Help updating our cattle system please!

[-chris-]

Hi everyone, my dad and I have a mixed 400 acre farm in Norfolk and he is retiring (I think he means not doing so much) next year.

I enjoy doing the majority of the arable work and amongst other things in the winter help dad with his 80ish beef cattle. The cattle are bought in as cheaply as possible at around a year old using a dealer around October time. After having the odd one or two rigs/bulls castrated we dehorn as needed and feed through the winter on home grown rolled barley, fodder beet and round bale silage. They are turned out to graze on the 60 acres of marshes in the summer to put on frame and then finished in the yards the following winter on more barley/silage.

Reading this back it doesn't seem too bad, it just looks like we are too tight to buy decent cattle and a proper ration!

Here's the thing... The buildings and open yards are so old and inaccessible that it takes two of us to litter down as the yards open onto the road. One opens the gate and the other drives in with silage or 2 round bales of straw on the loader to roll out and spread with pitch forks. 4 yards usually needing 6 to 8 bales a day.

Barley is rolled by a tractor powered roller mill and it was only last year that he tied an auger up to fill rather than use his trusty hod/bushel. The meal is shoveled away from the mill with a snow shovel! Oh and access to the shed with the trailer load of barley/wheat is through the cattle yard needing someone to open the gate.

It gets worse.

The rolled barley is carried into the yard with the afore mentioned hods to be tipped into oak mangers or bings as we call them. Two yards are just a heavy door away from the mill but the other yard and shed has to be transported on a wheelbarrow/trolly 4 hods perched on top of each other.

The more I write the more 1950s it sounds...

I almost forgot we feed twice a day and both times the fodder beet are forked off a 3t trailer that has been reversed into each yard requiring a gate opener.

I enjoy keeping the cattle but am not sure how to alter this system to be able to do it on my own. I think I'll take some pictures of the yards to see if anyone has any ideas.

Sorry for the waffley post.

 

[sleepy]

Hi everyone, my dad and I have a mixed 400 acre farm in Norfolk and he is retiring (I think he means not doing so much) next year.

I enjoy doing the majority of the arable work and amongst other things in the winter help dad with his 80ish beef cattle. The cattle are bought in as cheaply as possible at around a year old using a dealer around October time. After having the odd one or two rigs/bulls castrated we dehorn as needed and feed through the winter on home grown rolled barley, fodder beet and round bale silage. They are turned out to graze on the 60 acres of marshes in the summer to put on frame and then finished in the yards the following winter on more barley/silage.

Reading this back it doesn't seem too bad, it just looks like we are too tight to buy decent cattle and a proper ration!

Here's the thing... The buildings and open yards are so old and inaccessible that it takes two of us to litter down as the yards open onto the road. One opens the gate and the other drives in with silage or 2 round bales of straw on the loader to roll out and spread with pitch forks. 4 yards usually needing 6 to 8 bales a day.

Barley is rolled by a tractor powered roller mill and it was only last year that he tied an auger up to fill rather than use his trusty hod/bushel. The meal is shoveled away from the mill with a snow shovel! Oh and access to the shed with the trailer load of barley/wheat is through the cattle yard needing someone to open the gate.

It gets worse.

The rolled barley is carried into the yard with the afore mentioned hods to be tipped into oak mangers or bings as we call them. Two yards are just a heavy door away from the mill but the other yard and shed has to be transported on a wheelbarrow/trolly 4 hods perched on top of each other.

The more I write the more 1950s it sounds...

I almost forgot we feed twice a day and both times the fodder beet are forked off a 3t trailer that has been reversed into each yard requiring a gate opener.

I enjoy keeping the cattle but am not sure how to alter this system to be able to do it on my own. I think I'll take some pictures of the yards to see if anyone has any ideas.

Sorry for the waffley post.

Is it worth all the hassle?

Sell the cattle, keep doing the arable work yourself, rent the marsh land out for summer grazing, 100/acre.
It will be more profitable and you will have loads more free time.

Wait till the new planning laws come in and start converting the old cattle buildings into houses, the money tied up in the coos will go a long way to financing it.

 

[d.iainm]

Sounds like you get a good work out every day any way.I don't keep cattle but there were a few threads on here a while back about building layouts for one man operations wintering cattle. Not sure if you can change the layout of your buildings much but if you look for the threads they might give you some ideas

 

[-chris-]

Everyone says convert them into houses but you couldn't farm around the development and who knows what sort of neighbours we might end up with!

 

[JP1]

Chris - could you buy an IAE portable handling system to either split the yard(s) or create a catching pen whilst you're littering up etc? You've got something you can sell later or use on the marshes for summer catching if need be too

Have you got access to a telescopic? Chop beet / mix ration centrally and then "deliver" to the bings , possibly from outside the pens?

 

[-chris-]

 

[-chris-]

This pic might give a better idea, the farm house is accross the road at the top. Two of the other buildings are old dairy milk sheds but we don't use them now because you have to muck out by hand.

 

[beefandsleep]

B loo dy hell, sound like our place 20 year ago. Number one, get rid of the pitch fork, the cattle will spread it better than you. Do you really need to bed every day? sound like a lot of straw for 80 beasts. Maybe because you have plenty of it? I appreciate you don't keep enough to justify feed wagons, bedders etc. How about hopper feeding a finishing ration and putting up a feed barrier with bunker feeders for the forage you can fill externally. You could put a gate inside the yard to enable you to drive in, shut the gate behind you then open the other one, if you see what I mean. You can do a lot with an old shed using a sledgehammer (or loader bucket) to make them more accessible.

 

[beefandsleep]

Just seen the pic. Convert old sheds to houses, sell. Use money to build nice new shed and handling system other side of your grainstore. Use the change to invest in a villa in spain (or a shiny new fendt).

 

[Samcowman]

Ummm. After having a quick look at the picture I would have to agree to convert them to houses or horses and then build yourself a new cow shed. If you costed all the time needed properly for these cattle run in this system are they making any money?

 

[Chae1]

Should be finished much earlier. Aim for 18 months. If they are arriving in October at a year old they shouldn't be going out again. Next stop abbatoir.

 

[-chris-]

B loo dy hell, sound like our place 20 year ago. Number one, get rid of the pitch fork, the cattle will spread it better than you. Do you really need to bed every day? sound like a lot of straw for 80 beasts. Maybe because you have plenty of it? I appreciate you don't keep enough to justify feed wagons, bedders etc. How about hopper feeding a finishing ration and putting up a feed barrier with bunker feeders for the forage you can fill externally. You could put a gate inside the yard to enable you to drive in, shut the gate behind you then open the other one, if you see what I mean. You can do a lot with an old shed using a sledgehammer (or loader bucket) to make them more accessible.

Because the yards are open they get very wet and need straw daily to keep the cattle clean. Hard to feed externally when you have buildings all the way around unless we knock a lot of walls down.

 

[-chris-]

Should be finished much earlier. Aim for 18 months. If they are arriving in October at a year old they shouldn't be going out again. Next stop abbatoir.

I wondered if I bought better cattle I could keep less and get more lwg finishing earlier but there is the risk of losing them in the unfenced bottomless ditches. The last of last years cattle are going now because they are close to getting too old not because they are fit.

 

[beefandsleep]

Should be finished much earlier. Aim for 18 months. If they are arriving in October at a year old they shouldn't be going out again. Next stop abbatoir.

disagree, he wants some beasts to graze his rough ground, they need to be fairly strong, suspect young things wouldn't thrive too well on marshland without extra attention, will come in with plenty of frame and the right age for a fast finish.

 

[-chris-]

disagree, he wants some beasts to graze his rough ground, they need to be fairly strong, suspect young things wouldn't thrive too well on marshland without extra attention, will come in with plenty of frame and the right age for a fast finish.

If we buy cattle that are too good they can go backwards on the marshes.

 

[neilo]

Just seen the pic. Convert old sheds to houses, sell. Use money to build nice new shed and handling system other side of your grainstore. Use the change to invest in a villa in spain (or a shiny new fendt).

Ummm. After having a quick look at the picture I would have to agree to convert them to houses or horses and then build yourself a new cow shed. If you costed all the time needed properly for these cattle run in this system are they making any money?

I like the idea of converting the buildings, but why so quick to invest in a new cattle shed? Is there enough margin in finishing cattle to justify putting new sheds up from scratch?

Agree on cattle spreading their own straw. What about getting a mobile mill in once a month or so, mill a quantity into a heap, then use loader bucket to take from heap into feeders? Can feed barriers be fitted up to get access from outside?

 

[Chae1]

Depends if his aim is to make money or look after marsh land.

 

[beefandsleep]

Another suggestion, when you bring them in feed harder and get them away quicker, will shorten the winter and lessen your workload.

 

[-chris-]

Converting the buildings will mean the end of the farm where it is. Stack yard and grainstore will need moving and there will be inheritance tax implications. +new neighbours

 

[beefandsleep]

If you want to continue keeping cattle to look after rough bits, you like them and it gives dad something to do, invest in a new shed. Put up something you could convert to grain stoirage in the futur

Depends if his aim is to make money or look after marsh land.

Trendy to say all cattle should be away by 18 months. They certainly could be and if you breed them yourself they should be, BUT as long as there are backward stores sold through the ring you will be able to make more money grazing them and finishing them 2 years plus. Grandad was right about some things, this was one of them.