Profit Monitor

This is a key task to assess performance on your farm. There is no point sticking your head in the sand thinking that poor financial performance will go away unless you make changes to your system and management.

Put the time aside before the end of January to gather up all sales and input dockets from 2017.

Make an appointment with your Teagasc adviser to complete the profit monitor and, more importantly, make a follow-up appointment to assess the 2017 performance. This is not a box-ticking exercise.

The scorecard report is good for analysing performance as it highlights areas where performance is good and areas where it is poor.

Make a list of five changes that you will undertake in 2018 to improve performance and stick it on the fridge. Cross them off when done.

Tullamore farm

Jobs for this week on Tullamore Farm include those listed below:

  • Vaccinating February calving cows with scour vaccine. March- and April-calving cows will be vaccinated at a later date.
  • Commence feeding 0.5kg soya bean meal to February-calving cows to help colostrum quality.
  • Finish clipping all weanlings on the farm.
  • Finalising data collection for e-profit monitor completion.
  • Weigh bull and heifer weanlings to assess performance.
  • Price fertiliser (23 units of urea to be spread at the first opportunity).

    • Read more

    Beef management: slurry issues

    Slurry scramble as tanks fill