So New Zealand farmers; how do you make it pay?

[Anymulewilldo]

I don't have any option ?‍

...simple as that

Plenty of revenue -don't spend it on crap -profit is the result.

Returns are pretty dim here despite the hype, I think the stats show about an average 1.6% for sheep+beef.
I'm can't be average because 1.6% wouldn't even look at our mortgage..

Wow, 1.6% return on investment??
So would that be why 000's are needed to make it add up?

I've just dipped into my store lamb finishing books and done the calculation. This season, over 3099 finished sheep we averaged a 17% ROI. Granted this year was rather exceptional if you forget about the terrible weather conditions!

 

[Tubbylew]

I've tried it and it doesn't work

When I was in New Zealand a few years ago I drove a lorry for a contracting outfit for a few weeks delivering hay and straw about a few farms. It is very different system no sheds for stock or fodder I was delivering loads of rye grass to the corner of a root field for dairy cows to winter on or dropping a load up on some hillside you would have some old tractor and loader like a DB990 to unload . so there costs are low .

I'll never forget pressing in a particular wool shed we ran out of room for the bales, the boss said "don't worry, the cocky is off to borrow his neighbors loader tractor" blew my mind when he rocked up with a roadless major ad horndraulic loader!

 

[Kiwi Pete]

Wow, 1.6% return on investment??
So would that be why 000's are needed to make it add up?

I've just dipped into my store lamb finishing books and done the calculation. This season, over 3099 finished sheep we averaged a 17% ROI. Granted this year was rather exceptional if you forget about the terrible weather conditions!

Yep - that's "feeding the world" for you.

I try my darndest to avoid that BS

 

[Kiwi Pete]

Who on TFF actually checks the same group of stock 3 times a day?

Thinking about this, all the places I ever worked on they checked/fed the outlying stock, heifers and the like once per day. Cavles fed and checked and sorted twice per day. Dairy cattle/dry cows obviously checked more often as part of the routine.

Checking 150 sheep right next to the steading 3 times per day?

Talking of fallen stock, up in the hills and the dales, a single missing sheep might be hard to find? And if you did, the hunt take them away no?

I do Ollie. Sheep shifted onto new pasture every day, cattle shifted more often than that.

The only time I don't want to be fussing them is over calving/lambing time, but I will probably move the hoggs daily as that's their routine so it shouldn't worry them too much.

But I don't and wouldn't go and just look at them, that's just a waste of energy, worse if you need to start an engine.
My neighbours do this, buy the biggest quad they can find and drive around their farm looking at animals, usually towing a trailer full of weight too, so there's $60/day in fuel and servicing - that's why they need thousands of sheep

 

[deleted user 837354]

I do Ollie. Sheep shifted onto new pasture every day, cattle shifted more often than that.

The only time I don't want to be fussing them is over calving/lambing time, but I will probably move the hoggs daily as that's their routine so it shouldn't worry them too much.

But I don't and wouldn't go and just look at them, that's just a waste of energy, worse if you need to start an engine.
My neighbours do this, buy the biggest quad they can find and drive around their farm looking at animals, usually towing a trailer full of weight too, so there's $60/day in fuel and servicing - that's why they need thousands of sheep

So you are checking and moving stock/fences multiple times per day. And that is your main farming activity essentially?

What number of stock could you keep under your system and classify the work as part time?

 

[Kiwi Pete]

So you are checking and moving stock/fences multiple times per day. And that is your main farming activity essentially?

What number of stock could you keep under your system and classify the work as part time?

Yeah, that's really the sum/total of our farming activities.
Really it's about maintaining "stock density" so their time on any area is minimal - just as predator pressure keeps wild herds in a mob and always moving.
Thus it replaces expenditure on drugs, regrassing and other bandaid fixes to easily solved problems, (like putting all your grass somewhere dry and having a drought ? )
..because we're grazing and not "producing" per se, it also means we aren't on the fert treadmill, hence about 72% GP/turnover last year.

We're wintering about 800 stock units on 100 acres, but it would only take an extra hour to run 1000 ac- it sure doesn't take long for mobbed animals to run a few metres.

I guess it's what floats your boat - I would rather work for me than the ag supply industry, I do that for a day job and it's quickly "getting old", spreading acid on people's land so their sheep get shitty faster and have more health problems
?‍

 

[JP1]

Wait until the Americans come along

To the OP , I'd say the Dutch and the Kiwis win on drilling down on maximising output and efficiency, with a can-do attitude and interest in meeting market expectations

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=256288545630786

 

[kiwi pom]

Yeah, that's really the sum/total of our farming activities.
Really it's about maintaining "stock density" so their time on any area is minimal - just as predator pressure keeps wild herds in a mob and always moving.
Thus it replaces expenditure on drugs, regrassing and other bandaid fixes to easily solved problems, (like putting all your grass somewhere dry and having a drought ? )
..because we're grazing and not "producing" per se, it also means we aren't on the fert treadmill, hence about 72% GP/turnover last year.

We're wintering about 800 stock units on 100 acres, but it would only take an extra hour to run 1000 ac- it sure doesn't take long for mobbed animals to run a few metres.

I guess it's what floats your boat - I would rather work for me than the ag supply industry, I do that for a day job and it's quickly "getting old", spreading acid on people's land so their sheep get shitty faster and have more health problems
?‍

How much land do you think you would need so you didn't have to go out and work elsewhere?
Do you see the 100acres as a stepping stone to a bigger place?

 

[neilo]

add too that there relaxed attitude towards losses and deadstock and checking stock, when they are lambing I bet they ride round once a week picking the dead ones up then after that it’s see you in 3 months when we start weighing lambs... if they even weigh lambs? They maybe just gather them in and know at 16 weeks old they will be somewhere near and send everything that looks near...

Do you really believe any of that?

 

[Agrivator]

There still aren't any normal NZ sheep farmers on here!!!!!!

If there is such a thing as a normal NZ sheep farmer. But if they're too lazy to look after their sheep, why would they waste time..............

 

[Kiwi Pete]

with dickheads?

 

[Kiwi Pete]

How much land do you think you would need so you didn't have to go out and work elsewhere?
Do you see the 100acres as a stepping stone to a bigger place?

Hell, no! ?
(I might be different, but I'm not stupid).

We could live off 100 acres, piece of cake, I don't "have to go out and work"; I just enjoy seeing the local landscape and getting paid a good rate to go do it.... why not?
Trucks are great for looking at things from.

Saves me hanging around here like a bad smell, because then I will start my engines and break stuff, and then the money goes to town.

All I hear is how expensive everything is!

 

[tinsheet]

There still aren't any normal NZ sheep farmers on here!!!!!!

If there is such a thing as a normal NZ sheep farmer. But if they're too lazy to look after their sheep, why would they waste time..............

Define Normal?

 

[neilo]

Define Normal?

Ones running Cheviot Mules I suspect.

 

[Agrivator]

There still aren't any normal NZ sheep farmers on here!!!!!!

If there is such a thing as a normal NZ sheep farmer. But if they're too lazy to look after their sheep, why would they waste time..............

Define Normal?

Ok. I will change my question to: ''are there any NZ sheep farmers, normal or abnormal, on here?''

 

[Robt]

I hate your avatar!

So do I.... We will have our day soon....

 

[CollCrofter]

Thousands upon thousands of sheep per farm and left to their own devices for the majority of the time. Survival of the fittest. You wouldn't catch a kiwi injecting all sorts into a lamb that wasn't doing... dog food.

Eventually you're left with bloody good sheep that can lamb on their own with little input. That's the profit right there

 

[Courier]

Thousands upon thousands of sheep per farm and left to their own devices for the majority of the time. Survival of the fittest. You wouldn't catch a kiwi injecting all sorts into a lamb that wasn't doing... dog food.

Eventually you're left with bloody good sheep that can lamb on their own with little input. That's the profit right there

My wife's uncle in the Waikato used to shoot any ewe which was having trouble lambing, then when things got financially extra tight he saved the bullet and carried a sticking knife with him.

 

[Bob the beef]

Once spent lambing time with an old fella down in central Otago. He and his wife were in their mid 70’s. Lambing consisted of jumping in the ute around 3 o’clock each day with a slab of tinnies and driving around chucking any dead sheep in the back. Whoever was most sober drove back to the yard for dinner, dumping the dead ones in an old quarry on the way, 3000 ewes lambed in little over 3 weeks. Never touched 1. Well run unit .Couldn’t be more low cost
Had a blast

 

[hally]

He has 6000 ewes and considers it a part time job.

Says it all.

We could all farm like that it not hard......but we would be in jail within a week by the time Rspca, trading standards, local councils, and all the other various ag departments had their say ?