the 2000's the most basic models were dropped in this part of the world by the main brands even though they still make them in other parts of the world, MF for example still build 200 and 300 series tractors or at least commission them to be built by smaller manufactures such as Tafe. Several new budget brands now exist in the Irish market selling 90HP tractors under 50K with specs which on paper at least seem to compare to 90's tractors with 4WD 12X12 manual shuttle gearboxes but will have a lot to prove to build brand confidence.

In the 70's farms bought tractors spec'd to the minimum HP to meet the work requirements of the farm and were more likely to work them hard, today many tend to over spec them and still contract all of the field work out.