All things Dairy

[Meic]

Hello, just looking for some help. We are THINKING about going into dairy out of Beef & Sheep, biggest reason being the NVZ thats coming in to Wales we are going to need to spend to get a larger slurry store ect and i don't really want to spend all that money when you have little return on investment. I know we would be spending a lot more going into dairy but the returns are or should be better! Saying this we are looking at a robot, putting in a new shed on slats and starting around that 70-75 head of cows calving all year round to keep that robot always milking 55-60 cows. They would be housed all year round, this is just due to our farm fragmentation and looking forward where if we were milking conventionally in parlour we couldn't expand due to there not being any more land around us that will come up for sale. Atleast if they were housed i can carry silage from a reasonable distance from farm. We would be supplying a cheese plant so would need a cow with good solids, so just wanted to know what cows would you suggest. Would like a cow that does around the 8000+L/cow and ideally we are looking for a cow that will produce a good quality calf too as we would like to keep them as stores. I do like the Ayrshire cow for solids of milk and the Fleckvieh cow for her calves. If you have a robot i would love to hear what you have to say regarding L/cow and Kg/cow fed.

 

[Scholsey]

Hello, just looking for some help. We are THINKING about going into dairy out of Beef & Sheep, biggest reason being the NVZ thats coming in to Wales we are going to need to spend to get a larger slurry store ect and i don't really want to spend all that money when you have little return on investment. I know we would be spending a lot more going into dairy but the returns are or should be better! Saying this we are looking at a robot, putting in a new shed on slats and starting around that 70-75 head of cows calving all year round to keep that robot always milking 55-60 cows. They would be housed all year round, this is just due to our farm fragmentation and looking forward where if we were milking conventionally in parlour we couldn't expand due to there not being any more land around us that will come up for sale. Atleast if they were housed i can carry silage from a reasonable distance from farm. We would be supplying a cheese plant so would need a cow with good solids, so just wanted to know what cows would you suggest. Would like a cow that does around the 8000+L/cow and ideally we are looking for a cow that will produce a good quality calf too as we would like to keep them as stores. I do like the Ayrshire cow for solids of milk and the Fleckvieh cow for her calves. If you have a robot i would love to hear what you have to say regarding L/cow and Kg/cow fed.

speak to the bank and find out what 500k will cost to borrow unless you have it burning a hole in your pocket.

 

[Meic]

speak to the bank and find out what 500k will cost to borrow unless you have it burning a hole in your pocket.

We are and you are right on the money!! But we are trying for a grant on the slurry side of things. Like i said its all about return on investment. Would need to spend around £150,000k just to stay as we are

 

[In the pit]

Is that doable spending £500k to milk 60 cows on quite a high input system

 

[Meic]

Is that doable spending £500k to milk 60 cows on quite a high input system

500k would be all in without taking out a grant and we have other things to take out. Also would be starting out with 1 robot, would be putting in space for a second when we were ready

 

[Headless chicken]

speak to the bank and find out what 500k will cost to borrow unless you have it burning a hole in your pocket.

Assuming there needs to be cows bought out of that money too …… could be another 100k again

 

[Meic]

Assuming there needs to be cows bought out of that money too …… could be another 100k again

We have all our figures and prices from everyone. Like I've said there is money to be taken from that figure. Every farm/farmer is different we might have other sources of income and different circumstances, i appreciate the scrutiny but theres only so much you can write down about what we are thinking of doing, you are getting a brief outline of what we are thinking. All i would like to know is if there are others on the forum that milk through a robot what kind of cows they are milking on Av yields and Kg fed per cow

 

[More to life]

We have all our figures and prices from everyone. Like I've said there is money to be taken from that figure. Every farm/farmer is different we might have other sources of income and different circumstances, i appreciate the scrutiny but theres only so much you can write down about what we are thinking of doing, you are getting a brief outline of what we are thinking. All i would like to know is if there are others on the forum that milk through a robot what kind of cows they are milking on Av yields and Kg fed per cow

@pappuller your on

 

[More to life]

two observations firstly I think you'll need some kind of renewable electricity. Secondly high cost systems require high output only Jerseys and Holsteins truly do this.

 

[yin ewe]

I'm not sure 70 cows would service a 500k loan unless it was over a very long period. Milking 60ish here on a robot and I certainly wouldn't want to be doing it.

 

[Meic]

I'm not sure 70 cows would service a 500k loan unless it was over a very long period. Milking 60ish here on a robot and I certainly wouldn't want to be doing it.

Like i have said it wouldn't be a 500k loan, we have things to put against it.
What kind of system are you running on the robot? Are they housed all year? What kind of yield are you doing with 60 cows?
Went to see a farmer the other night running around 70 cows similar loan cost to what we would need and was doing well. Nice tidy outfit

 

[Meic]

two observations firstly I think you'll need some kind of renewable electricity. Secondly high cost systems require high output only Jerseys and Holsteins truly do this.

Already have solar but would probably put more on the roof to runn the shed. Have been to see a farm running Jerseys, i wouldn't say it was a really high input system, they were fed an av 1 2-1.3 T/head and doing around that 6k /L there are definitely farmers with 60-70 cows on robots making a good job.

 

[yin ewe]

Daytime grazing from the end of April to October, yielding around 8500/9k. Out of parlour feeder, no diet feeder just blocks in the passage and round bales in summer. We had the cows and cubicles etc in place so only had to finance the robot and a small bit of building work. Recently all paid off and it was quite a relief!

 

[More to life]

Already have solar but would probably put more on the roof to runn the shed. Have been to see a farm running Jerseys, i wouldn't say it was a really high input system, they were fed an av 1 2-1.3 T/head and doing around that 6k /L there are definitely farmers with 60-70 cows on robots making a good job.

yes there are for your 8000 liter goal it put in a parlour much less work than a robot.

 

[Meic]

Daytime grazing from the end of April to October, yielding around 8500/9k. Out of parlour feeder, no diet feeder just blocks in the passage and round bales in summer. We had the cows and cubicles etc in place so only had to finance the robot and a small bit of building work. Recently all paid off and it was quite a relief!

Is that on a (A-B) grazing? Would they be friesian cows? We have had Lely come round to look at a graze way but i don't think it would work as we are very dry farm and always burn up, this year obviously has been worse. But probably could turn that to a advantage where we could probably be out until end of Nov and back out early Feb

 

[More to life]

Is that on a (A-B) grazing? Would they be friesian cows? We have had Lely come round to look at a graze way but i don't think it would work as we are very dry farm and always burn up, this year obviously has been worse. But probably could turn that to a advantage where we could probably be out until end of Nov and back out early Feb

how many acres have you at home ?

 

[Meic]

yes there are for your 8000 liter goal it put in a parlour much less work than a robot.

Have looked at all options and a robot is what would suit us here. Have also priced both and when going new for new for our size there isn't actually much in it.

 

[Meic]

how many acres have you at home ?

Just over 40ac, but couldn't access all of it so would only really have access to around 25ac from a robot, and that happens to be our dryer land wich is a bloody desert atm haha

 

[yin ewe]

Just A grazing, B is in the house, cows must go through robot in the morning to get out to grass. HF cows with a few Friesians mixed in.

 

[Headless chicken]

We have all our figures and prices from everyone. Like I've said there is money to be taken from that figure. Every farm/farmer is different we might have other sources of income and different circumstances, i appreciate the scrutiny but theres only so much you can write down about what we are thinking of doing, you are getting a brief outline of what we are thinking. All i would like to know is if there are others on the forum that milk through a robot what kind of cows they are milking on Av yields and Kg fed per cow

Sorry don’t mean to come across as negative but we moved back into dairy in 2013 with a plan which has since gone out the window totatlly. It’s been a hard slog and anything that could go wrong has. I love what we’ve done and achieve but when you consider the carpenters on my new house are charging £20-£25 an hour + it makes you seriously question things. It’s irrelevant if you don’t have to borrow all the 500k it’s the total cost vs total return and if we are all honest with ourselves then investing in the stock market if you have cash available would likely generate more return