Northern Ireland Milk Price Tracker

Back Row Man

Member
Location
Co Antrim
Farmers are doing their industry a massive disservice spreading slurry a day like today. Causing runoff pollution and making a mess of roads, which they can't be bothered to clean up - and yet we are trying to convince our local customers we are the best in the world. Unfortunately it looks like it will take further action to bring the industry into line. :mad:. Will be interesting to hear what our customers think when we ask for financial support in the wake of a bad Brexit. As a private customer myself, I'd say let them rot, on the strength of what I see today.
They wouldn't be doing it if there wasn't an arbitrary date imposed with no consideration of the weather or ground conditions. Nobody is digging potatoes today as the ground is too wet but they can wait until a dry spell comes, you don't have that option with slurry. It goes out now or you store until February!
 
Farmers are doing their industry a massive disservice spreading slurry a day like today. Causing runoff pollution and making a mess of roads, which they can't be bothered to clean up - and yet we are trying to convince our local customers we are the best in the world. Unfortunately it looks like it will take further action to bring the industry into line. :mad:. Will be interesting to hear what our customers think when we ask for financial support in the wake of a bad Brexit. As a private customer myself, I'd say let them rot, on the strength of what I see today.

I disagree.
A silly rule is the reason, you can not farm by a date. Farmers are forced to get tanks emptied for fear of the repercussions if they spread in closed period.
Yes roads should be cleaned, I agree that it doesn’t paint a good image but poor policy is as much to blame as the farmer for water quality.
 
Farmers are doing their industry a massive disservice spreading slurry a day like today. Causing runoff pollution and making a mess of roads, which they can't be bothered to clean up - and yet we are trying to convince our local customers we are the best in the world. Unfortunately it looks like it will take further action to bring the industry into line. :mad:. Will be interesting to hear what our customers think when we ask for financial support in the wake of a bad Brexit. As a private customer myself, I'd say let them rot, on the strength of what I see today.
jokes about getting caught and sending it down the river dont help either.it needs a common sense approach from NIEA though which is sadly lacking. we shouldnt be spreading now but if it dries up in three weeks time then we should be allowed on again. what do you do though?dont spread and then come feb its still wet and your beat again. main problem i see is too many cows for the acres. give us 40p and a limit on cows and we wud be flying.;)
 

Boohoo

Member
Location
Newtownabbey
I disagree.
A silly rule is the reason, you can not farm by a date. Farmers are forced to get tanks emptied for fear of the repercussions if they spread in closed period.
Yes roads should be cleaned, I agree that it doesn’t paint a good image but poor policy is as much to blame as the farmer for water quality.
It's a silly rule but not complying with it is going to produce more rules. Some haven't spread any slurry all summer, there's no excuse for that.
 

The Agrarian

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Northern Ireland
There are farmers who haven't spread anything significant in weeks because they didn't prioritise slurry as being important. Now full tanks are being spread. No need for it, and it could have easily been avoided with better planning. You don't have to wait for the week of the ban to empty your tanks. Most of the last of the silage was cleared in the mid September.

The date rule is wrong, but it doesn't excuse poor practice, as the authorities will soon tell us, when they remind us water quality has not improved.
 
I've cattle feeding both sides if a narrow feed passage, I set in a bale yesterday, they ate both sides of the bale to the middle bit toppled over, it fell on top of a calfs head,strangling it, I saw it with the last kicks of life, tried to save it, but was 30 seconds too late,its the second time its happened to me since bales were invented, does it happen to anyone else
 

bigw

Member
Location
Scotland
I've cattle feeding both sides if a narrow feed passage, I set in a bale yesterday, they ate both sides of the bale to the middle bit toppled over, it fell on top of a calfs head,strangling it, I saw it with the last kicks of life, tried to save it, but was 30 seconds too late,its the second time its happened to me since bales were invented, does it happen to anyone else

Yes, I dropped a bale in a feeder one Christmas morning and an in calf heifer stuck her head through just as the bale dropped. Sickening when these things happen.
 
There are farmers who haven't spread anything significant in weeks because they didn't prioritise slurry as being important. Now full tanks are being spread. No need for it, and it could have easily been avoided with better planning. You don't have to wait for the week of the ban to empty your tanks. Most of the last of the silage was cleared in the mid September.

The date rule is wrong, but it doesn't excuse poor practice, as the authorities will soon tell us, when they remind us water quality has not improved.
Since that good spell though there has been little opportunity to spread as according to the rules thou shall not spread when heavy rain is forecast for 48 hrs: ground had been getting steadily wetter. I’ve been living in hope that it would dry up before the ban. Do I spread on to follow the ban, wait till iy dries and break the law or hope I’ve enough storage to c me through. I had tanks emptied well all summer and this is the tail end I should add
 

Mouser

Member
Location
near Belfast
Since that good spell though there has been little opportunity to spread as according to the rules thou shall not spread when heavy rain is forecast for 48 hrs: ground had been getting steadily wetter. I’ve been living in hope that it would dry up before the ban. Do I spread on to follow the ban, wait till iy dries and break the law or hope I’ve enough storage to c me through. I had tanks emptied well all summer and this is the tail end I should add
Not to mention that a lot of ground needed the whole good spell to dry enough to get cleared then got wet quickly soon after.

Edit to say, flick a v to the ban and slip as little as possible out to keep you right till March (not feb) if it days enough. It can't be any worse for water pollution than what they're at this week.
 

The Agrarian

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Northern Ireland
Since that good spell though there has been little opportunity to spread as according to the rules thou shall not spread when heavy rain is forecast for 48 hrs: ground had been getting steadily wetter. I’ve been living in hope that it would dry up before the ban. Do I spread on to follow the ban, wait till iy dries and break the law or hope I’ve enough storage to c me through. I had tanks emptied well all summer and this is the tail end I should add


It's been a difficult enough back end. You don't know what's ahead. But we do know that waiting for good weather at this end of the year is a lottery, with the odds stacked against us. The later it gets, the less likely that good weather is going to yield any real improvement - just that it temporarily won't get any worse. So if ground carries a tanker, I think you have to seriously look at spreading earlier rather than later. If rain is forecast, at least the runoff potential is going to be lower than it is today, because if land carried your tanker, it had some absorption capacity then.

On storage, you've clearly made a good effort, but perhaps relaxed just a bit too early. Given that we are expected to have four full weeks extra storage at full housing level, then I'd take it you'll have some breathing space, unless you've got everything fully housed that is?
 

mixed farm

Member
I've cattle feeding both sides if a narrow feed passage, I set in a bale yesterday, they ate both sides of the bale to the middle bit toppled over, it fell on top of a calfs head,strangling it, I saw it with the last kicks of life, tried to save it, but was 30 seconds too late,its the second time its happened to me since bales were invented, does it happen to anyone else
If it can happen, it has happened here!
I have a trough/bunker for silage in front of the cows and a few times every year a grab falls out in a block, traps a cow, and there's the panic as I jump out of the digger, jump into the trough and start pulling silage off her head before she suffocates. I've had a cow go down but luckily just managed to save her. Had a weanling who got his head stuck in one of those rectangular drinking bowls with the nose flap, saved him but just luck. Lost a Bullock who put his head into a circular feeder and then somehow turned his nose out through the next space. Another weanling who ended up inside in a concrete water trough, upside down. He also went to the other side.
 

jamj

Member
Location
Down
I've cattle feeding both sides if a narrow feed passage, I set in a bale yesterday, they ate both sides of the bale to the middle bit toppled over, it fell on top of a calfs head,strangling it, I saw it with the last kicks of life, tried to save it, but was 30 seconds too late,its the second time its happened to me since bales were invented, does it happen to anyone else

Would putting the bale in on its round rather than its end not help, as the bit left in the middle would then tend to unroll rather than just fall over.
 
Since that good spell though there has been little opportunity to spread as according to the rules thou shall not spread when heavy rain is forecast for 48 hrs: ground had been getting steadily wetter. I’ve been living in hope that it would dry up before the ban. Do I spread on to follow the ban, wait till iy dries and break the law or hope I’ve enough storage to c me through. I had tanks emptied well all summer and this is the tail end I should add

Would be simpler if they could give an accurate forecast. It’s getting worse I think.
 

yin ewe

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Co Antrim
Had a calf smothered between 2 big bales of straw that we were using to make a pen with, was a nice red and white heifer too.
Put an on heat heifer into the house as we didn't want her breaking into the neighbours bull, she tried to jump the gate and got her leg stuck between the gate and the wall, broke leg and had to be put down.
Couldn't make some of the stuff up. Granda used to say as long as it stays out of the house.
 

Wee Willy

Member
Location
Tyrone
There’s a series of articles on Agriland this week written by the widow of a young farmer. She found him dead under a round bale after he was several hours late for lunch. Left two wee kids behind.
Its unfortunate for you but it puts your dead heifer into perspective .
 

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Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

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As reported in Independent


quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
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