Just in time

[JCMaloney]

JIT in farming has obvious problems. Say you have a sick cow and have run out of the drugs needed (you have used them or they are out of date, and you did not know you would need it), so you nip down the vets, get a bottle (and a new needle!), nip back to find the cow considerably worse. You have to get the vet. You now have costs of time off farm, transport costs and vet costs.
Or like me, you have a tub of plumbing fittings that have cobwebs in them. A pipe splits and the right fitting is not in the tub. So you nip down....
We cannot foresee what calamity is going to hit us next. We are not fulfilling regular orders of stuff that does not die, go mouldy or a mouse poops in it.
So we tend to hord stuff in barns that "might come in" and quite often it does. An old tube for a cluster can be used for a split pipe to quite good effect.

And this is , very much, the reasoning why JIT can`t work in the NHS. If there isn`t standardisation/stability of both input & output JIT can`t work well & will create more issues than it fixes, we aren`t making cars...in our case we are looking after sick folk, in farmings case its weather, stock and many other things. Both industries have too many variables and the only thing that gets you through is experience & knowledge.

 

[hendrebc]

Ive got 200ish round bales of hay thats a few years old now i only use it when i can replace it with newer hay. Most was made in 2014/15 unless its been replaced with newer stuff. Ive been offered to sell it several times but its not going anywere i still remember having to write out cheques for buying crap overpriced silage in april/may 2013. Some of it was £45 a bale
We put a new bin for sheep nuts this year one of those cheap wooden ones so we could keep some spare before ordering some more. Running out was a pain in the bloody arse and meant bucketing stuff from totes. We even chose a different cake because the delivery was better. The haulage company isnt far from us so we usually get stuff delivered pretty quick by a driver on his way home. When we used to buy fodder beet we would buy from someine who used the same haulage company for the same reason even though it was a few £s more a tonne.
Having to wait for delivery does make me miss having our own barley. At least then i had something to give them.
But its making me even more determined to find a way to farm without having to feed concentrates unless its a last resort or having to buy anything at all that would be even better.

 

[Ysgythan]

By having a little wiggle room, either by having fodder in store 'just in case' or being prepared to buy something in if really needs be.

I grow fodder beet purely as an insurance crop. It's an expensive crop to grow well, and very expensive to grow badly, not to mention a hassle to lift in a wet winter (much round here is either just lifted or still in the field). If my other winter fodder is poor or wiped out, I can strip graze it. If I don't need it, I can lift some or all of it, to cash the roots in. If Spring is late, like this year, I can sell some and keep a stock back to feed out during April.
I needed to strip graze it in inter 2012/3 and this is the first year I will have to feed out any quantity myself. I have still sold 150t or so, some of which is going to someone else that runs a similar forage wintering system, who is needing to buy in to cover his '1:10'.

You seem to have it sorted.

 

[neilo]

You seem to have it sorted.

Memories of my first year here, 2012, make me quite risk averse...

 

[M-J-G]

Without a doubt, for me anyway. IMO you can't begin to select and improve on anything, if you leave the breeding of your replacements to someone else, whether uphill or down.

The only people that lose out from the reduction in stratification are the hill farmers that rely on that trade for their income, but I am not responsible for their livelihoods and business decisions.

Does this include replacement rams?

 

[Deutzdx3]

The best way to understand just in time logistics, remember when you use to call your local dealer for a part and they said, no problem it's on the shelf, now when you call them they say, not a problem we will order it for you it'll be here in two days, that's just in time. Only have the bare minimum on the shelf because stock cost money and the part you have in stock is never the one people want. Machinery manufactures change things so often now, brand of water pump, oil filter housing, et etc. It's to costly to keep lots of parts in stock. Sad really!

 

[Lovegoodstock]

I imagine its a balance of individuals finances and willingness to gamble. I generally carry over half of one of my two clamps of silage each year, 500 tonne, horribly inefficient, money outlayed a year doing nothing, or you have money in bank earning nothing so negligable financial difference, yet if include risk factor of a bad season I think makes it efficient. Bought a fair bit of hay and straw last june when folks wanted to sell to clear out for next harvest. Money spent early earning nothing, but if affordable buy it. Posts on here ask about replacement rates, im talking cattle, , I wouldn't have a clue, run 250 cows and can cull 4/5, last nov I bought tidy heifers and second calvers, with calves o incalf at an average of 1250, my culls come to more, so will cull heavy. No such thing as a golden rule, never has been, flexible, willing to react and half a financial brain is surely the way forward, as any successful business, not a set plan that on paper works best and most efficiently all the time