Dairy farmers help me!!

[Happy at it]

Stress test the cash flow at 15p for 3 years?

Why? Who in thier right mind would be prepared to take that for such a length of time?

 

[bigw]

1000 ha over 10 holdings they said on Saturday, calving sucklers now and turn out a day old onto that light ground, clean and healthy.
Said that figures on dairy did not add up in the end, too much labour costs and not reliable apart from the couple of regular lads

Yes its quite an operation, we used to buy heifers off them but latterly they had bred animals that needed too much looking after. I think it just scunnered them in the end. They used to process milk too and have a fair sized farm shop too. The original home farm has been being sold off for development bit by bit for a long time.

 

[Rossymons]

Simple solution- stress test the cash flow with a milk price of 15 ppl for three years out of the next five. If the result is still positive then you might have a viable proposition, just so long as you don’t have a TB breakdown, or an attack of lungworms re-infection syndrome or something akin to BSE rears it’s head.

In a thread littered with daft comments, that is right up there

 

[Penmoel]

Yes its quite an operation, we used to buy heifers off them but latterly they had bred animals that needed too much looking after. I think it just scunnered them in the end. They used to process milk too and have a fair sized farm shop too. The original home farm has been being sold off for development bit by bit for a long time.

To be fair he did say to someone his best "crop" had been selling land for development

He also mentioned the in town farm shop run by the daughter.

All in all though he seemed he did what he did very well

A really good visit and he only had about 200 Poll Dorset's which were what we really went to see.

 

[Bossfarmer]

1000 ha over 10 holdings they said on Saturday, calving sucklers now and turn out a day old onto that light ground, clean and healthy.
Said that figures on dairy did not add up in the end, too much labour costs and not reliable apart from the couple of regular lads

that said 600 sucklers will need a fair bit of labour too?

 

[Cowabunga]

that said 600 sucklers will need a fair bit of labour too?

Have you worked on a dairy farm?

 

[supercow]

that said 600 sucklers will need a fair bit of labour too?

Fair bit of labour once a year, after that just make sure everything is alive!

 

[Bossfarmer]

Simple solution- stress test the cash flow with a milk price of 15 ppl for three years out of the next five. If the result is still positive then you might have a viable proposition, just so long as you don’t have a TB breakdown, or an attack of lungworms re-infection syndrome or something akin to BSE rears it’s head.

dont think any dairy could handle that price for 3 years

 

[Bossfarmer]

Fair bit of labour once a year, after that just make sure everything is alive!

just read an article on that farm they went out of milk into 2011 and kept ALL of their staff on

 

[William Mellor]

If i was you @Bossfarmer i would do as some others have suggests and start milking with around 70-100 cows and see if it’s for you, theres a lot of dairy herds making money with a herd that size.

 

[Cowabunga]

dont think any dairy could handle that price for 3 years

15ppl. No they can't. The top 25% of all herds for low cost of production have an average cost of 16ppl according to the benchmarking I mentioned earlier.
So most, including up to half those in the top 25% have higher costs than that. The top 5% have a COP of 15ppl and they have very large herds, probably on the extended grazing/Spring calving regime.

For all year round calving the top 25% of herds had a 20ppl COP.

COP has risen substantially since June of course. Probably by about 2ppl. Not everybody can possibly be in the top 25% performers either, by definition.

 

[Rossymons]

And you'll never be a top 25% guy 100% of the time.

 

[Bald Rick]

15ppl. No they can't. The top 25% of all herds for low cost of production have an average cost of 16ppl according to the benchmarking I mentioned earlier.
So most, including up to half those in the top 25% have higher costs than that. The top 5% have a COP of 15ppl and they have very large herds, probably on the extended grazing/Spring calving regime.

For all year round calving the top 25% of herds had a 20ppl COP.

COP has risen substantially since June of course. Probably by about 2ppl. Not everybody can possibly be in the top 25% performers either, by definition.

I would take that exercise with a large bucket of salt .........

 

[Cowabunga]

I would take that exercise with a large bucket of salt .........

Did you take part?

 

[bigw]

just read an article on that farm they went out of milk into 2011 and kept ALL of their staff on

They went out of milk before that.

 

[Bald Rick]

Did you take part?

I did & received my green bits & my orange bits as well as my £1800.
However AHDB have an agenda driven by Gwyn Jones

 

[lazy farmer]

15ppl. No they can't. The top 25% of all herds for low cost of production have an average cost of 16ppl according to the benchmarking I mentioned earlier.
So most, including up to half those in the top 25% have higher costs than that. The top 5% have a COP of 15ppl and they have very large herds, probably on the extended grazing/Spring calving regime.

For all year round calving the top 25% of herds had a 20ppl COP.

COP has risen substantially since June of course. Probably by about 2ppl. Not everybody can possibly be in the top 25% performers either, by definition.

why have costs risen by 2p ?

 

[Cowabunga]

I did & received my green bits & my orange bits as well as my £1800.
However AHDB have an agenda driven by Gwyn Jones

How would they manipulate the figures to suit whatever agenda you think they have? Which is?

 

[Bald Rick]

How would they manipulate the figures to suit whatever agenda you think they have? Which is?

I doubt that the figures were too accurate across the board from all farmers and I fail to see how a snap shot over 12 months at a very low milk price is an accurate representation of the dairy industry in Wales as a whole.
AHDB are actively trying to promote block calving - when the majority of dairy farmers are AYR in any case and for some, eg robotic farms such as mine, have to be AYR in order to maximise the automation. As a levy payer, i am not overly chuffed at their direction of travel

 

[Cowabunga]

why have costs risen by 2p ?

Feed, bedding, energy and labour costs. Interest and fertiliser, water, fuel and sundries, all up. Its nice not to notice all this, although its hard to miss the fact that the Pound in your pocket is worth at least 15% less than it was.