Staffing rates

[Chasingthedream]

After my last post in here with regards to scraping out options I got lots of interesting and varied responses… hence another one.

If a full time man is considered to be 40hrs/wk what would your staffing rates be /100 head of stock.

Appreciate this will vary hugely on a system by system basis but just looking for some comparable numbers…

We run 500 head with 260 hours of labour/week. So 1.3 full time men per 100 head.

 

[Nathan818]

After my last post in here with regards to scraping out options I got lots of interesting and varied responses… hence another one.

If a full time man is considered to be 40hrs/wk what would your staffing rates be /100 head of stock.

Appreciate this will vary hugely on a system by system basis but just looking for some comparable numbers…

We run 500 head with 260 hours of labour/week. So 1.3 full time men per 100 head.

What makes up your 500 head?

300 milkers and 200 followers? 500 milkers? 150 milkers plus followers and beef?

 

[Chasingthedream]

What makes up your 500 head?

300 milkers and 200 followers? 500 milkers? 150 milkers plus followers and beef?

270 in the herd with 230 followers at present

 

[Farmer Keith]

Tractor work done in house or using contractors?

 

[Chasingthedream]

Tractor work done in house or using contractors?

Contractors used for chopping grass (we mow and put 2 trailers on) and for umbilical slurry

 

[Milkcow365]

Ai foot trimming?

 

[Chasingthedream]

Ai foot trimming?

Both in house

 

[Stinker]

Does 260 hours include your own labor?

 

[Martyn]

We are 300-330 total head. 105-120 milking rest beef/youngsters.
One person full time (does school runs and childcare for 3 children within the day)
Extra set of hands weeknd/evenings around calving period from Wife.
Do all the milking, youngstock work, cutting, raking/baling/wrapping in house, ploughing & drilling.
Contractors do all slurry, hedge cutting, dung work & combining

 

[box]

1 human per 150 cows, so 0.67 humans/100.
Otherwise, including young stock, it's 1 person per 205 head (or 0.49 humans/100)

No casual staff.

My hairline is receding nicely.

Everything done in house except most of the baling and raking (which is contracted out) and calf disbudding & lepto vaccinations (which are done by the vets).

 

[SolwayFarmer]

46 hours per week. 20 hours of outside labour for milking. Rest my own.

Producing about 1,000,000 litres from 90 cows. Total stock about 200. Only feeding done in house. Everything else contractors.

Other job has quite high time demands through the week. So much of my farm time is often weekends

 

[Chasingthedream]

Does 260 hours include your own labor?

Yes this is all hours worked on the farm

 

[Eronce]

After my last post in here with regards to scraping out options I got lots of interesting and varied responses… hence another one.

If a full time man is considered to be 40hrs/wk what would your staffing rates be /100 head of stock.

Appreciate this will vary hugely on a system by system basis but just looking for some comparable numbers…

We run 500 head with 260 hours of labour/week. So 1.3 full time men per 100 head.

An honest post,
It’s amazing, for some reason, some dairy farmers claim to be able to do everything with only 1 full time man.
Like it’s some weird badge of honour!
and conveniently forget about dad or grandad working every morning and checking the heifers etc,
And wife doing paperwork dosent get counted either.
And the relief Milker doesn’t really count cause it’s only 3 milkings a week

 

[Chasingthedream]

1 human per 150 cows, so 0.67 humans/100.
Otherwise, including young stock, it's 1 person per 205 head (or 0.49 humans/100)

No casual staff.

My hairline is receding nicely.

Everything done in house except most of the baling and raking (which is contracted out) and calf disbudding & lepto vaccinations (which are done by the vets).

Are these your figures???

I must admit I find this hard to comprehend.

This would suggest that (assuming a human is 40 hours / week) that two people, each working just less than 7 hours a day could manage the 500 head we have on.

Even in an automated/efficient system this must be difficult???

 

[Chasingthedream]

An honest post,
It’s amazing, for some reason, some dairy farmers claim to be able to do everything with only 1 full time man.
Like it’s some weird badge of honour!
and conveniently forget about dad or grandad working every morning and checking the heifers etc,
And wife doing paperwork dosent get counted either.
And the relief Milker doesn’t really count cause it’s only 3 milkings a week

I have found some of the responses on here astonishing I must admit. I appreciate we are a fairly “high input higher output” system but the scale of our labour input I perhaps wasn’t appreciating totally…

 

[Chasingthedream]

46 hours per week. 20 hours of outside labour for milking. Rest my own.

Producing about 1,000,000 litres from 90 cows. Total stock about 200. Only feeding done in house. Everything else contractors.

Other job has quite high time demands through the week. So much of my farm time is often weekends

Is this 46 hours total?! Or 46 + 20, which is still remarkable imo!

 

[Eronce]

I have found some of the responses on here astonishing I must admit. I appreciate we are a fairly “high input higher output” system but the scale of our labour input I perhaps wasn’t appreciating totally…

It’s probably wants needed to do the job properly and have a life!
I find it’s hardly worth comparing,
You could have a situation where,
One guy could have two lads on min wage,
Another could have a herdsman in a house,
Both have the same wage bill and yet one is theoretically got twice the staff

 

[Chasingthedream]

It’s probably wants needed to do the job properly and have a life!
I find it’s hardly worth comparing,
You could have a situation where,
One guy could have two lads on min wage,
Another could have a herdsman in a house,
Both have the same wage bill and yet one is theoretically got twice the staff

Completely true, hence what I was trying to get at was staffing rates not staffing cost.

Our labour COST is low as 220 ish out of the 260 hours come from family and are therefore low/un paid

 

[box]

Are these your figures???

I must admit I find this hard to comprehend.

This would suggest that (assuming a human is 40 hours / week) that two people, each working just less than 7 hours a day could manage the 500 head we have on.

Even in an automated/efficient system this must be difficult???

Yes they're mine.

It's not that difficult on a mostly grass based system with cows outside 24/7/365.

Pretty automated but still quite simple by todays standards.

Cheap and easy to run, low cost, low production, high profitability. It works for me.

 

[Party Pete]

This guy has life sorted . Very impressive