# Dairy Farms



## baddog201 (Sep 18, 2010)

I feel pretty bad for these guys my neighbor who has milked cows as long as i can remember ever since i was little i was talking to him yesterday and he asked if i would make his new seedings of hay and i said of course i never turn ground away and i said why usually you chop everything he goes im done being a dairy farmer i sold all my cows, I couldnt believe it i was shocked he said he was going to have to buy corn and couldnt afford it so he sold them all. Another dairy farmer down if we keep letting farmers go down just wait and see what the prices do in the stores.


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## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

Dairy farmers are holding on in our area and a few new ones are starting up. Mostly young Amish that just got married or Mennonite, but that's fine, I've always liked dealing with the amish/mennonite folks anyways. Communication can be a bit tricky at times but they are always there to receive delivery of the hay and their checks are _always_ good.

I had a friend that jumped into the organic dairy thing awhile ago. Then corn was in the $2.50 range, organic corn was $7. He decided paying for corn wasn't feasible so instead just bought better hay for the couple of months in the spring when he had cows freshening but had no pasture yet. Claimed at the end of the year while production may have dropped off a little in February, March, April compared to the year before, he made more money paying for the hay than buying corn. Problem is a lot of the dairymen are older and of the mindset you _have_ to feed x amount of corn. My Father would get upset if he ever seen his cows out in the pasture actually looking for something to eat as that meant somebody was late on feeding and GASP his cows were eating grass instead of the TMR.

If we start to lose dairy's up here the hay market will become non existent. I kept track and a few years ago 60% of the hay I hauled to the auctions went to horses, since then the economy took a header and in Elkhart county that has a lot of trailer/rv manufacturers about the time unemployment was approaching 20% the horse market just disappeared. This winter maybe 4 loads have gone to strictly horses and all the rest has been hauled to the dairy's.

Most non-farm people could care less about farmers as they buy _their_ food from the store after all. Besides if all the farms tanked here, they think we'll just import our food from some of the same nice people who make sure we have all the cheap oil we want.


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## hay wilson in TX (Jan 28, 2009)

Check out this web site. 
Forgey's River-View Farms, Inc > Home

Way back there our family raised wheat for income. In the 1890's the price of wheat went to 10% of the price that they needed to make due.

So the family drifted into dairy. At one time there were probably 10 uncles and cousins milking cows. Times kept changing and now ther may be two cousins milking cows.

From my perspective the grazing dairies are doing well, at least for now. What another 20 years will bring is the question. Our only constant will be change.

I wonder if an 18 hole golf course will fit on this farm?


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## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

Around here as well we have a LOT of grazers, really cuts down on equipment costs. On the other hand my friend went from planting, making hay and chopping corn silage to fixing fence, mowing weeds, replanting pastures and moving cows. Unlike some articles that will have you believe rotational grazing is going to save you all kinds of time, my friend figures it takes just as long to keep the pastures and fences up as it did to plant and grow their feed before.

The better managers of the family dairy farm around here seem to be still making enough money to expand and replace equipment on a regular basis. It's the ones that are eyesores and it makes a person wonder how they ever pass inspection that regularly go under around here.


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## haybaler101 (Nov 30, 2008)

Grazing was an acceptable concept when corn was $2.00 a bushel and grossed less than $300 an acre. Now with $7 corn and improved yields corn will gross over $1100 an acre with inputs taking less than half of this. A super pasture might yield 5 to 6 ton of dry matter in a year, so it will have to worth over $200/ton on a dry matter basis. One acre of corn @ 160 bu acre is enough energy for over 30,000 lbs of milk, while 5 ton of the best pasture is enough energy for about 19,000 lbs of milk. Milk will come up drastically in price this year, it has already started, guys in Southern IN are looking at 22 to 24 milk by late spring. Beef prices are headed for $2/lb on the rail. The question is "Can this economy handle $5 gas, $6 gallon milk, and hamburger at over $5/pound. I don't think so"


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## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

In our area at least, most of the folks grazing are doing the organic milk thing, so that changes the equations somewhat when your out their once a week cultivating all that organic corn/soybeans. Lets not even get into the hoeing crews.

cultivating..../wrists


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## baddog201 (Sep 18, 2010)

i agree the economy isnt going to handle this i have friends who buy beef off of me and I usually sell it for twice what ever live weight brings on the hook and they about crapped today when i told them the price was going to be 2.10 a pound on the hook plus processing. Well i am sorry that my corn i have to buy is costing me double and my diesel to feed my hay and everything else has went thru the roof i have to make a living or it isnt worth doing so


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## maknhay (Jan 6, 2010)

This country has been used to a cheap and readily available food supply for far too long. Our grandparents and great grandparents spend the whole dang summer canning and butchering to fill the root cellar to make certain the family had food for the entire winter. Now, 95% of the people just grab stuff off the shelf and scan their debit card on the way home from their greuling 8 hour day.....


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## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

maknhay said:


> Now, 95% of the people just grab stuff off the shelf and scan their debit card on the way home from their greuling 8 hour day.....


That one always kills me, a 40 hour week, or less than a quarter of the 168 hours in a week. I've had new landlords I've about lost the payment on the property because they couldn't find time to swing by the ASCS office on their way home.

Me: "did you stop and sign those papers?"

Landlord: "uh..I didn't have time this week."

Me: "ahh...worked some overtime this week or something?"

Landlord: "no"


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## baddog201 (Sep 18, 2010)

Well you know i was raised by my grandparents, I am a seventh gen farmer and my grandpa and me still to this day can just about everything we need to eat for the year and i raise beef cattle we put 2 in our freezers every year people like us wont be effected as hard as most.


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## wbstofer (Mar 13, 2010)

Jeez guys...sounds like we need to start a Indiana support group! Just delivered 16-700# bales to Middlebury to an Amish dairy tonite for $35/bale. Better than I got at the hay sale last time. Keep thinking prices gotta go up, but I don't know where all this hay is coming from. Everybody says that they are gonna tear up hay fields, but every year there seems to be more hay...


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## swmnhay (Jun 13, 2008)

wbstofer said:


> . Everybody says that they are gonna tear up hay fields, but every year there seems to be more hay...


HERE.

A lot of dairies,feedlots and backgrounders have tweaked thier rations.Puting more byproducts in and cutting back on the hay.They are not relying on the alfalfa for a protien source as much.They put in the maximum amount of DDG's and gluten and then cut back on hay amount and quality to cheapen up the ration.So they are using less hay.


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## downtownjr (Apr 8, 2008)

There is a lot of poor hay on the market here. We just had a hay producer that does 600 acres turn it over to row crops. A dairy that was reported to come was shut out due to the new "burbs" in the neighborhood concerned about the smell. Of course these are the same folks that try to run over tractors with soccer mom vans while talking on cell phones on a 1 1/2 lane country road...can't they see the tractor has flashing lights is will not lose to the van. Anyway, they are stopping expansion here and the state is not helping. Indiana is not really that ag friendly anymore in practice. 
Same being seen on beef cattle here...make a cheap ration. Horse market is down, many gave them up over past two years. There is a fair goat market but they want the junk hay. Do not want to pay a lot. Plenty of hay here just a lot of questionable quality. I am planting beans on new rental ground and keeping enough hay for me and few solid horse customers. Otherwise, I have to do what I have to do and see if the market changes enough to add new hay crops after the rotation.


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## NCSteveH (Jun 30, 2009)

I've been watching the market in my area and it looks like the money will be in straw this year. If the outlook doesn't improve in the next few weeks then I will be disking up another two fields and put them into wheat or triticale.

I'm also in the process of rehabing an abandoned overgrown field that I purchased of an abutting landowner and may just put it into a QDMA type crop to hunt over this fall, I would try beans but I have no way to harvest them plus there are no elevators nearby.


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## dairyguyinSEMN (Apr 9, 2011)

swmnhay said:


> HERE.
> 
> A lot of dairies,feedlots and backgrounders have tweaked thier rations.Puting more byproducts in and cutting back on the hay.They are not relying on the alfalfa for a protien source as much.They put in the maximum amount of DDG's and gluten and then cut back on hay amount and quality to cheapen up the ration.So they are using less hay.


I disagree on dairies doing this. DDG's can NOT be fed in high amounts to dairy cows. I'm feeding 65-70% forage in my ration. That takes high quality forages, which decrease the amount of by-products needed, but requires MORE hay/haylage.


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## K WEST FARMS (Apr 4, 2011)

dairyguyinSEMN said:


> I disagree on dairies doing this. DDG's can NOT be fed in high amounts to dairy cows. I'm feeding 65-70% forage in my ration. That takes high quality forages, which decrease the amount of by-products needed, but requires MORE hay/haylage.


I agree all the way.With SBOM so high, the protein from alfalfa is looking better all the time. Those feeding high corn silage rations are scrambing for protein sources now. Kind of hard to find anything cheaper with every thing tied to SBOM !! John


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