All things Dairy

Agrispeed

Member
Location
Cornwall
Not even a whiff 😳 did my asthma checkup last october and got asked how many units of alcohol I've consumed, I said about 20 bottles, the nurse looked horrified and really worried and started to tell me I need to cut down, suddenly occured to me she meant in a week whereas I meant over the past year 🙈😂 been in lockdown for most of the year and haven't been out or seen hardly anyone and been working every hour of the day (as theres nothing else to do!) both at home and planning for the big move so just havent been bothered with it 🤷‍♂️

I've got a really keen young guy who would be localish to you who was relief milking for me. I've let him go as I've moved over the Tamar. Young but very switched on and keen. I can PM you his number if you want.
 

Martyn

Member
Location
South west
Sort of, its budgeted for but I'm hoping it wont be needed, reckon I can get the cows through in 2 hours including wash down, which is only 4 hours a day total so hopefully can cope on my own for the most part
Are you block calving? I'm doing all our milking 200 days twice a day, 100 days one a day, then dry for 60 I expect. I know it sounds a lot but I expect it's less than the standard herdman on 12 on 2 off. I don't stick to spot on milking time so if I go St Meryn or do the School run I milk late same when baling in the evening, works well for me, always get to say good night to my daughter's everynight, cows seam relaxed.
 
Location
West Wales
@Jdunn55 i did nearly every milking for 3 years. Infact milking the lunch shift on a 3x herd paid for my wedding but it was sh!t and only doable because we were milking 100 odd cows and dad was helping out doing fair shifts too. When my eldest was ill and I was running between hospital and milking it put it all into perspective. It was pointless. We struggled to get cover if we went away because everyone good is booked up and they don’t owe you anything. If you get someone regular booked in they can normally manage to accommodate a bit of extra holiday etc but no chance is joe blogs rings them up from no where.
you’ll never perform to your best if your just stuck in that pit all the time.
 

Dead Rabbits

Member
Location
'Merica
There is a podcast called “How I built this” where people who started companies tell their story of starting a business. It’s very enlightening. The amount of money borrowed, lost and spent is staggering. The amount of effort and emotional toll it took on many will make you think.

Farmers aren’t the only ones with long hours. Elon musk I think said one time if you aren’t willing to work 16-18 hours per day every day for a very long time then the start up game isn’t for you.

There is one about stoneyfield, a yogurt maker and Mr.Dyson is on there too. 4+ hour milkings you need something to listen to.
 

Sid

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
South Molton
There is a podcast called “How I built this” where people who started companies tell their story of starting a business. It’s very enlightening. The amount of money borrowed, lost and spent is staggering. The amount of effort and emotional toll it took on many will make you think.

Farmers aren’t the only ones with long hours. Elon musk I think said one time if you aren’t willing to work 16-18 hours per day every day for a very long time then the start up game isn’t for you.

There is one about stoneyfield, a yogurt maker and Mr.Dyson is on there too. 4+ hour milkings you need something to listen to.
100% agree put in the hard yards and you will get somewhere.
 
17 fresh out the oven on a beautiful sunny, frost free Monday morning.
March.. in like a lamb out like a....
20210301_080854.jpg
 

Jdunn55

Member
Thanks for all the replies, in terms of work I think it's going to have to be a bit of trial and error and see how things go, I've got someone who's going to be doing 3 days a week for me and would be doing some relief milking - its just how much that I'm as yet undecided on, I like milking and am a massive fuss ass when it comes to cow management and wouldnt want to upset him by being a control freak which is why I'm kind of thinking the less he does the less I have to worry about but if he does 2-3 it's less risk for me to worry about but still enough that should I be on silage or want to go out I can ask him to milk for me. The other problem I've got at the minute is all I can see are pound signs, I hate owing people money and would like to get to ther point of not having to rely on the bank and finance companies for everything, and for every 4 milkings is save £100, which if I do that every week it adds up to over £5,000 which is the equivalent of 3-4 cows/heifers... I've also got someone keen on doing an apprenticeship, so I've said that he can come and do every saturday with me until the summer holidays when we can decide if he wants and if I want him to do an apprenticeship with me which would help me out next year. I've only got 90 cows this year and very little in the way of youngstock but still have all the sucklers and sheep to do as well. I've got a contractor coming for first cut, budgeted to have someone come and serve the cows but I am hoping to do a refresher course next month to serve them myself but if i cant cope i can ask the tech to do them (or even a 50:50 split!). So I'm fairly certain that itll be ok.
I want to work hard and pay this bloody loan off and once that's done I can relax a bit but currently I'm phoning the bank manager every other week to keep him updated ( albeit on a voluntary basis as i feel it's best to keep him in the loop!) and i always feel like hes my keeper at the minute and I don't like it - not the fault of my bank manager hes brilliant and would be highly recommended! I havent got a family to support at the minute and if I work hard now should that change I'll be in a much better state financially to support them

Thankyou @Agrispeed for the offer but for now I'm going to see how it goes as I should be fairly well sorted, especially as I'll only be milking 30-40 to begin with but if I get there and find it too much I'll send you a message.
 

Jdunn55

Member
On a change of subject, got some fetilisr out yesterday, this is the hybrid ryegrass now, never seen so much grass so early on, put 100kg/acre of ammonium nitrate which will mean I can cut any time from April depending on how it looks or else I can shove some more fertiliser on if it looks like it needs it and cut later (one advantage of having a round baler being I can cut fields as and when!), not seen any of the red clover that was sowed but hoping that'll come through from April
 

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dinderleat

Member
Location
Wells
Thanks for all the replies, in terms of work I think it's going to have to be a bit of trial and error and see how things go, I've got someone who's going to be doing 3 days a week for me and would be doing some relief milking - its just how much that I'm as yet undecided on, I like milking and am a massive fuss ass when it comes to cow management and wouldnt want to upset him by being a control freak which is why I'm kind of thinking the less he does the less I have to worry about but if he does 2-3 it's less risk for me to worry about but still enough that should I be on silage or want to go out I can ask him to milk for me. The other problem I've got at the minute is all I can see are pound signs, I hate owing people money and would like to get to ther point of not having to rely on the bank and finance companies for everything, and for every 4 milkings is save £100, which if I do that every week it adds up to over £5,000 which is the equivalent of 3-4 cows/heifers... I've also got someone keen on doing an apprenticeship, so I've said that he can come and do every saturday with me until the summer holidays when we can decide if he wants and if I want him to do an apprenticeship with me which would help me out next year. I've only got 90 cows this year and very little in the way of youngstock but still have all the sucklers and sheep to do as well. I've got a contractor coming for first cut, budgeted to have someone come and serve the cows but I am hoping to do a refresher course next month to serve them myself but if i cant cope i can ask the tech to do them (or even a 50:50 split!). So I'm fairly certain that itll be ok.
I want to work hard and pay this bloody loan off and once that's done I can relax a bit but currently I'm phoning the bank manager every other week to keep him updated ( albeit on a voluntary basis as i feel it's best to keep him in the loop!) and i always feel like hes my keeper at the minute and I don't like it - not the fault of my bank manager hes brilliant and would be highly recommended! I havent got a family to support at the minute and if I work hard now should that change I'll be in a much better state financially to support them

Thankyou @Agrispeed for the offer but for now I'm going to see how it goes as I should be fairly well sorted, especially as I'll only be milking 30-40 to begin with but if I get there and find it too much I'll send you a message.
Keep your head down and push on some people can cope with it and by the looks of it you can. Some times you need to work all the hours to make things to work and it will get easier.
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

  • 0 %

    Votes: 79 42.9%
  • Up to 25%

    Votes: 63 34.2%
  • 25-50%

    Votes: 30 16.3%
  • 50-75%

    Votes: 3 1.6%
  • 75-100%

    Votes: 3 1.6%
  • 100% I’ve had enough of farming!

    Votes: 6 3.3%

Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

  • 1,287
  • 1
As reported in Independent


quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
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