Posted by rrlund on March 24, 2021 at 15:52:06 from (173.225.193.47):
In Reply to: Coming to a Cross Road posted by Bruce from Can. on March 24, 2021 at 07:03:08:
That's a heck of a chunk of change. What would it cost if you went to a double 4 instead of robots? I don't know how things are oriented, but could you build the parlor off the old milk house and use your current receiver and wash system? Then convert the old tie stall to calf and young heifer housing by taking out the stalls and cementing in the gutters?
What kind of new problems are you going to have with frozen teat ends and icy floors?
I know you guys make more money with your quota system and that's why you'd even entertain such an idea, but you're faced with the tradeoff that you guys have in the control that the government has over animal care. That kind of investment wouldn't even be on the table over here west of you.
Just to wander a little, the wife's greenhouse business has grown to the point that we're putting up a bigger one. There's one just to the north west of is that's closing due to the owners retiring. That one was just a converted calf barn on a former dairy farm. They built that whole new dairy set up in the early 70s when I was in high school. We went over there a week ago last Sunday and got the fans, tables, furnace, louvers, a whole bunch of stuff. I was telling the boys that when I was in school, our ag class went out there for an open house when they built it. It was one of the most modern and largest dairies around at that time. They couldn't hardly believe it anymore than I can anymore. It's just another 100 stall barn with part of the roof blown off and a few 20x70 silos. It was built by three brothers when their dad was retiring and they thought they had to get big and modern to all stay in the dairy business. It was in the local paper and even Michigan Farmer Magazine, quite a big deal when the whole family got involved and built it.
I don't know, for me, there aren't any regrets in getting out. I thought dairy farming was my entire identity. I started milking at the end of my sophomore year in high school. I hauled milk for two years after I graduated, my wife and I were Outstanding Young Dairy Couple in 1990, I was heavily involved in Michigan Milk Producers Association. You know what though? I'm still me. Everybody I knew before, I still know now and they still know me.
It was easier for me though, because from the time I was old enough to see out of the car windows, all I really wanted was a herd of Angus cows. In this area of Michigan at the time I was in high school, you were pretty much were going to milk cows if you planned to make a living farming and that's what I did. My dad and grand dad both milked here before I did. There are pangs of hurt when I go in the barn yet. Dad was still alive when I quit milking, and I've sold all the milking equipment and converted the barn to pens and a chute for sorting and handling beef cattle, Dad's denim coat still hangs on a hook behind the door in the old milk house, yellow gloves still in the pockets. He got hurt at home and couldn't milk anymore and never came back to get the coat.
To be honest, I was looking hard for a farm down south and would have moved down there to quit milking if I had to. My brother was going to buy the home place and I was going to sell the rest to whoever had the deepest pockets. The more time I spent down there, the more it seemed apparent to me that guys up here who were going to beef cattle had never been to real beef cattle country. I didn't think it would even work here, but I modeled things by what I saw in the south and it has worked so well, it even surprises me. My wife was working as a nurse when I sold the dairy cattle and the boys had jobs. I really didn't think I would ever do any better than break even and we'd live on what the wife made. Amazingly, she hasn't worked in over 10 years and we're making a good living.
I'm rambling. Don't take my advice for anything. I sure didn't take anybody's, and nobody was advising me to quit milking and do what I did. It's like I told my cousin though, Everybody says I can't make it with beef cows, but I can if I want to.. Whatever you decide to do, you can if you want to.
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