All things Dairy

[som farmer]

What would hi whole herd av be? 7500L would be fine with me but id assume the whole herd would be around that 6k?

that's the herd average, big pedigree breeders.

 

[Meic]

You'll be glad to have a few bullers to sell when milks 30p

Yes thats why would like to try and sell some as bulling heifers ect

 

[coomoo]

Yes thats why would like to try and sell some as bulling heifers ect

Be lucky if they cover their rearing costs tho when the job’s on its arse

 

[Happy at it]

Would that 60k be just the robots? So 15k each? I have had a running cost and service plan that i have when they came round 3 or 4 yrs ago and that was around 9.5k a year for everything so i was saying it was around 13k now... went to a farm the other day and he was around that 12k year running cost, was also running 1 robot. The 500k doesn't include cows, we would replacing current stock for dairy cows so we aren't worried about them, also that 500k would be all single all dancing including a robot scraper, and a robotic feed pusher. Plus we have grants and some other things we can take away from that 500k. But obviously we could try and start with just the things we need and add as we see fit and can. I think a loan around that £350k on 75 cows is reasonable if you get the L/cow. Like i said we have priced uo a slatted shed for the beef cows as are and thats around the 150k mark would keep a single cow extra to pay that off! Thats why we are considering dairy. Pros and cons to everything, and obviously every farm is different plus id have thought current debt would also make a huge difference! We are quite lucky that we haven't really spent alot since i came home from college so don't have that to worry about. I bet there are grass based systems out there with higher cost than some indoor systems that are doing a great job at what they are doing

I'm not sure that I would get too excited about a loan of 350k, as a standalone project for 70cows. With interest at 6% you'd be talking payments of 3thousand a month over 15yrs. Would get boring very quick, even if it was halfway feasible....

 

[coomoo]

I'm not sure that I would get too excited about a loan of 350k, as a standalone project for 70cows. With interest at 6% you'd be talking payments of 3thousand a month over 15yrs. Would get boring very quick, even if it was halfway feasible....

Think he’s being polite on a forum… guessing the money isn’t a consideration

 

[Jdunn55]

Yes thats why would like to try and sell some as bulling heifers ect

It's not worth it, rearing heifers costs £1500 by the time you add your wages into it with probably 60%+ of that being in the first 12 months. You'll struggle to sell bulling heifers at £900 average in a normal year

An honest piece of advice from someone who went into this wanting to do it all, don't.

Focus on the cows, rear the heifers you need as well as you possibly can and f**k the rest of the calves off as soon as you can, forget cull price - its a nice top up but nothing in comparison to the milk cheque. When you do get a cheque for cull cows, take your family and and any workers out for a carvery and don't worry about wether you could have had an extra £100 if you were milking limousins or something else

 

[yin ewe]

I'm not sure that I would get too excited about a loan of 350k, as a standalone project for 70cows. With interest at 6% you'd be talking payments of 3thousand a month. Would get boring very quick, even if it was halfway feasible....

Not to mention finance for diet feeder, handler, electric costs, chemical, meal, replacement costs. I don't see the figures stacking up starting with that level of debt tbh. Maybe I'm just pessimistic.
A lot of folk round here gone into milk in the last few years who just saw the milk cheque coming every month and didn't reckon how many extra costs there are compared to sucklers and sheep.

 

[coomoo]

It's not worth it, rearing heifers costs £1500 by the time you add your wages into it with probably 60%+ of that being in the first 12 months. You'll struggle to sell bulling heifers at £900 average in a normal year

An honest piece of advice from someone who went into this wanting to do it all, don't.

Focus on the cows, rear the heifers you need as well as you possibly can and f**k the rest of the calves off as soon as you can, forget cull price - its a nice top up but nothing in comparison to the milk cheque. When you do get a cheque for cull cows, take your family and and any workers out for a carvery and don't worry about wether you could have had an extra £100 if you were milking limousins or something else

🥹 you’ll have a lot of proud faither’s in here talking sense like that

 

[Jdunn55]

🥹 you’ll have a lot of proud faither’s in here talking sense like that

Probably the most sensible post I've ever put up

Followed by, keep the fecking reps out the yard

 

[crashbox]

View attachment 1054834View attachment 1054835
Been trying to get a tidy way of storing these plastic posts for ages pleased we managed it for the cost of a bit of wire an a tensioner.
Sadly the pigtale board was £25 in coach bolts!

Looks a thing of beauty... cows must be dry at the moment...

 

[Holsteinfriesian90]

It's not worth it, rearing heifers costs £1500 by the time you add your wages into it with probably 60%+ of that being in the first 12 months. You'll struggle to sell bulling heifers at £900 average in a normal year

An honest piece of advice from someone who went into this wanting to do it all, don't.

Focus on the cows, rear the heifers you need as well as you possibly can and f**k the rest of the calves off as soon as you can, forget cull price - its a nice top up but nothing in comparison to the milk cheque. When you do get a cheque for cull cows, take your family and and any workers out for a carvery and don't worry about wether you could have had an extra £100 if you were milking limousins or something else

You got sun stroke? Or have you been on the thatchers?

 

[som farmer]

It's not worth it, rearing heifers costs £1500 by the time you add your wages into it with probably 60%+ of that being in the first 12 months. You'll struggle to sell bulling heifers at £900 average in a normal year

An honest piece of advice from someone who went into this wanting to do it all, don't.

Focus on the cows, rear the heifers you need as well as you possibly can and f**k the rest of the calves off as soon as you can, forget cull price - its a nice top up but nothing in comparison to the milk cheque. When you do get a cheque for cull cows, take your family and and any workers out for a carvery and don't worry about wether you could have had an extra £100 if you were milking limousins or something else

you are learning, might be interesting to reread some of your early posts.
Milk is what pays the bills, and milk must come first.

 

[crashbox]

I'm not sure that I would get too excited about a loan of 350k, as a standalone project for 70cows. With interest at 6% you'd be talking payments of 3thousand a month over 15yrs. Would get boring very quick, even if it was halfway feasible....

What would be max. serviceable level of debt per cow?

Above £4k I reckon is starting to get pretty risky... which would give @Meic £280k max to get going.

 

[Headless chicken]

You're not going to be able to bring yourself to eat that if you're not careful!

Your not far wrong…… but then if we’re going to be made to have 10% woodland then I’ll fence in some shepherds huts and have a Jurassic park style experience for people

 

[Stuckingeneva]

Whats the general concensus on robots. I am struggling to find staff and am considering it.

Do they pay for themselves or is it just an expensive way to milk cows?
I would consider myself a good stockman and would be confident i could make them work well, just not keen on parting ways with 300k of someone else's money

 

[coomoo]

Whats the general concensus on robots. I am struggling to find staff and am considering it.

Do they pay for themselves or is it just an expensive way to milk cows?
I would consider myself a good stockman and would be confident i could make them work well, just not keen on parting ways with 300k of someone else's money

The staff issue isn’t going to fix itself or go away so robots at a scale if you can’t offer attractive ‘shifts’.

 

[frederick]

What would be max. serviceable level of debt per cow?

Above £4k I reckon is starting to get pretty risky... which would give @Meic £280k max to get going.

Debt level can be considerably higher if you don't have rent to pay on top of servicing loans.

 

[Meic]

Not to mention finance for diet feeder, handler, electric costs, chemical, meal, replacement costs. I don't see the figures stacking up starting with that level of debt tbh. Maybe I'm just pessimistic.
A lot of folk round here gone into milk in the last few years who just saw the milk cheque coming every month and didn't reckon how many extra costs there are compared to sucklers and sheep.

Id have thought like our selfs anyone going into something new what ever it might be thinks about these things before doing it. Its abit belittling to think someone wouldn't have thought about everything. Dont get me wrong I'm very appreciative of any help be it positive or negative, you need someone sometimes to show you the both sides of things. But im 27 so hopefully have enough life left in me and like I've said before every farm is totally different, what works for one farm won't necessarily work for others. Unfortunately now i don't think there's anything that someone will do new will be cheap, if it cost X and you keep to a budget then so be it, theres nothing you can do about it, like i said NVZ is forcingour hand in the next year we are going to have to do something be it stick with the beef and put up a new slatted shed or change into dairy. From my point of view its just return on investment i cant see the returns on sucklers. Trust me my dad would love me to forget about this idea he hates the thought of borrowing so much, but we have a consultant doing some sums and so are we and if it doesn't add up then we wont be doing it, but from what we are seeing atm it's more than do able ON THE RIGHT PRICE (and im not doing my sums on £0.50 ), but obviously have to think about what or when milk prices falls where would we be then, and obviously if it dropped to let say 24p then we'd be in the shitter! But id think many others would be too. Id hate to look back in 10 years time and think we should have done...

 

[Spudley]

Was thinking Holsteins to begin with, but we'd probably be selling to a cheese plant so don't think they would suit. Ideally looking for a cow that would produce 8-10k L , i do like the Ayrshire cow

@upnortheast is your man

 

[early riser]

Whats the general concensus on robots. I am struggling to find staff and am considering it.

Do they pay for themselves or is it just an expensive way to milk cows?
I would consider myself a good stockman and would be confident i could make them work well, just not keen on parting ways with 300k of someone else's money

Will it be easier to find people to throw clusters on compared to someone who is suitably qualified to look after a robot?

Couple of guys round here achieve very good technical performance with robots and have more flexibility in their day, but they are literally prisoners of the farm because they daren’t leave them with any relief staff. They have commented that robots are actually more tying than a parlour but in a different sort of way.

Just my observations, no expert on the matter