Getting started

4 posts
Sat, 06/30/2012 - 08:53 #1

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12 years 5 months
ashleigh
Last seen: 03/08/2018 - 21:05
Joined: 06/30/2012 - 08:17

Getting started

Hi everyone. my name is Ashleigh. For a while now my fiance and I have been talking about our dream to run a property as our main source of incom. We have always wanted to live the farming lifestyle, although buying our dream property is a few years off yet. I thought I would start researching it now. My fiance has grown up around farming and knows a fair bit about it all, I on the otherhand not so much other then doing Ag in yr7 and yr9 at school.I do know that it will be alot of work and take alot of knowledge, I would like to extend my knowledge Im hoping you can direct me to the right places. websites, books, etc. I want to learn about running a property from the care of the livestock right through to the running the business side of things as this would be majority of my domain. Ultimatley we want to be just running cattle and a few head of sheep for our own use. We were thinking of iniatially starting with more sheep then cattle so that we can start making money sooner and gradually build our cattle herd as it takes more time to make a profit from cattle. I will appreciate any information that you can give me as well as any suggestions as to what else I should be looking in to. Thankyou Ashleigh

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Sun, 07/01/2012 - 07:36 #2
rogermartyn
Last seen: 03/08/2018 - 21:05
Joined: 10/20/2011 - 16:16

 

Hi Ashleigh,

Welcome to Farmstyle.

What an exciting question you pose. It really is stump puller of a question and has really got me to thinking.

 

The first thing I note is you say your fiancé has grown up with farming and already knows a bit about it, and that you dabbled in farming as a subject while at school. Be assured that between you, you've probably picked up more information than you realise.

 

To answer your question, I guess one could always suggest taking some of the raft of farming courses that TAFE's provide although this isn't necessarily better than motivated self-learning. As with most things, if you know what you want to learn, the rest is reasonably straight forward.

 

At a fundamental level, I would like to suggest a couple of areas of learning to consider.

 

The first, is to get a good understanding of the natural environment you are likely to be farming in. By this I mean, have a good understanding of the physical and biological factors that are at play in the area in which you intend to farm. For example, how dry is it? Why is it that dry? What are the animals native to the area? Why adaptations do they have do survive there? What are the native trees, shrubs, and grasses to the area? Why do they grow there and not others? How much rainfall is there? When does it come? What happens to the water when it does come? How does it behave in the natural environment as opposed to the 'farmed' environment? Why the differences? You get the idea. The thing is, if you become an observer of nature, you get to understand better the environment you wish to farm in, and accordingly, make much better farming decisions. Not enough farmers do this but I can say without hesitation, that the best farmers I've encountered (subjective call I know) are all very good observers of nature. To this end, you might wish to join one of the many Land Care groups that are around - you local council can help you out here. Even if your local area is very different to the area you eventually end up farming in, the disciplines you will get to learn will be readily transferable.

 

The next area I suggest you consider focusing on, is in answering a very fundamental farming question, how much pasture does it take to take to feed a sheep, or cow, and why is it that much? I went through four years of an Agricultural Science degree and did not learn, nor was taught, how to answer that question! I realised that if I was ever asked the question by a farmer in my capacity as a farm advisor, 'how do you know when it is time to shift the cows'? - other than the obvious answer, 'when the grass has all gone', I simply didn't have any idea! So much for a quality education!!!

 

The answer is to be found in the area known as 'pasture feed budgeting'. A 'Google' will bring up a raft of references and you'll find it is not rocket science to learn. Unfortunately there is no one, comprehensive and definitive text I can point you to, as none exists. There will be one day though, as I'm currently writing one!

 

Persuing this topic of pasture feed budgeting will soon raise questions on 'how grasses grow', and on ruminant biology. Certainly getting a good text on both these topics and learning the basics, would be study well done.

 

Regarding the business side of farming, there's nothing too different to running a farm business compared to any business, except to say, farming is far more prone to the vagrancies of nature than most businesses - hence my initial statements on learning as much as possible about your environment. The better you understand your farming environment, the better you are able to pre-empt changes the environment can have on your farming operation, and the better you are able to adapt to respond to these changes thereby making good business decisions by say, destocking early, or changing breeds etc.

 

As with any business, profit comes not so much from how much earn, as from how much you don't spend. Think about it.

 

Now onto some perhaps less esoteric advice and things you might also be able to do to help teach yourself about farming. Having developed an idea of what you do want to learn, and why, you will find the Department of Primary Industries web sites of the various state governments provide good knowledge resources. Likewise, you may surprise yourself on what good information there is to be had in articles in our own Farmstyle website here. Go through all the articles, there's alot there!

 

Googling farming topics is always good, but be aware when the information is not Australian sourced or applicable, as much of the northern hemisphere farming is 'cut and cart' feed lot - housing based, which can be vastly different to Australian pasture based production systems.

 

Subscribing to 'The Land' magazine, a weekly agricultural news rag that is also available at the better newsagents, would be useful move, particularly for getting a handle on prices for stock at the sales and so on, and for keeping up to date with the trends and mood on farming. Other than that, read, read, and read more, always question, and talk to farming folk when ever the opportunity arises, and above all keep and open mind and challenge (quietly) what is being said or presented to you.

 

Farming has to be one of the most exciting, diverse and fascinating endeavours to embark upon. You're going to have a ball. Good luck and keep us posted.

 

Any other comments or suggestions from anybody else to assist Ashleigh please?

 

Roger

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