"Improving Our Lot" - Planned Holistic Grazing, for starters..

[Kiwi Pete]

I'm really lucky with my contracters. Théy have some great gear and théy generally do a good job.

I'm always amazed how I can phone up and ask them to come and mow 20-25 ha and théy will fit it in thé same day.

I calculated thé cost of mowing with a lady from thé agricultural board. When we added all those hidden costs (dépréciation, my time, reperation costs etc) it was thé same final cost if it was me or them.

What's your labour worth elsewhere?
If you were sitting in the house drinking beer and watching someone mowing your grass it might occur to you "I should be doing that" but you may not want the tractor-driver handling shifting your cattle

actually that's probably why nobody has time for more than one shift a day, too busy in the tractor!

 

[Treg]

Have used a Contractor for silage 2x in 30 yrs both times a disaster and lost far more than the cost of doing the job , both times made very poor silage and loads more waste in the winter than I would normally have.
Can't see how you can do it cheaper than doing it yourself, plus the bonus of higher quality feed by doing it the right time.
Bought my wrapper new works out £1 / bale . Baler was bought 4 yrs old , works out about 70p a bale .

 

[Fenwick]

20€/

What's your labour worth elsewhere?
If you were sitting in the house drinking beer and watching someone mowing your grass it might occur to you "I should be doing that" but you may not want the tractor-driver handling shifting your cattle

actually that's probably why nobody has time for more than one shift a day, too busy in the tractor!

20€/hr as a farm worker
100€/hr as manager
50€/hr as a salesman.

I should just add that this is not what I actually get paid. But it helps to organise tasks.

 

[som farmer]

I don't know who I would get to come and bale for us anymore. There used to be lots of contractors round here but hardly any now that I know of. Had a job to get a wrapper to come for today a friend came to help me out in the end. The friend who usually comes to wrap for me was flat out baling and had more work than he knows what to do with and he will really put the hours in when he needs to so he must have been really busy not to come.
Might have to get a wrapper eventually

lot of smaller bale/wrap boys, have stopped this this year. You need to book a baler, before you cut. We have done 120 bales, the baler comes with its attendant rake, as standard,
properly raked, to match the baler, means 30% quicker, and time is money, for the contractor, who is now really busy.

 

[holwellcourtfarm]

Depreciation is an interesting one. Does your tractor depreciate more due to doing another 200 hrs in a year than not? It still gets older.... Ours has begun appreciating

Clearly it does affect new or nearly new kit but at 20 years old?

 

[som farmer]

Depreciation is an interesting one. Does your tractor depreciate more sure to doing another 200 hrs in a year than not? It still gets older.... Ours has begun appreciating

Clearly it does affect new or nearly new kit but at 20 years old?

l think some of the older tractors, are appreciating, not depreciating. Looked around for a decent 2nd hand tractor, was horrified at quotes, not that far off, making a new one, seem sensible, found one in the end, but way more than we thought.

 

[Kiwi Pete]

Can't see how you can do it cheaper than doing it yourself, plus the bonus of higher quality feed by doing it the right time.

The contractor won't have any drivers if he chooses to put his labour cost at zero, same story with the mechanic they use to fix what breaks.

That's how DIY works... it's always works out cheaper for that reason, and more 'ideal'

I am quite fortunate if only in the respect that any "work" I consider doing has an immediate cost attached - I generally don't and won't steal time away from the family, so it invariably happens during my regular 7-5 working hours, and that's $30/hr minimum.

The other factor I look into is that the wee ranch makes the same number of dollars per day whether it takes 20 minutes or 20 hours per day, and this helps me remain inactive and lazy

 

[Poorbuthappy]

Depreciation is an interesting one. Does your tractor depreciate more due to doing another 200 hrs in a year than not? It still gets older.... Ours has begun appreciating

Clearly it does affect new or nearly new kit but at 20 years old?

Indeed.
Dear old WalterP on here used to claim it didn't cost much more than diesel to ted his grass. Then in another post he was lamenting how he'd clocked up so many hours and the cost to change.

But even at 20 years old, it probably won't affect depreciation, but tyre wear (getting a significant cost in itself), repairs, and yes even cost to change eventually (may have to be sooner too) will be affected by those additional hours.

 

[som farmer]

Indeed.
Dear old WalterP on here used to claim it didn't cost much more than diesel to ted his grass. Then in another post he was lamenting how he'd clocked up so many hours and the cost to change.

But even at 20 years old, it probably won't affect depreciation, but tyre wear (getting a significant cost in itself), repairs, and yes even cost to change eventually (may have to be sooner too) will be affected by those additional hours.

the whole problem reverts back to the low returns in farming,
on price for selling, we are on the bottom rung of the ladder, next rung up, are the contractors, and unfortuantly they have to set there prices, to what we get for product, and basically it isn't enough to return the needed profit for them.

This is caused by successive guvs following a cheap food policy, and aggressive pricing, by major retailers, supporting that policy, for profit.
the wheels were always going to fall of, at some stage, with that policy
and they now have, l think.

The result is serious food inflation, which added to the energy prices, and general inflation, is going to cause utter carnage to lower income families.

what can the guv do ? Not a lot really, these prices are global, they cannot 'order' other countries to drop prices, nor insist our retailers to sell at less than global price.
The only option available, as l see it, is to subsidise food production here, and hope/bribe, farmers to up production, food security adds to that.

But, in their wisdom, they have moved ag subs, away from production, to the environment, which encourages lower production, in other words, its a buggers muddle.
l cannot see a move, from those environmental subs, back to ag production, being popular, with the extremely vocal, minority, that seem to want to 'control' the guvs climate policy. On the other hand, the silent majority, would welcome it with open arms.
who would want to be a politician, having to steer their way through that muddle, couldn't really blame them, for having a drink or two, l probably would have need 10 or 20 at least !

 

[Treg]

the whole problem reverts back to the low returns in farming,
on price for selling, we are on the bottom rung of the ladder, next rung up, are the contractors, and unfortuantly they have to set there prices, to what we get for product, and basically it isn't enough to return the needed profit for them.

This is caused by successive guvs following a cheap food policy, and aggressive pricing, by major retailers, supporting that policy, for profit.
the wheels were always going to fall of, at some stage, with that policy
and they now have, l think.

The result is serious food inflation, which added to the energy prices, and general inflation, is going to cause utter carnage to lower income families.

what can the guv do ? Not a lot really, these prices are global, they cannot 'order' other countries to drop prices, nor insist our retailers to sell at less than global price.
The only option available, as l see it, is to subsidise food production here, and hope/bribe, farmers to up production, food security adds to that.

But, in their wisdom, they have moved ag subs, away from production, to the environment, which encourages lower production, in other words, its a buggers muddle.
l cannot see a move, from those environmental subs, back to ag production, being popular, with the extremely vocal, minority, that seem to want to 'control' the guvs climate policy. On the other hand, the silent majority, would welcome it with open arms.
who would want to be a politician, having to steer their way through that muddle, couldn't really blame them, for having a drink or two, l probably would have need 10 or 20 at least !

Woman on the radio this morning saying she's spending £10 / week on food and will have to make cut backs if it goes any higher, bet her phone contract is higher than her food bill peer month

 

[Treg]

The contractor won't have any drivers if he chooses to put his labour cost at zero, same story with the mechanic they use to fix what breaks.

That's how DIY works... it's always works out cheaper for that reason, and more 'ideal'

I am quite fortunate if only in the respect that any "work" I consider doing has an immediate cost attached - I generally don't and won't steal time away from the family, so it invariably happens during my regular 7-5 working hours, and that's $30/hr minimum.

The other factor I look into is that the wee ranch makes the same number of dollars per day whether it takes 20 minutes or 20 hours per day, and this helps me remain inactive and lazy

I think the difference is a contactor has deprecation whereas I can take a wage , also I have time to make repairs whereas the contractor pays someone else at double or triple his wage , just so he has time to be somewhere to work for nothing.
A small farm shouldn't really have deprecation if machinery bought wisely because we're not really wearing stuff out , good low houred small tractors rarely drop in price and the same for well kept machinery.
A BIG chunk of my wages come from me doing my own Silage

 

[Kiwi Pete]

Depreciation is an interesting one. Does your tractor depreciate more due to doing another 200 hrs in a year than not? It still gets older.... Ours has begun appreciating

Clearly it does affect new or nearly new kit but at 20 years old?

I think most farm business accounting is really a matter of "insert a figure here" TBH.

Nearly all of our mechanical liabilities have been written off, others write their time input off, others still would write both off!

Not even suggesting that there is right or wrong ways to get a right or wrong answer here, just something to consider as to why the industry is truly "up against" it and the broken calculator is a fair part of the trouble

I'm not sure if our tractors will ever appreciate, but if I decided I wanted a new tractor I'd go to the bank, withdraw the necessary amount and go buy what I wanted - it wouldn't belong to the farm, therefore residual value / cost to change doesn't even factor into it.

The line between assets and liabilities is always a tricky one

 

[Fenwick]

Depreciation is an interesting one. Does your tractor depreciate more due to doing another 200 hrs in a year than not? It still gets older.... Ours has begun appreciating

Clearly it does affect new or nearly new kit but at 20 years old?

No I don't think it does.

I have an old rake from 1992, it cost 1000€ 3 years ago. It is now probably worth 1000€.

I don't know if the contracters could do the job as cheaply (they might do it better) as they have a rack wiht a pick up.

But I I enjoy tedding and raking, especially for difficult jobs like clover hay. and for now the rake is staying.

The other factor I look into is that the wee ranch makes the same number of dollars per day whether it takes 20 minutes or 20 hours per day, and this helps me remain inactive and lazy

I think this is an excellent and refreshing way to see things.

 

[som farmer]

Woman on the radio this morning saying she's spending £10 / week on food and will have to make cut backs if it goes any higher, bet her phone contract is higher than her food bill peer month

the whole problem explained, people think food is nothing important, compared to must have gadgets.
They might need to rethink that. £10 a week, for herself, or for a family, really is not a lot of money, would love to see what she buys.

 

[Treg]

the whole problem explained, people think food is nothing important, compared to must have gadgets.
They might need to rethink that. £10 a week, for herself, or for a family, really is not a lot of money, would love to see what she buys.

I couldn't see how she could buy enough food for £10 , bet she spends twice that on takeaways

 

[som farmer]

I couldn't see how she could buy enough food for £10 , bet she spends twice that on takeaways

did think chicken nuggets, 10% chicken 90% addictive crap, then thought to dear.
always been told beans on toast, is a very balanced meal.
but what really pees me off, is if only they good cook from scratch, plenty of cheap wholesome products at sensible prices, but £10 would take some beating. My OH once worked in a food testing lab, they all hated, and dreaded handling the bags of mechanically recovered chicken stuff, made them feel sick, bright pink sludge, they didn't have to open the bags either.
always thing nothing cheaper than a spud, and yet they manage to produce french fries, cheaper than chipping and frying the whole spud.

 

[holwellcourtfarm]

did think chicken nuggets, 10% chicken 90% addictive crap, then thought to dear.
always been told beans on toast, is a very balanced meal.
but what really pees me off, is if only they good cook from scratch, plenty of cheap wholesome products at sensible prices, but £10 would take some beating. My OH once worked in a food testing lab, they all hated, and dreaded handling the bags of mechanically recovered chicken stuff, made them feel sick, bright pink sludge, they didn't have to open the bags either.
always thing nothing cheaper than a spud, and yet they manage to produce french fries, cheaper than chipping and frying the whole spud.

Beans on toast has way too much carbohydrate in to be "balanced" .....

Carbohydrate is the only macronutrient that humans do NOT require for health yet most modern foods are abundant in it because it's cheap

 

[Bury the Trash]

Well thats funny because Ive almost lived off baked beans on toast (Heinz mostly white bred but sometimes brown) rareley ill (up to now) and i am even now only 1/2 stone heavier than when i was 21 ,and can still (just about) fit the suit i got married in so as a meal it cant be too bad.
Very quick easy and convenient and i dont cook ,cant cook so when the Mrs doesnt leave anything or do a meal later home from work i get BOT ,and often
'Course Mum used to get me it all the time when i was young as well ,nothing wrong with it all in my book.

 

[Samcowman]

Well thats funny because Ive almost lived off baked beans on toast (Heinz mostly white bred but sometimes brown) rareley ill (up to now) and i am even now only 1/2 stone heavier than when i was 21 ,and can still (just about) fit the suit i got married in so as a meal it cant be too bad.
Very quick easy and convenient and i dont cook ,cant cook so when the Mrs doesnt leave anything or do a meal later home from work i get BOT ,and often
'Course Mum used to get me it all the time when i was young as well ,nothing wrong with it all in my book.

As long as you put a good dollop of butter in with the beans when they are cooking.

 

[Jonny B88]

Anyone involved in silvopasture and if so anyone using legume trees?