Economy of scale

Manny

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
In the middle.
Some of those custom cutter put silly hours on there machines in a season. My combine had 1947 hours on it at the end of the season in November after starting in late may with 4 hours on it. One combine on the crew topped 2000hrs. As for attention to detail we had to have a lot to keep these machines running as smooth as possible to get these hours on them.
 

neilo

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Montgomeryshire
I know not arable/flashy machinery, but I was discussing lamb COP with someone the other day, that had seen some detailed costings from a wide range of UK sheep producers. They had been shocked that there appeared to be no corellation between enterprise size and COP. Some of the smallest farmers were every bit as efficient as some of the largest ones. Size doesn’t matter at all, it seems.
 

tr250

Member
Location
Northants
I know not arable/flashy machinery, but I was discussing lamb COP with someone the other day, that had seen some detailed costings from a wide range of UK sheep producers. They had been shocked that there appeared to be no corellation between enterprise size and COP. Some of the smallest farmers were every bit as efficient as some of the largest ones. Size doesn’t matter at all, it seems.
Yea I always say livestock and sheep in particular are different to arable in as much as it takes the same time to drench vaccinate footbath a sheep whether you have 5 or 5000 you just need more man hours to do more stock where with arable you can buy bigger machines
 
If I was a very wealthy individual, I would willingly pay every one of the nay sayers on this thread to go and attempt to combine the same acreage in the same location with a whatever collection of clapped out old dogger combines and kit they wanted and watch them curse and bash their knuckles trying to complete the harvest. Conditions and the workload in the far flung regions of the world are unlike anything you will encounter in the UK. You do not want to be messing around fixing anything inside a combine at anything more than 10am in many states I can tell you, the ambient temperature in the shade can hit 100 Fahrenheit no sweat. Conversely, in the North states sooner you than me trying to do maintenance on a dogger harvesting corn in October when snow is falling.

A depreciation bill these guys might have but I dare say they cannot afford to run anything else but the shiniest kit. In some areas they are a hundred miles from the nearest town, much less the nearest dealership with parts. If stuff breaks, there isn't a workshop down the lane, in fact it could be miles away from the actual farm, what they call home might even be 3 states away and how long can they afford to have a machine sat up whilst they wait for a 1995 Massey 38 combine fan belt to be shipped half way across the country? No thanks. The latest gear with a known supply chain.
 

Dead Rabbits

Member
Location
'Merica
I believe Walters is the second largest farming operation in Alberta. They also have a trucking operation, seem to move a lot of cattle. You can stand next to I 15 in Montana and watch their trucks go by all day. One of the nicest looking fleets of trucks I have ever seen. Black 379 s and a few western stars, all with pushers.

We used to cut on the same farm in Colorado with them. I think they ran around 20 machines. As with any large operation, it’s only as good as the team doing the work. Even over here you rarely run more than 4-6 machines at the same location so you need to split up and have foreman’s running each unit. One bad foreman can ruin your reputation really quick.

I guess they figured if they had to have all these machines to harvest their crops, they may as well run them all season so the crew is trained up by the time it’s ready in Alberta!
 

Dead Rabbits

Member
Location
'Merica
If I was a very wealthy individual, I would willingly pay every one of the nay sayers on this thread to go and attempt to combine the same acreage in the same location with a whatever collection of clapped out old dogger combines and kit they wanted and watch them curse and bash their knuckles trying to complete the harvest. Conditions and the workload in the far flung regions of the world are unlike anything you will encounter in the UK. You do not want to be messing around fixing anything inside a combine at anything more than 10am in many states I can tell you, the ambient temperature in the shade can hit 100 Fahrenheit no sweat. Conversely, in the North states sooner you than me trying to do maintenance on a dogger harvesting corn in October when snow is falling.

A depreciation bill these guys might have but I dare say they cannot afford to run anything else but the shiniest kit. In some areas they are a hundred miles from the nearest town, much less the nearest dealership with parts. If stuff breaks, there isn't a workshop down the lane, in fact it could be miles away from the actual farm, what they call home might even be 3 states away and how long can they afford to have a machine sat up whilst they wait for a 1995 Massey 38 combine fan belt to be shipped half way across the country? No thanks. The latest gear with a known supply chain.

There are a few out there who run the old machines. The main problem is you struggle to find work as the farmers don’t trust that they are reliable and might lose a crop. It’s really something the see what hail can to in fifteen minutes. “The great white combine”

The depreciation can be horrendous. In 2014 we figured the depreciation of 1.5 year old machines at $130/separator hour. This was basing their ending value on what was offered as trade in on the next set of machines. That year several cutters even switched brands, it was tough.

You are correct though, only late model machines are feasible to run. If you know your sh!t and have the time in the winter you can dump about 20-40 k in parts in each machine and run em for a few years.
A lot of the sheet metal gets thin at that point and the motor is more likely to go.
 

Dead Rabbits

Member
Location
'Merica
Some of those custom cutter put silly hours on there machines in a season. My combine had 1947 hours on it at the end of the season in November after starting in late may with 4 hours on it. One combine on the crew topped 2000hrs. As for attention to detail we had to have a lot to keep these machines running as smooth as possible to get these hours on them.



That’s good going on hours. When were you on harvest?

The key indicator of performance is typically acres effectively harvested per separator hour. Of course you have to take into account yield but acres are part of how you are paid as well.
 

Blaithin

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Alberta
Not a hedge...nor tree...nor pond in sight.
It's farming Jim, but not as we know it.
The future for the UK maybe ? I hope not.....

No hedges, trees or ponds has nothing to do with farming. It's the prairies. That's what it looks like.

Lethbridge is known for hosting it's multitudes of wind turbines because down there all you get is the wind off the mountains. There isn't a shrub or a knoll for miles. On the prairies you rarely see hills, instead we have coulees and you can't see coulees well unless you're on the edge of them.

Probably why the economy of scale thing is easier to manage here than it is to conceive of in the UK. When most of your fields are squares with wide open access points, no hedges or yards to move around and the size is generally 160 acres and up, no piddling around with 20 acres here and there... it's much easier to get in and go. The guys that have fields grouped together in sections get way more done in a day than the guys that have to jump field to field to field. Transporting the equipment is the biggest use of time, if you can block farm your economy is going to improve tenfold.
 

neilo

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Montgomeryshire
No hedges, trees or ponds has nothing to do with farming. It's the prairies. That's what it looks like.

Lethbridge is known for hosting it's multitudes of wind turbines because down there all you get is the wind off the mountains. There isn't a shrub or a knoll for miles. On the prairies you rarely see hills, instead we have coulees and you can't see coulees well unless you're on the edge of them.

Probably why the economy of scale thing is easier to manage here than it is to conceive of in the UK. When most of your fields are squares with wide open access points, no hedges or yards to move around and the size is generally 160 acres and up, no piddling around with 20 acres here and there... it's much easier to get in and go. The guys that have fields grouped together in sections get way more done in a day than the guys that have to jump field to field to field. Transporting the equipment is the biggest use of time, if you can block farm your economy is going to improve tenfold.

My contractors would probably love it if I had a field as big as 20 acres.:D I have a 9ac field on another block that I am planning on splitting in two......
 

Brisel

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Midlands
I know not arable/flashy machinery, but I was discussing lamb COP with someone the other day, that had seen some detailed costings from a wide range of UK sheep producers. They had been shocked that there appeared to be no corellation between enterprise size and COP. Some of the smallest farmers were every bit as efficient as some of the largest ones. Size doesn’t matter at all, it seems.

I did some budgets for getting back into beef here to compliment the arable & build soil fertility. The AHDB benchmark figures were an interesting read. The top 25% weren't the biggest, they were the most intensive. The bigger more extensive herds on lower stocking rates were the least profitable. What was really scary was that only the top 25% of suckler & finishers are making a positive margin before BPS.

Big isn't always the most beautiful. Total profit may be higher but profit per unit may not be highest.
 

unlacedgecko

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Fife
I did some budgets for getting back into beef here to compliment the arable & build soil fertility. The AHDB benchmark figures were an interesting read. The top 25% weren't the biggest, they were the most intensive. The bigger more extensive herds on lower stocking rates were the least profitable. What was really scary was that only the top 25% of suckler & finishers are making a positive margin before BPS.

Big isn't always the most beautiful. Total profit may be higher but profit per unit may not be highest.

I reckon weaned or bucket calves to 500kg+ finishing cattle would be your best bet.
 

Brisel

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Midlands
I reckon weaned or bucket calves to 500kg+ finishing cattle would be your best bet.

Batches of cattle would suit my mob grazing nicely. Housing is an issue - just a couple of sheds and some falling down cubicles on a dairy unit where we stopped milking in 1992. Buying in spring and selling through the autumn would be ideal but spring store prices vs autumn finishers leaves paper thin margins. The dairy unit cubicles would be better suited to lambing pens...
 

unlacedgecko

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Fife
Batches of cattle would suit my mob grazing nicely. Housing is an issue - just a couple of sheds and some falling down cubicles on a dairy unit where we stopped milking in 1992. Buying in spring and selling through the autumn would be ideal but spring store prices vs autumn finishers leaves paper thin margins. The dairy unit cubicles would be better suited to lambing pens...


A contract for beef x calves from a spring block calving dairy herd would give you the calves. Multi suckle on dairy culls or bucket rear them.

Take them through 1 winter as cheap as possible, out wintering if possible. Sell as finishing cattle at end of second grazing period. Or kill if fit enough (minimum carcass weights recently reduced to 250kg).

A life time average gain of 1kg per day should give killable beasts at 18-20 months.

Have you no light ground to winter young stock on turnips or fodder rape?

Or bale grazing on stubbles/ sacrifice paddocks?
 

Brisel

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Midlands
I've found that youngstock outwintered don't gain much weight. Fine for adult cattle. I like the concept though. There's a very big dairy farmer who rents an old dairy unit to rear his calves for beef or replacements, so I wouldn't rule out contract rearing though TB complicates things somewhat when it comes to moving cattle on & off.
 

Brisel

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Midlands
I don't agree with all this judging of a business by output or cop or acreage.
The only way to judge a business of any size is return on capital (£& hrs) invested.
Anything else is bullpoo.

We'll agree to disagree on this. Starting out with the easy stuff like gross margin level & machinery there's a good discussion to be had with your peers, especially for those new to benchmarking. The real value is higher up the business in fixed costs & net margins, as you say.
 

unlacedgecko

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Fife
I've found that youngstock outwintered don't gain much weight. Fine for adult cattle. I like the concept though. There's a very big dairy farmer who rents an old dairy unit to rear his calves for beef or replacements, so I wouldn't rule out contract rearing though TB complicates things somewhat when it comes to moving cattle on & off.

Compensatory growth on spring grass should make up for it.

Operate a batch system. Buy in a batch of calves then move them direct to kill of TB restricted market (orange?). Once that batch is all gone, have a winter cattle free before getting the next batch of calves.
 

neilo

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Montgomeryshire
I've found that youngstock outwintered don't gain much weight. Fine for adult cattle. I like the concept though. There's a very big dairy farmer who rents an old dairy unit to rear his calves for beef or replacements, so I wouldn't rule out contract rearing though TB complicates things somewhat when it comes to moving cattle on & off.

There's a guy near here that is outwintering on fodder beet, and rotationally grazing grass the rest of the time, as a lot of kiwis are. He's obviously had an awful winter and summer for it this year, and the cattle looked dreadful last winter as you might imagine. This summer's drought has meant he has had to feed concentrates to finish the cattle (with a snacker at grass), but they looked well recently to be fair. He was saying that the (substantial) extra costs incurred this year have meant that his net margin was back to £200/hd, rather than the budgeted £300. Even that reduced margin would be at the top end for finishing cattle I'd have thought.
There was a talk there a couple of weeks ago, with a kiwi adviser talking. He was pretty insistent that performance could be improved significantly from the beet too.

I'd have thought you'd have better ground & weather for that system down there, and not be reliant on contractors do all your growing as he is.
 

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