Any farmers on here?

[Fifteen15]

I'm 20, and I'm working at Tesco part time with not as many hours as I would like, and not as much money as I would like. I won't be climbing the ladder, I'm not that type of person. Basically it's dead end. As for finding another job, I REALLY don't know what I want to do. I feel like I'll be stuck in a dead end job all my life.

My uncle has a small farm he's running alone. He's getting on 60 and he's looking for someone to train up to take over when he pops his clogs. He has no kids, so everything will go to me and my sister when he eventually drops, including the farm.

I'm thinking of going part time with him, so Tesco 3 days a week, the farm 2-3 days a week, and if I like it, I would eventually jack Tesco in.

I know it's going to be HARD work and long hours, and I know I'm going to have to change my ways big time. I'm a 'city boy', love my computers, spend a lot of time indoors etc but I spent a lot of the time when I was young on the farm and I LOVE the environment. I love the whole idea of it, so it's not just something that I have no interest in. I also know in the future it doesn't look too good for small farms, a lot are struggling and being bought out by bigger farms.

Just looking for the opinions of the wise men of BCF. This just seems like a too good a opportunity to miss because I feel like I'm in a bit of a hole atm.
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[mistergixer]

No direct experience, but, if you can make a living out of it, good luck to you.



What does the farm produce? Is there something you could concentrate on and make a 'niche' product?
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[The Artist]

Having worked on small and large farms, no matter what type, it is hard work.

If I were you, I would "inherit" the farm and call an estate agent asap. Unless you want the 24/7 lifestyle. Every day of the year, any time of day or night if you have livestock. Summer is mental for arable farmers and bits of rain at the wrong time can cost them ££££.

It is a lifestyle choice that nobody goes into these days for many reasons. The main one being if you can't work or just don't want to, then your animals will die or your crops will fail and you will go bankrupt.

An idea of hours.
Small dairy farmer could work 6am - 8pm with a couple of little breaks every day of the year.
Arable farmers can take a week off here and there but in the summer, working 100+ hours a week is not uncommon. + The general stress of knowing there is always something to do, and no one to blame stuff on but yourself.

[N cee thirty]

Part time is ideal so you don't sicken yourself


will post moar later cus gotta go out milking, lol
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Jewlio Iglesias wrote: I actually did vote BNP once

[ocatoro]

we used to have a farm... worst thing ever selling it.

if it's a milk farm, think about changing to sheep or something else.

we had sheep and oats on our farm and the money was ridiculous for the amount of work.

basically 3 months work through the winter when they were indoors for lambing (and a couple days in summer shearing and dipping) and we turned over 70-80grand on just lambs.

also great place to raise kids and make a life. can still do all your city boy things too without issue.
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[delvey91]

Thats the opportuniity of a lifetime !!! I would jump at the chance !
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[Frog]

As a few have mentioned, you're never away from the farm if you have animals.

How about staying on at Tesco and helping out before or after work, or at weekends? That'll give you a better idea of how you'll like it when you're shattered etc.

As Octavo and The Artist have mentioned, it's not something you go into for the money, but if you enjoy hard work and the satisfaction that comes from farming, then it could be for you.

If it is for you, working the hours outside your Tesco work shouldnt be a problem while you make your mind up.

Oh, and good luck either way
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[orac]

it depends on what the primary income of the farm is. i worked ona pig farm for a while, until the farmer gace up igs as the size of his farm meant it was unprofitable (he only had 200-300pigs).

now he only has about 1000 yews and 24 cows. he now seems to spend less time at the farm than he spends away from it.

so it going to depend on how small you mean when you say small, and then what he his farming, and the equipemnt he has too (cleaning pig out and feeding by hanf took around 1 hour 30 mins on good day). you than have to think if the thing is going to conintue to make money

however the worst thing i found about farming is, it thankless. supermarkets and consumers want everything for nothing forever sqweasing the producer meaning it feels like you are working harder than you should be for the return
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[andy_uk]

Does he own the land and buildings outright, or are they leased?
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[woll]

Ignore the artist... He has done some work on farms not a great deal though, he liked getting sacked, liked to be late most of all liked breaking expensive equipment.
There used to be a few farmers on here. Can't recall the names besides myself and rob fzs. Although strictly speaking i'm no longer a farmer. Don't let anything put you off. If you've got good work ethic it's not as bad as people make out. Yes they can be long hours doing hard work all day. But then there can be times when you don't have much to do.
I worked on a dairy farm for 6 years. My boss was a lazy cnut. He used to spend his days playing golf, rugby, cricket or swanning about in his new cars. Don't let anybody tell you there's no money in farming. Being a self employed farm labourer I earnt enough to pay rent and bills in a 2 bed house, get pissed 5 nights a week, get high 7 days a week, ride bikes and still have money left after all that. And my boss managed to get new cars every year or two depending on when he got bored of them, have plenty of holidays and buy what ever he wanted. And he wasn't a big dairy farmer, he had around 150 beast. Around 100 milkers 20-30 dry cows and around 30 young stock/calving heifers.
On most modern farms there is barely any manual handling to be done. Just carrying the odd 25kg bag around, the odd calf and wrestling with the beast. There's now machines to do the manual stuff for you. I saw quite a few townies come to help on the farm, It wasn't the manual handling they couldnt take. It was the beasts that scared them away.
Getting a cow to do what you want can be very hard at times, can take a lot of effort and strength and sometimes just brute force and ignorance. No matter how many times it happens a cow standing on your foot hurts like mad, after all a good healthy dairy cow does weigh over half a ton. Now imagine being hit by a boxer, that is nothing compared to being kicked by a cow. I got kicked in the groin once (narrowly missed my bollocks) I had bruises and limped for a good three weeks. A friend of mine got kicked in the parlour, It snapped both bones in her arm. One thing to never forget when working around cattle is they are wild animals. No matter how soft or friendly you think they are, never and i mean never trust them. If they don't want to be somewhere or do something they will do anything to get out of it. Be that flattening you or flattening something else.
Back to the long hours. They don't have to be. When I used to run the farm for my boss. If there wasn't a lot to do (most of the summer) then I would get up at 4:30 get the cows in milk them then let them out. Once i'd let them out i'd have an hours break, then an hour for dinner and half hour before afternoon milking. Or if I was tired a few hours kip at some point. I know a lot of farmers that have very little to do in the day now because it's cheaper for them to get contractors in to do the tractor work than it is to buy the tractors and implements in the long run. So that means they only do stock work, and if it's kept on top of can be as little as an hour a day.
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Current Bike- Suzuki DRZ400 SM K6
Previous bikes - Derbi Senda Xtreme50r, Honda CBR 125, Kawasaki ZZR 250, Yamaha DT125R, Suzuki Bandit 600, Gas gas ec 250, Honda CBR600FW
Damaged spleen, damaged kindey, 2 popped lungs, 2 broken ribs, broken face, broken wrist and 5 back fractures... remember kids walls hurt

[The Artist]

[woll]

Would it be possible for you to break a more expensive implement ?
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Current Bike- Suzuki DRZ400 SM K6
Previous bikes - Derbi Senda Xtreme50r, Honda CBR 125, Kawasaki ZZR 250, Yamaha DT125R, Suzuki Bandit 600, Gas gas ec 250, Honda CBR600FW
Damaged spleen, damaged kindey, 2 popped lungs, 2 broken ribs, broken face, broken wrist and 5 back fractures... remember kids walls hurt

[Chalky.]

[woll]

Ah but mr chalky sir... I did done work for a bigggggg arable farm in cambridge for 2 months when they had 50 tractors and 20 trailers on hire off the firm I work for. Them there plant growing boys do do long hours compared to dairy.

TL,DR

Don't mind being pood on and stood on. Then Dairy FTW
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Current Bike- Suzuki DRZ400 SM K6
Previous bikes - Derbi Senda Xtreme50r, Honda CBR 125, Kawasaki ZZR 250, Yamaha DT125R, Suzuki Bandit 600, Gas gas ec 250, Honda CBR600FW
Damaged spleen, damaged kindey, 2 popped lungs, 2 broken ribs, broken face, broken wrist and 5 back fractures... remember kids walls hurt

[Joncrete Cungle]

https://farmingforum.co.uk/forums/index.php

[Chalky.]

[woll]

You mean june-november slog Oh and the november - june slog doing ground work, planting, spraying, fertilizing and doing maintainence on all the equipment.
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Current Bike- Suzuki DRZ400 SM K6
Previous bikes - Derbi Senda Xtreme50r, Honda CBR 125, Kawasaki ZZR 250, Yamaha DT125R, Suzuki Bandit 600, Gas gas ec 250, Honda CBR600FW
Damaged spleen, damaged kindey, 2 popped lungs, 2 broken ribs, broken face, broken wrist and 5 back fractures... remember kids walls hurt

[Chalky.]

[Flip]

Stacking shelves or your own farm?

Get ya wellies on, lad.

[pits]

Being a farmer is easy.
First you need a boiler suit, either blue or green and black John Deere style.
Next is to talk in a manner that only other farmers can understand you.
Lastly, have loads of money but stingey as fuck
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[trevor saxe-coburg-gotha]

[N cee thirty]

[P.addy]

Woll... if cows are mental and stuff, when it comes to milking and that... are they pretty sedate when you are doing that?

Seem like wild cunts to me

[N cee thirty]

depends on the milking parlour

the old one we had, one kicked the milking unit off its tits, i go to pick the unit up and it gives me a clout in the head and off i go to hospital to get my skull glue'd back together

probably why i mainly deal with the machinery side of things nowadays.
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'00 Aprilia RS50 > '92 Honda CG > '99 Yamaha Fazer > '91 Yamaha RXS > '79 Suzuki X5 > 01' Honda Cg > 07' Honda Cg > 82' Kawasaki Z200 > suzuki gsxr 400 gk73a > honda vfr 400 NC30 Mod 2 Passed 09/06/2011

Jewlio Iglesias wrote: I actually did vote BNP once

[Visitor Q]

I just did 6 weeks on a 10,000 acre farm, with a high intensity feedlot slowly ramping up to 6000 head over the next month or so.

Several hours per day moving and processing meat cattle. Lots of work in a bail.

Loved all the stock work. Especially when they got a little bit stampedey

Would be very interested to know how easy it is to get in to farming in the UK without a farming background, as a possible fall back plan.

More farming here in Oz, or possibly some sheep fiddling in NZ first mind you

edit: And I done got a degree in Zoology, for all the utter bollocks that is worth in the current job market.
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