It is impossible for anyone without all the figures by month to give an
answer.
You must do an annual forecast VJ Budget/Profit Economic Fram Surplus and
fill in a monthly VJ Cash Flow because by the end of the year you may be OK,
but if you can�t pay the bills each month and have enough to live on, you�ll
get into trouble.
Also if you borrow, the lender will want to see figures in a detailed
budget.
They are copyright so please respect this.
The number of cows you plan is too few by a long way.
You will not be able to employ additional labour and should not have to.
Here one-person dairy farms milk up to 300 cows on their own and use
contractors to make silage, etc. Buildings and machinery deteriorate and
cost insurance and maintenance.
Don�t milk so many that you have to buy a lot of feed or you could be buying
milk production which can be unprofitable. My VJ Budget will help you
calculate the optimums.
A North American farmer client milking 600 was growing broke. I got him to
cut to 300 cows, eliminate debt and labour and buy less feed. He turned to a
very good profit in one year. That was in 1990. With today�s grain prices
there there�ll be more to follow the thousands already gone broke up there
and there�ll be even faster swing to grazing.
Your pasture must be your TMR which means fertilising with all the deficient
elements and dispensing any you still have to, like salt and magnesium, in
the drinking water.
I�ll email you blank spreadsheets of each that you can fill in. Please let
us know the results.
On these you can enter different systems to see which is best.
Good luck. You�re heading the right way because grain prices are going to
increase because of ethanol, and droughts won�t go away in Australia because
of the billions of trees removed.
Trees bring up subsurface water which then evaporates through their leaves
and falls as rain. No trees, no rain. Israel found this 60 years ago and
planted trees and increased rainfall. Gum trees in Australia are not very
efficient at it because they don�t have a lot of leaves, possibly because of
the low rainfall. Here gum trees have three times more leaves.
Rainfall in the middle of our North Island has decreased a bit since
clearing trees for pasture, but where we are has not decreased in 100 years
because most is in pasture with a lot of trees and the sea is not far both
sides of us. New Zealand gets rain from evaporated sea water, as does parts
of Australia. The central areas of Australia don�t.
The Sahara desert is spreading south at 6 km pa because the locals cut down
trees for firewood and plant none. Their goats eat what is left. Sand from
the Sahara blows over Iraq and over the Canary Islands.
Also when there are no trees and no pasture, the rainfall goes into the soil
then, when the top dries out, the water rises bringing salts and evaporates
leaving saline soils.
What is your annual rainfall and how many months do you have with less than
50 mm.
I'll email you photos of what is happening in the dry areas of Australia. So
there will be three attachments.
On 2/3/07 1:02 PM, "Stephen and Stephanie Bray" <sbray@sitestar.net> wrote:
>
> I am a 29 year old, first generation, dairy producer in south central Va.
> I own 131 acres. I am currently milking 150 cows. I raise some heifers here
> but contract out heifer from 250# to 750#. I am mostly holstein but do have a
> few Jerseys and crosses. Most of my pregnant cows now are breed to jerseys.
> I have done some grazing in the past. However with this many cows on 110
> acres pasture, I was not able to get over 30-40% grass. I, like every other
> conventional dairyman, have came off of a very bad year.
> What my goal is to do is over the next two years convert to totally grass
> and parlor feed. I can sell 100 springing heifer and 50 milk cow to eliminate
> all of my short term debt. This will leave a 3300 a month farm payment.
> My question is, can I my money on 60-70 cows on 130 acres and still make
> the farm payment. If I drop back to these numbers, I would have very little
> additional labor. I would also put up 2000 tons of Corn Silage to help me
> during the transition period.
> I would like some feedback as to whether you people think this will work.
> If I am crazy, please tell me.
>
> Stephen Bray
> Penhook, VA
Best wishes.
Vaughan Jones
Hamilton
Waikato
New Zealand
