RamdomChances

Sounds way over to me, last time I looked into it for the farm it was going to be about 150,000 (I think) and that was with about 300m of cable as well. That was from the electricity company.

Edit, I just noticed you said 350,000 was for the tramsformer, might just depend on what size it is, we we're looking at the smallet

Hi SK...lost your way . The banks are probably the first place to look other than that word of mouth, I don't know of any agents that deal in that sort of stuff, but it's not really something that I pay much attention too. kasigorn (SP) bank used to have a good online section in english, covering the whole of thailand (in provincial sections) but I've lost the link if I find it I'll pm it to you

I think they should build houses in Ching Mai out of jelly, then when there is an earthquake they would just wobble

3. that sex is a dirty business.

Only if your doing it right

H90

I know from other countries, that they sell the milk with mastitis and with a lot of antibiotika inside

You can't sell it here, each days milk is checked for both. If it's found that you are sending milk with over the limit in anti biotics and it happens to of been poored into the holding takns first you are liable for all the ruined milk, our "dairy" collects about 9 ton a day so could be liable for around 100,000 bhat's worth of milk.

Bacteria (mainly from mastitis) is a bit of a greyer area, the "cleaner' your milk is the more you get for it the milk leaving the dairy is grade 1 ( they can't sell it otherwise), they will allow you to drop to class 2 on the odd occasion (it's averaged out over 15 days) but if you drop to grade 2 on 2 occasions your whole 15 days worth is classed as grade 2, if you drop to grade 3 they stop buying from you until you have sorted the problem out. It's not really cost effective to leave a cow with mastitis, it's better to treat it and not send the milk the usual withdrawal period depends on the medicen given can day as low as 2 days or as much as 10, the milk has to be checked for any residual anti-biotics before you can sell it. I 'm sure I read somewhere that milk with a high bacteria count is no good for making yoghut.

Do you know how many dairys are in Thailand and how big they are?

When I use the term "dairy" it's not really the same as back home. Most small dairy farms sell their milk to a co-operative or private company, these colled the milk, check and grade it and then distribute it depending on what contracts they have. I assume some of the big Korat dairy farms would have their own chilled bulk storage tanks and sell direct. In my local area there are 2 collection canters/dairies between them thay have around 100 farms on the books. Korat is probably the biggest milk producing area in thailand, but I'm sure I read somewhere that every province has some sort of milk production.

RandomChances-you pasturise your own milk?? How so?

Yea I do sometimes. Usually I get a big pan and a 2L palstic bottle, boil some water in the pan with the bottle and cap in it, to sterilise the pan and the bottle. I do have the luxury of picking which cow my milk comes from, so I pick a good one and take 2L from the milk. Put this in the pan and bring just before the boil, you can usually see milk form one or two bubbles on the surface, take off the heat put into your sterilised bottle and chill rapidly, I usually just put it into the fridge until the next day. It keeps really well probably cos it's so fresh and has'nt had to be distrubited to shops ect and tastes great as long as you dont mind full fat ( you could probably skimit your self though).

If you have a thermometer, you can get the data for pasturising off the internet, basicaly the lower the temprature the longer you have to hold the milk at that temp for, it's something like 30 min at about 75 degrees down to 2 seconds at 90 degrees, boiling produces more like a UHT type milk and affects the taste.

PB

Most flavoured milk drink's are made form UHT milk with a much longer shelf life and once cartoned or bottled do not need to be kept chilled. "Fresh" pasturised milk will keep longer than unprocessed milk but still need's to be kept chilled, sometimes you gat a bottle or carton of "fresh" milk that tastes a bit "off" I recon it's because of mis- handling in the supply chain, as it has to go from the botteling plant, then trucked to the shops with changes of temperature ect but thats just my own theory

Most of the "fitting in" stuff like touching heads, waiing, pointing feet I tend to do as second nature now, although most people are pretty tolerent and dont really expect you to know, looking back I probably did make an effort to do those things initialy. Language is still an ongoing effort but I must admit that once you know what to say in 90% of situations you tend to ease up a bit.

Wearing yellow shirt's I dont bother but then again no one around here really does as its a farming comunity, I dont really think my cows care one way or another

Buddist "stuff" Ive been to literaly hundreds of wedding's and funerals so pretty much know how to behave at them. I don't "Tam boon" as I'm an athiest and just dont belive in it, if I find myself at a wat or religious service I generaly just sit at the back or wait outside.

Probably one of my overiding reasons for "trying to fit in" was the fact that I really hate people fussing over me , my mother-in-law used to follow me around plugging fans in wherever I sat, cook "special" food that sort of thing, where as I'm just as comfertable sat cross legged on the floor and will eat just about anything.

Living in a rural community it takes literaly years for the barriers to come down and thats with making an effort, for most people mabye just visiting their in-laws just be polite and open minded and they would have no problems

My wife usually gives me a couple of thousand bhat a month, more if i need it !! she does pay all the bills though...since all the account/credit cards ect are in joint names I suppose I could have more but it would mean going to the bank.

Jesus, you read this thread and get the impresion that outside of the "civilised" area's the women are some sort of comodity, controled by drunken, abusive, gambling fathers/husbands, well let me paint you a different picture. (obviously my perceptions are based on the area that I live and while it appears that here on the central plain is relitivly more wealthy than say some parts of Issarn I can"t belive it's that special. I live work and socialise with mainly thai farmers and speak pretty fluent thai)...anyway.

The vast majority of thai female children here are idolised by their parents and brought up in and extramly "coddled" enviroment, most of the fathers I know have simular expectations for their daughters as do people in the west, they want them to go to univircity, graduate, get a good job or settle down and get married, having your kids graduate uni is very much a source of pride for most families.

Drinking/gambling. Oddly I probably drink more than nearly any of the farmers I know, who mainly work their own farms and hold down some other sort of job as well, be it simple labouring, contracting out their own tractors, electrition, mechanic ect, mainly they just dont have the time to drink or cant afford to miss a days work with a hangover. Strangley gambling seems much more prevelent with the women, although does'nt happen all the time, funerals being and exception and national hoildays where often the men will sit around drinking/eating all day and some of the men/women play cards.

Abuse. In my 6-7 years living "out in the sticks" I've only ever heard one case of a man beating his wife, it was prety universily condemed even though she was having an affair and she did hit him with a wok first, strangly I've heard of numerus occasions of the wife beating the husband. Sex abuse well it's not really one of those things you hear about until you read it in the papers, you could cite stories but have a read of the papers back home and I'm sure you will find a simular thing

Thai sex industry. Well I'm by no means an expert but have been out to the local town with thai and falang friends on a few occasions, the local town used to have a US airforce contingent and apparently previously it had a lot of "girly" type bars, although the Americans have gone it still retains quite a few and has a reputation for that sort of thing in the area. Anyway I've never seen any indication that anyone was forced to work in them and they are mainly much lower key that the typical BKK/pattaya bar scens, mainly having some sort of karyoky as well, a lot of the Thais just go to them for a night out , drinks, singing, having a laugh without nesseseraly indulging in sex although it is avalible, as to having bar fines/cost I could'nt tell you as I've never goten that far, not that I'm some sort of angel but it's very close to home and being the only falang for about 50 km radious the news would probably be home before me

Women going to work in the sex industry. Well it's never something thats said outright, you have to read between the lines a lot, but I've never heard or whitnessed any family pressurising their daughter to do it. The ones I do know who have gone are a pretty mixed bunch really, older (30's) women divorced with a kid who's chances of finding a new husband are practicaly nil, younger girls looking to get out of the cosseted existance imposed on them by their families or who just want that new mobile, nice clother some gold ect, one instance I know pretty well is a police captians wife, he's on good money does'nt drink smoke or gamble, two kid's anyway her sister was working in Phuket, came back with tales of it being "paved with gold" so the other sister left her husband, she ended up married to a falang in UK, but has subsiquantly traded husbands up I think she's on her third now.

I have no doubt that horror stories exist, they do back home as well. I have no doubt that many girls working in the trade come from abusive relationships, I also have no doubt that many say that they come from abusive relationships, after all someone ask's you why you are doing this type of work, what are you going to say " well I wanted a new mobile phone"? "I'm too lazy to get a proper job"? "well it beats picking rice for 150 bhat a day" or "my huband he no good" "he butterfly" "he hit me"

A mate of mine used to have a bar in Phuket, the bar fine was 200 bhat (I have no idea what it is now) this was split with the girl, if she worked for the bar, freelances got to keep it. The money left over helped to pay for the girls room/rice compensate for her not being there and the odd bottle of whiskey ect to share amongst themselfs. I had the impresion that that was fairly common practice.

Obviously all the above are just based in my own personel experiances here, I can't back them up with any of the dubious stats that are avalible off the net, but neither do I walk around with rose tinted glasses

RC

Wot no cheese RC? sad.gif Reminds me of the saying - "water, water, everywhere but not a drop to drink", but in your case it would be - "milk, milk everywhere, but not a drop for cheese!"

You're an inventive guy and know how to use the Net to full advantage - can't you set up a little cheese making biz, and keep yourself in cheddar, whilst selling the rest 70 kms to the other punters too lazy to make their own but have no cows? wink.gif Never know you may even get your neighbours interested in pla rah farang. biggrin.gif

ps I make my own pla rah - saep lai! cool.gif

I've often though about making cheese, done some soft "cottage" type chees that was ok, but hard cheeses need time and somewhere cool to mature, plus there is no real market, well not here anyway where falangs are still really thin on the ground, pasturising and markering my own milk would be a better idea IMO. My misses calles blue chees "pla rah falang"

There are various Thai companies "bottling" Thai produced milk which should have been pasteurised to international standards.

As far as I'm aware it is pasturised.

However there are many small dairy farms in Thailand where the cow milking practice and the milk collection system, which is still in churns, does not appear to be of the highest standard . Does this milk go into the liquid or processed market?

Most dairy farms still use churns, which are then either collected or delivered to a central "dairy" where it is kept in refrigerated tanks and sold daily, can be for anythning depending on the contracts the dairy has, most of ours ends up being sold to "mali" who make condenced milk, but some goes to a local company pasturising and selling to the schools.

At our dairy and anyother I know of the milk is sampled from the churns and checked daily for antbiotic residuse, bacteria count ect you get bonus's if you milk has a low STC count (stomatic cell count) and if it's over a certian level they wount buy it off you.

Just how safe to drink is Thailand's natural cows milk?

Depends on the cow!! we've often got a few cows with mastitis which we dont sell the milk, oh you have to get the milk off the individual cow checked before you can sell it after medication. I sometimes pasturise my own milk , it's not hard, tates really good but is very full fat. There are permitted residue levels but I could'nt tell you what the actual figures are, we are mainly interested in whether it passes or fails

I think the OP made many good point's, living in the stick's is'nt for everyone and could easily become a living hel_l if you don't fit in.

The bit's about visa's, climate, money and owning stuff apply everywhere not just in the "sticks" . Most 7-11's sell basic falang food (bread, butter, ham, bacon) well mine does anyway. My nearest cheese is 70 km away though so yes it is sometimes difficult getting the stuff you need.

Thai language really is a must for rural living as virtualy no one speaks english, along with thoughts about how you will fill your time although this also applies where every you "retire" unless you just want to go to bars every night. Internet is avalible everywhere with a mobile phone, which on a good day is about the same speed as a dial up, but unless you live in a town you can forget broadband.

This Thai obsession with long ears is a real puzzle to me. Cattle =milk and beef. This particular breed fill neither criteria.

Me too, Ive been trying to work it out for ages now, the only answer I've got of thai farmers is that they are beautiful, mabye it's these "long eared" brahma that KC was talking about when he refered to status symbol, I had'nt thought of that but would fit although it would be a tiny percentage of the market. Back in an earlier post I mentioned about 2,000 bhat for AI, I'm pretty sure that was pedigree semen in an attempt to get "long eared" calfs. Too me it's all just a self fufilling proficy....they are expencive cos they are expencive!! the bubble will have to burst sometime, if it has'nt already, I have'nt heared much about them for a while.

This has been an excellent thread up to now and I really don't want it to turn into a bunfight, so I'm going to retire from it. Good luck to you all.

That would be a shame.

Many companies (not least Campina) are experimenting to determine which cattle and cross-breeding gives the best milk yields in Thailand.

Yes most of the large companies experiment to try and find better milkers, more suted to the envioment here, Chock Chai has actually registered its own breed, the Chock Chai Freisian, I dont really see the relevence to "keeping cattle as status symbols" though and the "long eared" varity that teletiger was talking about has nothing to do with dairy production. You can buy "Chock Chai" seman and they also sell offf their young , pregnant cows, I think at something like over 5 or 6 months pregnant, you dont get to pick them though they do that for you and I have no idea how much they sell for, although I would think they are probably expencive. The problem with a lot of the breeds kept by the big companies is that they are kept in fairly optimum conditions on the big farms most of which have their own vets, for most small dairy farms IMO they would be more trouble than they are worth.

Isn't the brahma genetics of value for its disease resistence and its large body structure? Don't really know...that's why I'm asking.

More or less yes mate, good resistance to the heat, and parasites and the ability to put weight on while eating virtualy anything, although teletiger was talking about the "long eared" one's. I'm not sure you have the same craze for them up around your way, but they sometimes go for crazy money and dont really apear to have any advantages apart for being beautiful, if anyone has any info on them I'd like to know as it's been a mystery to me

RandomChances

I have no problem with those outside this Issan section commenting on the Issan problems,but if this is this the case may we also suggest you post your farming concerns on your own section? Is it like farming in Kinloss or Kent, Kintyre or (k) Cornwall?

Most of the "farming" threads seem to be in the "issan" forum. I tend to post in them as very few people here have any practical experiance in farming in thailand. I've had a dairy farm here for about 6 years, not as a hobby or something to do but as an ongoing profit making buissines, I dont rely on any outside income. I just do what works and turns a profit. Most of the stuff is'nt area specific anyway, 70 km north east and I'd be in Issan, do you really think that would change anything?

Now I see you are from Sakhon Nakhon I can see the misunderstanding.

Bannork is right mate, I'm no where near Sakhon Nakhon, but in Nakhon Sawan, Central Thailand about 170 km north of BKK, if ever your in the area feel free to drop in. Parts of Nakhon are big rice producing areas around the Chao Praya, but maily it's Sugar Cane, Maize, Peanuts, not much rice around near me. Bannork it took me ages to figure out the "lucy" thing as well...one day it just clicked

AI in Thailand is pretty much a hit and miss affair. Semen straws are available free from the local Ag department. In reality you pay 100 baht for the straw and 150 baht for a local man to come and administer it. You'd better be able to tell if your cow is in standing heat, because they sure can't. I stopped at 2 dairy farms outside Pak Chong because from the road I could see they had a few dairy x brahman calves. Asked them why they chose that cross. They didn't. They used the straws supplied by the local Ag. They were supposed to be all dairy.

We pay 50 bhat, for basic sperm you can get more expensive stuff but as we dont bother keeping the calfs there is no point. To be honest ours are pretty good the only problem is sometimes getting someone out at the right time. People go on courses here to learn AI and often the ones that do it are'nt proper vets and have just been on a week or two's course. Saying that one of the guy's that does most of our vet stuff is'nt a vet and has just been on a few courses but he's better and more knowlagable than the real vet's many of which you have to call out and tell them whats wrong with the cow and what to administer. Most injections calfing probs I do myself, still cant put a drip in though.

If you've got the pasture. using a bull on Brahman cows is easier than AI. A dairy cow will stand still 'til midnight as long as she's got grain in front of her. Try fiddling with rear end of a Brahman cow and she'll kick your head off. You'll need a tight chute and a headgate and rope.

We put them in the milking stalls for doing it most of the local farmers just tie them up somewhere. For water I've two 6000l troughts in the main encloseure and concrete tubs dotted around all fed off piped water with float valves so there is always water fro then to drink, got to keep an eye on the valves though as sometimes they break and flood the place.

To my mind a mineral suppliment is essential. You can use a salt/mineral lick block hung somewhere, or better is loose minerals in a tub.

We use the blocks hung up in the "barn" I think its about 500 bhat for two 10kg blocks.

If they're thirsty they'll eat less.

Yea you should try and posotion any water troughs in the shade, in hot season espacialy most cows suffer from some form of heat stress putting them off their food, less milk or less weight increse if your into beef, We've got 4 big industrial fans that we sometimes blow into the barn in particularly hot weather.

Keeping them as a status symbol doesn't mean they don't want a profit.

Presumably one has visited the local "cattle market".Its the heifers that make the money for breeding cattle, to produce more heifers.

I might of mis-under stood, "keeping as a status symbly" to me implies that there is no profit in it. Yes mate I have been to many cattle markets, we buy and sell cows all the time, although dairy not beef. Most of the people around here tend to keep the female calfs and sell the bulls at around 12-14 months for finnishing, the females when for sale are more expensive as they are the ones that get you your stock for selling.

Bannork, Sounds like it could it be Guinea grass miss pronounced in thai as they do with ruzzi (called lucy here) Thes stuff I'm growing is forage sorgham "khow fang wan" in thai or usually just called jumbo as I've said its not the best but really easy to grow and you get a lot of it, I'm probably going to put half the land over to ruzzi this year for grazing and the "jumbo" for cut'n'carry.

When's the last time you saw a Fresian dairy cow in Thailand. Most are ( I think) Holstein/fresian crosses and if the farmer is smart an 1/8th of Brahman in there too.

Yes mate most are HF crosses, pure breeds dont do too well here due to the heat (mainly) saying that all my cows are a mix of one sort or an other, some jersy crosses, one new zealand red and a couple with a lot of Thai/Brahman in them, I dont really worry too much when I'm out buying except to avoid the "pegigree" prime HF milkers like the plague, you pay too much of a premium for them in the hope of better milk yeilds and if it has trouble conceving you are just left with an expensive bit of meat.

I only buy cows over 5 month pregnant, ones that have just calfed, or young cows over 5 months into their first pregnancy over, 7 months pregnant is ideal, (or anything if it's cheap enough and I can turn a quick bhat ) we sell old cows, calfs and anything that the milk yield has droped to less them 7 kg a day and is'nt pregnant...conception rates are a big problem here for dairy. It cost me around 3kg of milk a day to feed a cow 5kg if giving rice straw so anything above that is profit (well less fixed running costs). We average about 13 kg/head/day at the moment which is well above average (about 10kg) a decent milker should give you around 20kg a day when just droped, going down to around 8-5kg just before drying off.Some of the "prime" milkers give around 30kg but to be honest the ones we have had have proved to be more trouble than they are worth, difficulty in conciving, prone to mastitis sensitive to heat, so we dont bother any more.

For the beef system try to stay off the concentrates. In Thailand I understand they are about £90 per ton and there is no subsidy support. The real key is growing the grass and probably on a zero grazing system.That means having the right land, irrigation and harvesting set up.

Yep 90 pound a ton seems about right, it stands to reason that if you can get the weight gains without giving concentrate then you will be on a winner, very few people can though, in fact I've never come across a set-up which does'nt use concentrate, except the local small heards producing calfs for the feed lot guys.

One of the biggest problems for "falangs" to make money out of cattle IMO is knowing the market, Its taken me years to get to know the dairy market (I feel I know it pretty well as we buy and sell all the time, much more than the ave small dairy farm) You get your buying and selling price right and you can make money off virtually anything, but usually you are up against guy's that may have been doing it all thier lifes and with much more patiance then the average falang for bartering.

RC

rc, how does the gov't restrict

In a word "poorly"

would most of the poorer folks also do AI? or do they just let their cows run with a bull???

In my experiance yes they AI. I'm sure there is cheaper sperem the expensive when people are tryint to get one of those pretty brown long eard ones that were all the fasion and really expensive. I'm not sure what happend adout them but they were fetching crazy money. Anyway it's probably cos it works out cheaper than just keeping a bull all year just to service a few cows. In fact it's probably the other way around where the big rich farms would be able to keep a good pedigree bull.

do people that breed fowl (chickens) for local use (not big slaughter houses etc) use small mechanical hatcheries??

Yea I think so, my sitser-in-laws mother has a small chicken farm just for local stuff (couple of 100 I think) and nearly every house keeps "gai ban"some just wandering some with chicken houses (sorry I forget the name for them ) built and you can buy a varity of different types of chicken at most markets.

when u buy, are they vaccinated?

Sometimes, it will be on the paper if they are along with the ivoemec jabs

do u have to test them (blood tests for brucellosis etc)?

You should really but we dont have much problem in this area

do papers change hands? how do u prove a cow is yours and not theirs after the sale and they are turned out to pasture? ear tagged? chipped?

Yes it's called a ba wat (sp) they are ear tagged

how can u know if a cow came from an infected area (hoof and mouth like last year, or brucellosis this year)...? i know, probably u cant! but thought i'd ask...

It's on the paper where they come from the gov sometims puts restrictions on cattle movment in and out of infected areas. Saying all that with a friendly vet and a couple of hundred bhat you can get a cow re-tagged with a clean fresh paper, many small farms who just breed for themslfs done bother with the paper so it's not unusual to buy a cow without one (price adjusted of course ) Oh all that is for dairy I assume the beef ones are the same just could'nt tell you.

RC

I managed to pick up that brontok worm, and I only open e-mails from people that I know. I'm sure my misses was using my computer. It's a reall pain to get rid of and it shuts the system down when ever you try anything and disables regedit and some other stuff.

I used an online virus scan

http://uk.trendmicro-europe.com/consumer/h...call_launch.php

and it seemed to work, took about a day on my crappy GPRS connection though. My wifes computer is riddled with it and loads of other stuff so we are going to start from scratch and wipe it all, it's in the shop now save me doing it for 150 bhat I need to give her lessons in what she can and can't download!!

Bina, It's a bit of everything. There are markets, you'd have to askwhere you nearest would be, a lot is done just word of mouth just let it be know you want to buy some or just ask around if anyone wants to sell any. Bearing in mind anyone will sell to you if the price is right.

We tend do do everything by word of mouth. People know we buy and sell regularly so they often come to us. I have someone we deal a lot with who is basicaly a trader, but we have become quite friendly over the years. He deals in beef but will buy up whole farms, dead animals anything really. If he's buying a closing dairy farm he usually give me a ring to see if I want any as he just sells them for beef otherwise. I've made more money out of some of the crappy cow's I've had off him than some really "good" milkers I've bought. Buy them in at just over beef price milk them till it's no longer profitable then sell them for beef. If they come on good so much the better. I used to look for really good milkers and pay the prices for them but they die just as easy as the others now we just by and sell all the time

Most of the people I know then to keep the females for breeding and sell of the bulls.The "feedlot" people are after bulls anyway. We sometimes sell dairy calfs "ahead of time" i.e someone will ask about a specific cow and wether we want to sell the calf when it comes out.

They tend to use AI around here rather than put them to a bull, I've been told that AI is expensive for them about 1,500-2,000 bhat but that might of been for pedigree imported stuff. "Teletiger" could probably tell you more.

Some great posts teletiger, I've often thought about getting into beef as well as dairy and would agreee with your methods on buying and feeding 100%. Russi grass with stylo or centro seems the way to go. Never had much sucess with leugems and the few bits of ruzzi I planted were swamped with the local stuff (probably my fault in taking short cuts while planting). I'm getting great results with "jumbo" forage sorhgam, its a bit lower in protien but makes up for it in bulk. I've got so much of it I really need to make some silage.

I've done the figures lots of times for beef and to me they just dont work out especialy when you add in transport costs.

I've got irrigation much on the same lines as you. I think you may find that watering every 3 days is just not enough, but my attempts have not been a raging sucsess either although I did manage to get about 10 rai of jumbo "up and running" before the rainy season so we were cuttin about a month-6 weeks before "naturaly" planted stuff. I use the big 1 inch sprinklers, with a decent pump (mines 4 hp) you only need about 3-4 to cover one rai but you need 2 inch feeder pipe and work on about 1 hp pump for every sprinkler head. I've got 4 but moving them and the piping around is a real pain. I think I'm just going to put in semi permenant 2 inch feeder pipe and just try for about 6 rai that should be avalible all season. I've found with dairy that even feeding rice straw during the dry seaon that just a little bit of fresh gras makes a huge differance. The trouble with a pond is that during the rrainy season its full but mine dry's out during the dry season when I would need the water from it.

A few people around here are getting into charolais from what I know it seems better profit, I've seen a few charolais crosses in dairy farms as well.

As for castration no one I know does it for beef animals, I'm sure I read somewhere that they grow quicker when castrated but not sure. Still born's/dead calfs go to the dogs (they will find then even if you bury them). Dead cattle are sold to a local guy, I dont know what he does with them but I've always been a bit wary buying beef form the local market as a result and we sell the after birth localy (as long as we get to it before the dogs), I actually give the after birth to my staff and they sell is as a bit of a bonus.

Fenceing I agreee with you, not sure bamboo is better but certianly cheaper (we have loads of it backed up with electric wire). I did some with steel and 4 inch concrete posts, as the concrete has no give in it quite a few have been broken, steel posts are better IMO. All steel fencing is just reall expansive (I must have 100's of meters of fencing).

Gary

Trying to do it yourself would be a killer. You would be trapped. The best operations were run by working partners or by working brothers. The hired help ALWAYS caused a drop in milk production.

Believe it or not Holstein steers make very good beef.

When we started I was doing it all myself and we were cutting grass buy hand as well never seen someones weight drop so fast but you are right milk production is always better when I'm on the farm every day, just leaving it to others is definatly NOT the way to go. We used to keep some bulls for beef but they are very slow growing and the thias preffer Brahman so they dont fech as much.

Korrat Correct

The Brahman cattle are mainly kept as a status symbol

Mabye years ago but I deal with lots fof beef farmers and know loads of people with just a few, the all do it to make a few bhat, nothing to do with status...you want status bild a big house and buy a merc

RC

Sorry mate been off line for a while. Yea them eating a lot is good, but they get a bit greedy and most places are'nt totaly self suficent in fresh forage. You let them out into a nice field and they will just eat the lot. It's better to try and regulate it.

Fat dairy cows are'nt thet good either you get a few problems with it especialy during hot season and after calfing. Generaly they all lose weight for about 3 months after calfing when the milk production is highest and then suould geadually put some back on again for the next pregnancy.

Yea casava seems to do better in sandy soil, they grow a lot a couple of km up from me where the soil looks vewry sandy, around here nobody bothers, although a couple of people are trying it this year as the price has gone up so much. I think it's prussic acid in the leaves, supposed to be the same problem with "jumbo" if you feed young plants.

Do you think I can train my cows to come when I ring a big bell?

If you feed them the same time every day you wont even need the bell, ours are cueing at the door every morning and afternoon. I've got a fence around the paddock and just use electric wire when they are out grazing, if you let them they will just gorge themselfs on grass so it's better to strip graze using electric fencing. You can control how much they eat then and give the rest time to re-grow.

I'd like to fence around the perimiter of our land but the cost is just to high

Can you grow GM crops organicaly ? I've never really understood the problem with GM food, but apparently if you have an organic farm it has to be GM free. Are'nt virtually all crops GM due to selective breeding ect over the years ?

Sound like you have the right idea guys, just something to do mabye a bit of extra income and plenty of fresh fish. I'm still trying to learn how to use a throwing net ("swing" in thai) my neibour can throw it in a perfect circle...there must be a knack to it if you ever passing through Nakhon Sawan drop me a line and pop in.

RC

Sound like a good plan mate, very simular to what a lot of Thai small holders do.

Sweet corn (khow phood wan) would be better if your going to feed the stalks to the cows as it's harvested while the plant is still green, the normal type around here the actual plant is dryed up by the time they harvest so there is little nutritional value left. You can feed the inner husks off the corn as well, stovers I think they are called the dried plant and stover has about the same nutritional value as rice straw, which I assume you will have from the rice as well. If you machine strip the corn keep the fine powdery stuff off it as well (lamb) you can feed that to the cows.

How do you do your rice, if you just take it to somewhere for stripping then keep the outer shells (greap) and polishings (lamb) greap has virtually no nutritional value but can be mixed with other stuff to add bulk and fibre, rice lamb is as good as some bagged food concentrates.

If your growing corn seasonaly ie not using irrigation you can plant sorghum after either forage (jumbo) or grain (khow fang) sell the grain and let the cows eat the stalks. Have you thought about cassava (man) the leaves are supposed to be good as food and the tuber either sold or kept to use as feed concentrate.

I've mentioned peanuts to you before, but you did'nt have very good results our problem with then was I had too many plants at one time and had a lot of wastage. After trying a few cash crops and feeding the cows the left overs, I'm happier just growing forage for the cows as my cows are the primary income on the farm, your going for a more intergrated approch. In your position I'm not sure weather I would bother planting any pasture for the cows just put it all to crops and use the residue plus rice straw to feed the cows.

My neibour does a very simular thing, has about 20 beef cows, grows corn then grain sorghum and grazes the cows on it after harvest, he also uses the bits of land alongside the road (goverment land) for planting jumbo and generaly moves them around grazing where ever there is any thing to eat

When I think about feeding I tend to use rice straw as my baseline as they can live off it but just for maintanance ie dont expect them to put any weight on, the beans I'm not sure but should be ok.

Cheers RC