New Farmer

[Farming5]

My uncle and I farm our 200 acre family farm. Right now the farm is a work in progress. We were just renting the farm out to our neighbor and we stopped renting it 4 years ago and started farming it ourselves. My uncle grew up on the farm and knows a thing or two anout farming. I plan to go to college and learn more anout farming to improve our pofit. We are currently buying out the farm from my Grandma's sister. We are planning to build a large 60x100 foot barn this summer or fall. We have to rent a JD 1590 drill from the county now because we don't currently have a barn large enough to get a 1590 drill in. When I get out of college I plan to take a portion of the field and start a small herd of about 5-10 dairy cows to bring in some extra profit. I also plan to buy a tractor with good horsepower and a loader on it. I have been looking at a 6 or 7r series tractor because I have a decent amount of money to spend. I need some help with the hay equipment I want a nice new John Deere baler and a gooseneck trailer for the bales but don't know about the rest of the hay equipment. Could you guys please help me?

 

[wolftree]

Welcome to TBN. Perhaps the first thing you should decide on is what size bales you wish to put up. Given your location, 50-60 pound square bales for horses might be worthwhile. Small bales are commanding premium price these days, ($5-$7 a bale). By using a "Bale Accumulator and Grabber" your manual labor can be cut considerably.

 

[Farming5]

Like I said my uncle and I have just gotten into farming, and neither of us now much about dairy cows as our farm has mostly just been a soybean/wheat based farm. I was thinking about a nice new john deere round baler. I would only use the hay bales for the winter months and when there isn't enough grass in the pasture for them to feed on. I will have to do some research on round bales that are a good size for dairy cows and that can sell for good money when I have a surplus of bales.

 

[Verticaltrx]

This probably isn't what you want to hear, but....

If you truly want to start a profitable farming enterprise, building new barns and buying expensive tractors right off the bat is a fast track to the poor house. You need to focus on things that have a high rate of return, don't depreciate and don't take a lot of capital to get into. Also, DO NOT BORROW MONEY, ever. There are many opportunities to get into farming with size neutral enterprises that you can start small and grow without incurring debt or getting in over your head. Direct to consumer marketing is where the real money will be. Also, half of making money farming is saving money. Lastly, you will be money ahead by buying hay and not owning any hay equipment or tying up any land in hay ground, although I'm sure many on here would disagree.
A couple good books I recommend you read are: "You Can Farm" by Joel Salatin and "No Risk Ranching" by Greg Judy.

 

[Verticaltrx]

Here is a series of videos by Joel Salatin about this type of farming (there are several parts);

 

[jimpen]

The surplus bales in square size can be more profitable in the initial run. The guy driving by in a pickup that needs some hay to feed his goats, sheep or other small livestock is not going to want to buy a +1000# round bale. He needs just a few square bales for a few weeks at a time.

The other insistence on JD is also questionable. Most brands of balers can be just as good as the green paint on JD.

Same as the tractor. I have a Mahindra, nad it has pretty much been a champ. But I will grant I'm a casual user on just 6 acres. But when I was a teen many years ago working on a farm they had Ford 8 to deal with the cows and a Massey to run the manure spreader and other implements. The baler was also a Massey.

Just throwing in my :2cents:

 

[Farming5]

We aren't exactly starting a new farm right off the bat. Our farm has been a succesful farm for over a hundred uears. My uncle already has a John Deere 4430 and I don't plan to get a nice new tractor for a while. I plan to start it off small with a John Deere 4010 to do the little jobs while my uncle and his 4430 do the larger jobs. We will eventually upgrade to newer tractors, but for a while. We are only building a new barn because we have been renting a planter from the county for a few years now and we would like to pick up a nice 1590 drill from our local dealership, but it won't fit in any of our current barn because it is too wide. Plus the people who we plan to have the barn built by build quality barn for cheap money. Thank you for the bale suggestion, I will have to look into buying bales, just not many farms around us make bales and I don't want to go driving all over Ohio to buy bales.

 

[Farming5]

I know JD's aren't the cheapest tractors on the market but our farm has only ever run JD's and that is really the only type of tractor that the dealers around us sell besides Case and IH. I will look for the cheapest tractors I can but it will probably be a John Deere. And I don't know much about baling, that is why I came to you. Thank you for the suggestion about other brands, I will have to look into them.

 

[jimpen]

Realistically tractor dealers are used to working with customers in a 100+ mile range or so. But being in Marysville I know there is a Mahindra dealer in Beavercreek, OH. There is a New Holland dealer there as well. You're oriented more towards Columbus, but they are out there.

 

[smstonypoint]

This probably isn't what you want to hear, but....

If you truly want to start a profitable farming enterprise, building new barns and buying expensive tractors right off the bat is a fast track to the poor house. You need to focus on things that have a high rate of return, don't depreciate and don't take a lot of capital to get into. Also, DO NOT BORROW MONEY, ever. There are many opportunities to get into farming with size neutral enterprises that you can start small and grow without incurring debt or getting in over your head. Direct to consumer marketing is where the real money will be. Also, half of making money farming is saving money.

Sound advice, although I will pick a few nits.

1. Any sort of equipment, new or used, is going to depreciate.
2. Many successful farmers use equity and debt financing, as do many unsuccessful farmers. The successful farmers have business,financial, and marketing skills.
3. The prospects of a 200-acre farm producing enough net income from commodity production to support you and your uncle are dim. You should look at the commodity enterprise budgets from Ohio State: Farm Management Enterprise Budgets | Agricultural, Environmental and Development Economics.
4. The prospects from specialty crops are brighter for a 200-acre farm. You can't compete producing a commodity -- you can compete producing a product. These specialty crops are management- and labor-intensive, require access to suitable markets, and you would have to develop marketing skills. See Enterprise Budgeting Tools - Agricultural Marketing Resource Center.

When I get out of college

Depending on the stage of your college career, you would benefit from taking some economics and business management courses. Better still would be courses in agricultural economics if you are attending a land-grant.

Steve

 

[Farming5]

My uncle doesn't need to be supported by the farm. He has had a full time job for a while now and has just started farming our farm again. He is retiring in a couple of years and his wife works so he doesn't need to make a profit. I think we will both get some of the profit when I help farm the farm. That is why I wanted to get into some dairy cows so I can make more money for me. I haven't gone to college I am still in high school.

 

[7879fordman]

Best advice since your still in high school go to collage to get a good paying job . Going to collage to become a farmer it's really how u become farmer . Farmers are usely born in it taught not at school but on the farm .

And Partner farming never works said to say and never works with family .

So best advice get a good degree for a good paying job .

Wish that's what I would have done .


Get a good job make tons of money and save it then retire as a hobby farmer .

There's the best advice you will ever get .

Sent from my iPhone 5 using TractorByNet

 

[jimpen]

I think that all of us were thinking that you were in college, not high school.

You have ambitious plans and it sounds good. But you need to temper that with reality, It takes a while to make a far profitable. The 10-12 dairy cows -- do you plan to sell as raw milk? Or do you plan to sell it to the conglomerates around Ohio? Will 10-12 cows actually be profitable?

The choices and options are pretty infinite, but you need to sit down and write out a business plan including goals and options before you dive in.

 

[Farming5]

I was planning to keep some milk for myself and sell the rest of the milk to a milk company in Ohio. Whether or not that will be a large or a small company I don't know, so yes jimpen you are right I need to sit down and write a business plan but I think it is good that I have an idea about what I want to do. I just need to get the specifics down, which is what I am going to learn in college.

 

[smstonypoint]

That is why I wanted to get into some dairy cows so I can make more money for me. I haven't gone to college I am still in high school.

I don't want to come across as a party-pooper, but........

1. Have you ever worked on a dairy farm? If not, try to get a job this summer at a local dairy.
2. Have you thought about the investment required to establish a dairy? Have you estimated the potential revenues and costs from a dairy enterprise? If not, you should.

Steve

 

[smstonypoint]

Farmers are usely born in it taught not at school but on the farm .

I taught agricultural economics for 30 years. I "guesstimate" that about 1/4 of my undergraduate students came from a farm and returned to the farm upon graduation. I would like to think that the management, financial, and marketing concepts they learned in my classes and those of my colleagues made them better farmers.

Steve

 

[7879fordman]

I taught agricultural economics for 30 years. I "guesstimate" that about 1/4 of my undergraduate students came from a farm and returned to the farm upon graduation. I would like to think that the management, financial, and marketing concepts they learned in my classes and those of my colleagues made them better farmers.

Steve

May have but class room farm'n ain't real world farming .

I know lots of class room farmers that get a rude awaking when they really start from just having class room farm'n in there back ground .


It's just like that was stated .
If he wants to dairy farm . He needs to get a job at one he will learn way more there than a class room . If he wants to be a row crop'r he needs to work for one .

Learning to farm is only learned by either growing up on a farm learning from parents or by working on a farm for years . Not really done in a class room . .

Sent from my iPhone 5 using TractorByNet

 

[Verticaltrx]

Sound advice, although I will pick a few nits.

1. Any sort of equipment, new or used, is going to depreciate.
Why have equipment? For they type of farming we do one needs nothing more than an ATV and maybe a small (30hp or so) 4wd tractor with a loader for misc tasks. We are trying to get away from hay completely and therefore almost no equipment is needed. One of the more successful farmers around here has nothing more than a little B series Kubota and they farm close to 200ac

2. Many successful farmers use equity and debt financing, as do many unsuccessful farmers. The successful farmers have business,financial, and marketing skills.
True, but if you don't have any debt it takes a lot of pressure off the operation

3. The prospects of a 200-acre farm producing enough net income from commodity production to support you and your uncle are dim. You should look at the commodity enterprise budgets from Ohio State: Farm Management Enterprise Budgets | Agricultural, Environmental and Development Economics.
Agreed 100%

4. The prospects from specialty crops are brighter for a 200-acre farm. You can't compete producing a commodity -- you can compete producing a product. These specialty crops are management- and labor-intensive, require access to suitable markets, and you would have to develop marketing skills. See Enterprise Budgeting Tools - Agricultural Marketing Resource Center.
Also fully agreed

Depending on the stage of your college career, you would benefit from taking some economics and business management courses. Better still would be courses in agricultural economics if you are attending a land-grant.


Steve

As to the dairy, you'll never make a dime doing conventional dairying with 10 cows and selling to the milk co-op. If you want to start that small, which you might if you don't have experience, you'll need to keep costs low and profits high. For starters, you'll probably want to do a seasonal, grazing based dairy. In a setup like this you milk the cows 9-10 months out of the year starting about April or March and go until your pasture runs out, which around here is usually the end of December. This cuts your feed bills by a huge amount since there is not silage, no TMR, and you are only feeding hay to dry cows in the winter. On the sales side of things, you need to be doing something value added to the milk, and selling direct to the consumers. Making cheese, ice cream, butter, yogurt, etc and direct marketing it will be where the money is. If your state allows the sale of raw milk then that can be a big profit center too. All of the bull calves you have can also be grazed up to 800lb or so then sold as beef, again direct to the consumer. On the same acreage that your cows graze you can also add sheep and pastured poultry without affecting the cows. Start stacking multiple enterprises on the same acreage like that and you'll be amazed at the returns.

 

[rtimgray]

Having dairy cattle is probably the only thing worse than being in prison. Those cows have to be milked twice a day, every day, rain or shine, holiday or fun day, etc. I've got a couple of old cows that will let me milk them, and I like doing it for grins and giggles every now and then, but not as an occupation. I also know that dairy standards have greatly increased and recent years and would make start-up even more costly.

I like the suggestions about getting an education that allows for a good job and do farming as a side business. That's (relatively) the route that I took, and it worked out well for me. I don't know what (legal) crop you can raise on 200 acres and make a comfortable living on it in Ohio.

Don't get me wrong - I wish you luck in your dreams - but farming full-time can be a tough gig.

Good luck and take care.

 

[hammerone40]

I'm currently working pt on a dairy in Wisconsin. The family is very successful, but that comes with a large time investment.

Yes cows need milking twice a day, everyday, no exceptions. Let alone field work, feeding, manure hauling, building and equipment maintenance, calving and herd health, as well as the business record keeping amongst others.

It can be an awesome lifestyle for some. Others would be hard pressed to last a week. It is great that you have an interest in farming, the world will need them.

I agree that some on the job experience will be highly beneficial. Also look at a technical degree or college degree to help in areas that you are less proficient in an to expose you to styles and techniques that you would not have been exposed to working for one operation. Another aspect of school is gaining the knowledge to handle development of nutrient management plans, business models, soil chemistries, biology of both plants but importantly livestock. Things like A.I., how to aid in abnormal calvings, I.V. for milk feever and others that will allow you to save some vet bills but mostly provide more timely care for your animals.

I would strongly recommend UW-Madison's Farm and Industry Short Course. A two year program.

Sorry for the novel. Keep the enthusiasm and desire, just temper it with some realism and learn all you can before committing whole hog.

Andy