Two weeks ago I wrote a piece about the three key decisions that I had taken that delivered the most value to my new dairy enterprise. I also mentioned that it wasn’t all plain sailing. So with the new season around the corner I thought it might be useful to share some of my mistakes with other new dairy entrants that are venturing into uncharted water for the first time next spring.
In 2013 when we began calving dairy cows for the first time we also had half our spring calving suckler herd on the farm. This meant that we were calving two separate groups of animals. We were limited with shed space and with man power; calving two separate groupscomplicated things and that added a lot of pressure on me during probably one of the most challenging springs in a generation. We were lucky that we had enough feed on the farm to get us through it but if I was to do it again I would have had all the suckler cows off of the farm before calving began.
I was also guilty of underestimating the labour requirement for a dairy farm during the spring time. I had always been a one man show, only relying on some relief labour for busy times like silage and harvest etc., If I was able to handle a spring calving suckler on my own, surely I could handle a dairy herd with just a little help on my own -big mistake. A full time labour unit as well as yourself during the spring is absolutely vital. This person could be farm relief, a skilled local guy, a student or a member of your family. I eventually had to bite the bullet a month into calving and take someone on; the pressure that it took off was huge.
The best advice that I can offer anyone milking cows for the first time next year is to keep things as simple as possible – forget about all the fancy stuff that some established dairy farmers might have, the most important thing you could have about the place is man power and plenty of it. Sure it would be nice to have everything laid on perfect but new entrants do not have that luxury and this is where our advantage lies. Keep capital expenditure to a bare minimum, make the best of what you have and exploit it to its full potential – oh and don’t forget to enjoy the challenge!
Source: Farmers Journal