Small farmers - 100ish acres

Al R

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
West Wales
Old small tractor here mainly used for harrowing corn and rolling, does a bit of topping, 1 day carting straw and 1 day carting corn. Isn’t used from September-March. Telehandler is used more, cost £7k, spent £2500 on new rear axle guts last year. 500+ acre full time.

Contractors spread muck, haul silage bales, do all silage operations far cheaper than I could do it and with all new machinery 👍🏻
 

BRB John

Member
BASIS
Location
Aberdeenshire
Yeah really depends what your doing with 100 acres ... if it's sheep on rough ground a tractor and loader would do the job if it's cows probably a handler would be handy too but it all depends on what your finance looks like and how much you care about profit vs enjoyability.
 

kiwi pom

Member
Location
canterbury NZ
Old small tractor here mainly used for harrowing corn and rolling, does a bit of topping, 1 day carting straw and 1 day carting corn. Isn’t used from September-March. Telehandler is used more, cost £7k, spent £2500 on new rear axle guts last year. 500+ acre full time.

Contractors spread muck, haul silage bales, do all silage operations far cheaper than I could do it and with all new machinery 👍🏻

I used to relief milk for a chap with 130 cows and followers, he had a basic loader tractor and a scraper tractor. He said he'd done the sums a hundred different ways and could never get owning his own kit to pay.
He'd need a worker for a start as he looked after the cows, just the labour bill of a full time worker would get a lot done.
He did spread fert, we put the vicon on his mf135, dualled up in spring, would go anywhere, whilst the proper farmers were getting stuck spreading with their 150hp tractors. (y)
Was a bit chilly though🥶
Rather than spend money on machines, he put up new buildings and drained his wet land.
 

Al R

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
West Wales
I used to relief milk for a chap with 130 cows and followers, he had a basic loader tractor and a scraper tractor. He said he'd done the sums a hundred different ways and could never get owning his own kit to pay.
He'd need a worker for a start as he looked after the cows, just the labour bill of a full time worker would get a lot done.
He did spread fert, we put the vicon on his mf135, dualled up in spring, would go anywhere, whilst the proper farmers were getting stuck spreading with their 150hp tractors. (y)
Was a bit chilly though🥶
Rather than spend money on machines, he put up new buildings and drained his wet land.
I do have 2 quads and the polaris buggy mind with 1 of the quads almost never stopping which are kept up to date etc, these are my daily tools where as the tractor and telehandler are occasionally used, I hate the tractor and really want to upgrade BUT I can’t justify spending £20k on something to get used occasionally...
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

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  • 50-75%

    Votes: 3 1.6%
  • 75-100%

    Votes: 3 1.6%
  • 100% I’ve had enough of farming!

    Votes: 7 3.7%

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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