The sad di

[Henery]

Small farms vanish every day in America’s dairyland: "There ain’t no future in dairy"

Farming families are facing a choice: compete with high-production outfits, if they can, or abandon generations of dairy farming.

www.motherjones.com

Did my HAAC middle year (1983 ) on a 60 cow dairy north of Madison. They were fretting about the future of family dairy’s then….. you can’t beat economics I suppose.
I’ve never worked as hard as I did there…complete madness….

 

[Granite Farmer]

Small farms vanish every day in America’s dairyland: "There ain’t no future in dairy"

Farming families are facing a choice: compete with high-production outfits, if they can, or abandon generations of dairy farming.

www.motherjones.com

Did my HAAC middle year (1983 ) on a 60 cow dairy north of Madison. They were fretting about the future of family dairy’s then….. you can’t beat economics I suppose.
I’ve never worked as hard as I did there…complete madness….

I've just read the article. Now I'm not a diary farmer let alone an American one, so what I'm about say is a generalization from what I've seen on Youtube. They seem to make things hard for themselves even the big boys. Literally bottle feeding calves is one example I can think of straight away.

 

[cows sh#t me to tears]

By this coming spring there will be less than 20 dairy farms left in the Southern Riverina of New South Wales. In the 70's it would have been over 200.
Might finally be coming to fruition a big enough supply imbalance to tip it in the farmers favor......maybe.

 

[neilo]

I've just read the article. Now I'm not a diary farmer let alone an American one, so what I'm about say is a generalization from what I've seen on Youtube. They seem to make things hard for themselves even the big boys. Literally bottle feeding calves is one example I can think of straight away.

That will surely just be using an Easifeeder to give a first colostrum feed, ensuring they know how to suck a teat and have the required volume.

I doubt many/any would bottle feed after that.

 

[Granite Farmer]

That will surely just be using an Easifeeder to give a first colostrum feed, ensuring they know how to suck a teat and have the required volume.

I doubt many/any would bottle feed after that.

I certainly didn't look like that. Each calf was in a individual pen and the slide a bottle into a holder. Hundreds of calves.

 

[Roger Perry]

Small farms vanish every day in America’s dairyland: "There ain’t no future in dairy"

Farming families are facing a choice: compete with high-production outfits, if they can, or abandon generations of dairy farming.

www.motherjones.com

Did my HAAC middle year (1983 ) on a 60 cow dairy north of Madison. They were fretting about the future of family dairy’s then….. you can’t beat economics I suppose.
I’ve never worked as hard as I did there…complete madness….

Its' very tough to accept and we can all be guilty of not wishing to face it, but, in the end economics always dictate.

 

[neilo]

I certainly didn't look like that. Each calf was in a individual pen and the slide a bottle into a holder. Hundreds of calves.

Was it a big dairy employing Mexicans? I did hear one argument was that even the most disinterested labourer couldn’t miss a calf not feeding if they were fed individually.

 

[Bald Rick]

That will surely just be using an Easifeeder to give a first colostrum feed, ensuring they know how to suck a teat and have the required volume.

I doubt many/any would bottle feed after that.

After you Claude ....

 

[le bon paysan]

By this coming spring there will be less than 20 dairy farms left in the Southern Riverina of New South Wales. In the 70's it would have been over 200.
Might finally be coming to fruition a big enough supply imbalance to tip it in the farmers favor......maybe.

Or the buyers could just pull all milk contracts and concentrate on different areas. Like Robert Wiseman pulled out of an area of Scotland.

 

[Tarw Coch]

Or the buyers could just pull all milk contracts and concentrate on different areas. Like Robert Wiseman pulled out of an area of Scotland.

I don’t recall Wisemans pulling out of an area of Scotland, got the impression they were fairly loyal to their Scottish heritage.

 

[deere 6600]

I don’t recall Wisemans pulling out of an area of Scotland, got the impression they were fairly loyal to their Scottish heritage.

Think he means mueller who took over from wiseman and recently stopped collecting in aberdeen area

 

[Tarw Coch]

Think he means mueller who took over from wiseman and recently stopped collecting in aberdeen area

I’m sure he does, but ultimately it was a Muller decision, nowt to do with Wisemans.
Plenty of producers with fond memories of Wisemans, not so keen on Muller

 

[cows sh#t me to tears]

Or the buyers could just pull all milk contracts and concentrate on different areas. Like Robert Wiseman pulled out of an area of Scotland.

Not likely. The drawdown in dairyfarmers is nation wide. To hard and expensive to get into. And quite frankly , why would you now.

 

[Granite Farmer]

There are some council farms near me, they were dairy farms, less than 100ac each. The farmers who took them on in the 50s and 60s made enough money to retire into a bungalows with decent pensions.

Both those farms are starter farms now on 7yr tenancies rather than retirement tenancies. Not to be used for dairying I think it said on the particulars.

 

[cows sh#t me to tears]

You can do whatever you like here if you've got a big enough wallet and the stupidity to open it.....

 

[le bon paysan]

Think he means mueller who took over from wiseman and recently stopped collecting in aberdeen area

Was thinking 10/15 years ago . Guy out here got out and came here because of the pull out.

 

[Ben B]

By this coming spring there will be less than 20 dairy farms left in the Southern Riverina of New South Wales. In the 70's it would have been over 200.
Might finally be coming to fruition a big enough supply imbalance to tip it in the farmer's favour......maybe.

I know the story too well! Dad talks of 25 dairy farms in the 20km strip between our too 2 closest towns. There is 3 - 4 of those farms still operating!