- Thread starter NY 986
- Start date
I never milked cows on my own but have helped several Dairy farmers over the years. I also pulled samples for DHIA testing for a couple tears so had several Dairy farmer friends from that.
Dairy farmers have too much invested and work too hard to go thru periods when you don't make money as I know you have experienced over the years.
Grain farmers are groaning over the drop in corn prices and I am one of them as a friend had corn out on my small farm this year. However our yield was good and I still made money. I do hope that the lower corn price will help Dairy and all livestock farmers.
The other thing you need is that the public need to know how healthy your products are and beneficial to their health ! If every one consumed as much dairy as I everyone would be better off.
Hoping you do well !
Dairy farmers have too much invested and work too hard to go thru periods when you don't make money as I know you have experienced over the years.
Grain farmers are groaning over the drop in corn prices and I am one of them as a friend had corn out on my small farm this year. However our yield was good and I still made money. I do hope that the lower corn price will help Dairy and all livestock farmers.
The other thing you need is that the public need to know how healthy your products are and beneficial to their health ! If every one consumed as much dairy as I everyone would be better off.
Hoping you do well !
Zach Scherf
Member
Yep we milk 25 plan on getting more later this summer, just started on our own in 2010.
I don't know how they couldn't be swimming in cash with milk prices where they are. $20 or better isn't it? With 50 good cows total these days a person should be having to pay a small fortune in income tax and maxing out on what they have to pay in Social Security. I nearly did most years. I sold mine 10 years ago. I generally tried to keep about 50 milking,8-10 dry. Those cows paid for a lot of real estate. They put the wife and one of the kids through college and I paid for health insurance all those years too. Milk was around $13 when I sold them. I don't remember it ever hitting $15.
I grew all of my own feed. There were maybe 3-4 dry years in the whole 33 years that I milked that I had to buy some corn to get through. I'd think it would be the bigger guys who let the college boys tell them to "buy all of their protein" who would have had the toughest time with high grain prices.
I grew all of my own feed. There were maybe 3-4 dry years in the whole 33 years that I milked that I had to buy some corn to get through. I'd think it would be the bigger guys who let the college boys tell them to "buy all of their protein" who would have had the toughest time with high grain prices.
farmerwithmutt
Well-known Member
I milked 40 and did ok till i got farmers lung. friend is milking 40 organic and grass only uses grazing and seasonal milking hes doing good. I work in a goat cheese plant over 1/2 there cheese comes from overseas nothing like blocks of frozen cheese.as long as you dont compete with conventional and find a niche your ok. its hard to belive the premiums on organic plus they want no corn. i have a cow herd next to me buy all there feed no off farm income there doing all right.
Bruce from Can.
Well-known Member
- Location
- Woodville, Ontario, Canada
Yes, we are under 100. As you know ,here in Canada,it is the same game, diffrent rules. we are milking 50-60 Jersey cows. After 33 years in dairy the future still looks the same....UNCERTIAN ! Bruce
Most Amish who are milking have a herd of way less than 100 and seem to be doing OK.Of course most of them have something else going for them too.A friend of mine up here(NNY)same age as me,just sold his herd of 55 milkers two years ago and semi retired.He's raising and selling hay now. He did very well as a dairyman.
A neighbor who is milking about 80-85 is doing extremely well.
Ya,I can see it. Looks to be $20.07 in Michigan. Let's see,50 cows,let's compensate for the weather and say a mere 45 pounds a day in the tank,that's 2250 pounds a day. A little over $450 a day,over $13,500 a month. Not a bad gross income for a one man operation. Even if you figure 80% of that as expenses and to cover payments on debt,which in my estimation is a high percentage,that's over $2700 a month to live on. Comfortable. Better than I ever did when I was milking,as far as the monthly gross income anyway.If you want to figure a more realistic 50-55 pound a day average,well,do the math.
Brendon Warren
Well-known Member
Prices like that makes you wish you were milking 50 cows bought and paid for! It's the ten and twelve dollar days that reminds you why you quit. With grain prices dropping it makes it look good, but with the price of everything involved it would still be pretty risky. I miss the cows, I don't miss the work!
Bigdaddy4430
Member
Sounds like RRLUND should get back in the biz!I think your forgetting what a galllon of diesel,a bag of seed,health ins,electricity,a ton of feed all cost back then.If you think its so lucrative i got 72 holstiens i could set you up with.Do we not deserve $20+ milk? If you've done it you surely know the labor involved.$7 corn and 2yrs of drought and you are whining how "I didnt get paid like that"Pipe down and drink your milk!
Bruce from Can.
Well-known Member
- Location
- Woodville, Ontario, Canada
Farmers lung is what you get from breathing in too much mold and dust from poorly made hay. just like coal dust,
We have plenty of under 100 cow herds in Northern Ireland. Doing custom work on other farms I have seen them all....The 50-60 cow herd is probably doing the best as it can be operated by the family and they can always pay you as soon as you have their work done! Once it goes past 100 cows it can still be a family farm but you can see cracks appearing, things are not as well done and the farmer has less of a life. Nearly all the farmers over 130 cows get real greedy and start milking 3 times a day, Now... they have to start employing, first it is a relief milker then it is a custom silage outfit, next it is custom slurry spreading. Very soon the farm is supporting several houses and they are all getting more money than the farm owner. Once it goes past the 300 cow mark things start to get tricky.There is more outlay on buildings, more upkeep on the parlour and cattle equipment, paid helpers wreck everything! And then when the weather turns bad things go south.......These are the farmers you do not take a cheque from!
Sam
Sam
Any "average" would have little meaning as to what is going on nowadays. We are seeing more small dairies as the price per cwt is up pretty high. The big guys are not sitting still and there are more and more dairies breaking the 2000 cow thresh hold. What is becoming scarce are the 200, 300, 500 cow farms. As per usual it is a race to get a farm's financial house in order before the next down period regardless of size. Then look for opportunity when those caught with their pants down have to make some hard decisions. Production will catch up to demand so profits will get squeezed eventually.
Anonymous-0
Well-known Member
Now, I ain't the smartest kid in the class...but it's probably easier milking UNDER 100 cows than it is to try to do it from above...there just ain't no spigots on the topside, best I can tell.
tomstractorsandtoys
Well-known Member
We milked 40 cows untill this fall.My children have left and most of the dairy equipment was wearing out.With no help and some health problems it did not make sense to invest more money to keep milking so we are changing to steers.A smaller dairy can make it but it is hard.You will work more hours than your friends and not have much of a life outside the farm.You will need to grow your own feed and be satisfied with good used equipment.At retirement you will be well off financialy as land values and good cattle and equipment are worth alot.I should add that you need a wife and family to back you up or you have little chance of making a go of it.We milked for 20 years and it was a good life.
I think you're right on. $20.00 milk, that's the gross. You have to take the shipping and the testing fees out, the bad milk insurance, the co-op fees, the equalization fee or whatever it's called and then there's the fees for the blend differential or whatever it is, my dairyman neighbor explained it all. Of course they were only getting $13-14.00 cwt a few years back, but farm diesel was $1.75 a gallon then and a bag of corn was $40.00, not $350.00. Tires ran under $250.00 for a new 18.4x38, not $1200.00 like now. Hydraulic oil was $15.00 a 5 gallon pail. Fertilizer? I don't even want to think about that. A roll of barbed wire was $12-15.00 not $45-60.00. You could get a good replacement heifer for $300.00 then too. And you didn't have a law mandating you had to have health insurance!
Yeah, these guys must be rolling in the money....
Anonymous-0
Well-known Member
Don't you look at the top 40 DHIA in Country Folks? Plenty of herds under 100.
farmerwithmutt
Well-known Member
Farmers lung is a lot like allergys.when i get in around livestock i start trying to cough cold weather is bad its gotten a little better used to be perfume or strong smells would trigger it.
My dad was a great one to keep barns tight the ammonia smell was bad i can still remember filling silo and then pitch it out right away plus like they say dust molds etc.
And you wernt a sissy and wore a mask.
Now i raise cattle and pigs outside and on grass so i can still enjoy working with cattle
My dad was a great one to keep barns tight the ammonia smell was bad i can still remember filling silo and then pitch it out right away plus like they say dust molds etc.
And you wernt a sissy and wore a mask.
Now i raise cattle and pigs outside and on grass so i can still enjoy working with cattle
Yes, there are. However, this is the easiest way to ask a group of people across the country how the industry is doing and where it is going. A DHIA report is not going to say a lot besides a few statistical points. There are farms that have unremarkable averages but are debt free that are doing alright and farms with excellent averages struggling due to debt or disaster.
Located in rural northeast Missouri, amid corn and soy beans, our 17,000 acre farm land is home to over 8,500 cows and 2,100 goats. They produce naturally fresh, creamy milk which is made into cheese just down the road in our Creamery. Down the road from me. Heart land Dairy
Real easy not to be "swimming in cash" when one local guy here owes more than 4 million. He's milking 400 head and has hired help to pay for plus a wife that's high maintenance. Glad I'm not in his shoes. Take a year like this with a very poor 2nd hay cutting and I know he's buying hay like mad. Bet even at todays prices he isn't real happy.
Rick
Fifty years ago no one milk more than 50 cows around here. Then the creameries said they wouldn't pick up the milk unless you milked more cows. Many went out of business. We milked under 21 during that time and made a good living. Once the creameries changed the rules, the cows were sold. We didn't have room for more cows. There was no choice. Loved the cows and hated to see them go.
Something to think about.... If a strange disease were to pop up one day and cows were dropping dead, a guy like JD John could probably survive loosing his 36 cows, but how about a guy with over 100 cows, 500 cows, 1000 cows???? When you have hundreds of cows in confinement a disease could spread fast. Oh I suppose our broke government would come to the rescue. It could happen. Seems like there was a problem in Europe a few years back and they buried thousands of cows.
A sad thought but it could happen...
Dick
Something to think about.... If a strange disease were to pop up one day and cows were dropping dead, a guy like JD John could probably survive loosing his 36 cows, but how about a guy with over 100 cows, 500 cows, 1000 cows???? When you have hundreds of cows in confinement a disease could spread fast. Oh I suppose our broke government would come to the rescue. It could happen. Seems like there was a problem in Europe a few years back and they buried thousands of cows.
A sad thought but it could happen...
Dick
just another old geezer
Member
$2700 a month =$90 a day Divided by 14 hour days is $6.42 per hour. then your health insurance comes out of that. would you work for that????
You're exactly where I was 10 years ago. The last of the boys went and got a job,I ended up in intensive care for the second time and it was just time to get out while I could sell them myself instead of the wife selling them after my funeral.
I had a good run,like I said,they paid for a lot of real estate and equipment and some college educations,but I knew when to call it quits.
Never dreamed the whole beef cattle thing could go as well as it has,but it's like I told my cousin when I sold them,everybody says I won't make it with beef cattle,but I will if I want to.
I had a good run,like I said,they paid for a lot of real estate and equipment and some college educations,but I knew when to call it quits.
Never dreamed the whole beef cattle thing could go as well as it has,but it's like I told my cousin when I sold them,everybody says I won't make it with beef cattle,but I will if I want to.
Ya,there seems to be a sweet spot here too and a gray area where it's tough to make money. If you have the right facilities to handle 50-60 cows alone,and by alone I mean husband,wife and younger kids who don't have their own household to maintain,have enough land to grow all of your own feed,including grain,yea,it's a lot of work,but a pretty good living.
On the flip side,there seems to be an area between 60 and 100 where you need to hire labor,seems to be a lot in that number who grow their forage but buy their grain,it's just a constant struggle. Sounds like a few on here fit right in to that slot.
On the flip side,there seems to be an area between 60 and 100 where you need to hire labor,seems to be a lot in that number who grow their forage but buy their grain,it's just a constant struggle. Sounds like a few on here fit right in to that slot.
One of the only 2 dairy's left up here is milking 400 + cows and has 15 employees, don't know how they make ends meet,(may as well milk 35 cows by yourself and be rid of the headaches )
They have their own milk truck and deliver daily to the plant,..1000 + km round trip.
They have their own milk truck and deliver daily to the plant,..1000 + km round trip.
There are some huge operations around here. One in particular with multiple facilities milking 2500-3000 on each.Two of those are right here fairly close to me.
I think Green Meadows is milking somewhere in the neighborhood of 8500 now in one location. Last interview I saw with Velmar Green,he was dreaming about robot milkers on a carousel.
I guess they do it with what they call "economy of scale" but I sure wouldn't want anything to do with it. I'm not that in to sitting in an office managing people.
I think Green Meadows is milking somewhere in the neighborhood of 8500 now in one location. Last interview I saw with Velmar Green,he was dreaming about robot milkers on a carousel.
I guess they do it with what they call "economy of scale" but I sure wouldn't want anything to do with it. I'm not that in to sitting in an office managing people.
ou should see the dairy's in Holland nowadays, everything is automated there,robots milk the cows, robots doing the feeding, robots cleaning the alleys, camera's every were to monitor things.
The owner can see what is happening and adjust things if needed with their phone from around the world.
The barns look like mansions.
And these guys milk "only 150-200 cows.
But they are up to their eyeballs in debt, they are also so heavy regulated they even have to give samples of every load of manure they sell or want to spread.They have to have Ammonia emision control and climate control in the barns that gets inspected every so often and on and on.
The amount of paperwork they have to do will blow your mind
Donald Lehman
Well-known Member
My son started farming on his own after working for another farmer for 8 years. Right now he's milking 36 and will be at about 55 by this time next year. He buys TMR from a larger farmer. he's been buying round bales for the young stock. By this time next year nearly all of the young stock he has will be milking. So far he's doing okay. At this point, nothing has blown up in our face yet. We rent all but about 20 acres of our tillable land and that pays about 2/3 of the taxes. The best thing he has going for him is that the stinkin' banks haven't got a nickel in the operation.
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