Financial planning

While financial planning might not reduce the risk of physical injury, it can very much reduce the mental stress associated with your business.

By sorting out the money side, it may force you to think about some of the things you are doing and make you ask the question about what you are doing and why you need to do it.

Financial planning can also allow you more time to plan other work around the farm that needs to be carried out. It might not reduce the risk of physical injury but it very much helps with asking questions about what is right for your business.

Most farmers should use the downtime from the field work around Christmas and the new year to think ahead into next year and what might change.

Slurry

In the new year, the first task for most farms is probably slurry spreading.

As soon as the middle of January arrives, farmers will start to think of getting slurry out on those paddocks where there isn’t too much grass.

Spreading slurry with a splash plate where there is grass will just rot the grass so it’s better to try and use a trailing shoe to get the slurry below the level of grass or at least not contaminate as much of the grass.

Calving

Calving is probably the next major task that is approaching most livestock farmers. In advance, all farmers need to check calving equipment and calving shed preparation.

Again the basics around having your calving gate operational, having your calving jack in working order and having your calving equipment such as your consumables – gels, gloves, etc – is important.

Some farmers I talked to this week are setting up a calving camera operation which will help at the busy time when it happens.

The middle of February is not the time to set up a new camera – get it purchased, installed, and working to the optimum long before the first newborn calf hits the ground.

Calf rearing

This is all about being ready when the pressure comes on. The more work you have done in advance, the better.

Make sure you have BVD tags, tagger, ordinary ID tags, blue roll paper, iodine dips, calving ropes, straps, stomach tubes, vaccines and calf care equipment.

For feeding calves, make sure all equipment is clean and in working order before calving starts. Have you enough dry straw or dry bedding?

Feeding

In early January, the plan for most farmers will be twofold:

  • Measure and manage what feed you have in stock.
  • Try to get early grass moving.

    • So the first job for most will be to see how much silage they have and how long it will last. If you are very short then you may have to go and buy feed and often it will be worthwhile to go and buy earlier rather than later.

    There is no point spreading early nitrogen on paddocks that will be waterlogged, have poor grasses that won’t respond to early nitrogen, or if you have lots of feed in stock and are very lightly stocked.

    On farm development

    Many farmers who have no field work to complete often take on a construction job around the yard over the winter months.

    You have to be very careful when completing this as heavy rainfall, wet ground or strong winds can cause something unplanned to fall or collapse that may put you in danger.

    The same applies when building and digging around the yard: be very careful of existing underground and overground electrical cables that can cause serious damage.

    If you get heavy rain overnight a building site can be flooded and water levels can rise to such an extent that it puts something else in danger of moving or collapsing.

    Read more

    More on safety around the farm