RamdomChances

Some people post as characatures of themselves such as myself, The Dude and The Moog, whereas others seem to post a particular side of their character.

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Actually I think you are pretty similar in real life as you are in your posts - self obsessed, insecure and slightly irrelevant. I still read and posts and meet you for a beer now and then though...

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I think my online, persona is less argumentitive, loud, sarcastic and self opinanated than my my real life one, the online presona does'nt drink as much as well

There are a few around here, proper "combine" harvesters, not just rice harvesters, they use them for maize, sunflowers and sorgham ect. My brother-in-law used one last year. The going rate here is 600 bhat/rai, but the guy that cut here had 3 drivers working shifts, so was doing about 40 rai a day. He bought his second hand for just over 1 mill bhat (I think it was a New Holland).

So can you make money from one , well if your doing 40 rai a day (we had to wait for it cos he was so busy) that works out to 24,000 bhat/day.

I'll use Thetyim's fig for fuel 60L at say 25 bhat/l thats 1500/day, 3 drivers I recon 300-400 bhat a day if they are any good, 1200 bhat/day. He was doing mostly local work, so did'nt see a truck for transport, but there were quite a few people apart from the drivers, say an extra 3 people at 200 bhat/day. That all works out at 3300 bhat/day costs, leaving around 20,000 bhat/day. Ok the season here is probably about six weeks and for the second crop, the rental price goes down ( there's not much profit in sorgham/sunflower), but 6 week at 20,000/day work out at over 800,000 just off the first crop..

Ok the fig's I used were very simplistic as there will be a lot of down time, spares, depreciation ect but there is a lot of room in those fig's for extra costs.

Saying all that, you do get more wastage using a combine and it does'nt really work out that much cheaper than using people.

RC

I have to admit hot showers are my soft spot, I can eat most things , live without air con ( if i've really got to) and work outside all day....but I really hate cold showers.

RC

I may be forced into doing an update, in a blatent attempt to get votes:P. I have'nt botherd much in fact the last update was about 6 months ago, due to crappy connections and a general feeling of can't be arsedness.

Cheeky's is probably the best and most consistent one there, pitty a lot of the old posts were lost.

The scorpian stings here are painful but not dangerus, unless you have an allergy, in which case as Banbina says "but some peopol can get anaphylactic shock". I've been stunk by them about three times now, including once when one was staying in a pair of shorts that I put on. It stung me right on the top of my inner thigh, about an inch from my.......well us your imagination, it could of been a lot worse.

Out and about on the farm I've been bitten or stung by just about every insect that they have here, apart from the big flat centipied looking things (cant remember the name, but are supposed to be really painful). The worse I've found are "dtua dor" (sp) look like big nasty looking flying ants and make honeycomb looking nests from mud, they are very teritorial and if you happen to get close to a nest they will sting you on mass.

RC

Bannork

Going back to the original poster RC I see the relatives are talking about 20 cows and making an average of 2,500 baht a head profit after 3 months. Personally I think that's optimistic, but based on those figures he's talking about 45,000 baht for 3 months work. The poster thinks that's little money but I beg to differ, for Thai labourers that works out at 7,000 baht a month each which is not to be sniffed at when you've been a hired hand for less than that and sometimes not been paid. As you know upcountry people can live on 50 baht a day or less if they have their own rice.

The poster is a businessman, I think he should buy them the 20 cows, give them 150 baht a day living expenses and see how things lie after the 3 months they mention.

I agree with you, up country 15,000 bhat a month is a fair income. Probably about 3x the average here. I actually looked into doing this in some depth and I was working on 2000 bhat/head for 3 months, but buying 30 over a 3 month period. The idea being that you would try and buy/sell 10 cows a month so trun the stock over and give a fairly regular income also its much easier at the smaller local markets to pick up 10 cows or sell 10 rather than 30 at one go. In reality I'd of probably ended up going every week and buying and selling a few. In the end I did'nt go for it for a number of reasons.

1. I did'nt think after taking into account all the costs I'd actually make the 2000. I've been told by lots of people that 3000 is possible, but I have a strong feeling that they were not taking all their costs into account (if any).

2. I can make more money by buying more dairy cows, I was really looking for a sideline not having all your eggs in one basket and all that.

3. The margins are so small that unless you are really experianced (this goes for Thais as well) a small mistake on the buying or selling price will leave you with very little, bearing in mind there are people that have been doing this for most of their lives at the markets and they will always try to haggle you up or down depending on wether they are buying or selling.

4. I did'nt want to be trapsing to the market every week.

Saying all that the OP is in a different situation from me as I'd probably end up doing it myself (the buying and selling anyway) and he has people who apparently have some experiance of beef cattle, so at the end of the day if he's got the money spare, why not fork out for 20 cows (about 300,000) and see what happens in 3 months time, Get them to keep a good check on what they have actuall spent rather just the differance between the buying and selling prices. If the worst comes to the worst and you dont make a profit when they sell the cows, at least they would not have lost much and if they keep a check on what they actually spend you could show them that it does'nt work. Of course it might just all go well.

aughie.

I dont know for fattening up beef (you'd still need to feed them some consentrate anyway) but I recon that for mine, that if I wanted to be self sufficent in grass (i.e not buy in any hay) I'd need about 1 rai/1 head of cattle and then you would only be able to feed them for about half the year as cold and hot season nothing grows (well not much anyway). Mine go through about a ton of treated hay (rice straw) a day, we used to buy in bailed fresh grass and they would go through about a ton and a half of that. The best way to do it is to use electric wire and "fence" off segments of land then move the cows to a new segment while the previous ones grow back.

RC

Spend Half a mill baht and live there for 6 mths

It could save you 5m

yes

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Dont rush take your time you have some money and some income from back home get to know the area well, also 6 months you will have a good idea how much you need to make to live here.

RC

The cattle idea can succeed, perhaps your relatives have previous experience of it, if not they should check out a few things first, ie the local market, what type of cows are fetching what prices, in Udon the brahmin are a good bet. What land do they have? Could they build a small house and a bamboo cowshed on it and plant lucerne or pangola grass, how about a water supply?

Start off with say 5 pregnant brahmin cows, until next rainy season they will be easy to take care of as the herder can tether them on any paddies where's there's grass, moving them every few hours. Beef cattle cost little to keep if they're out to pasture, occasional food supplements and once in a while vets' bills, but these are cheap. It sounds like your relatives want to make a go for it, give them a chance.

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Personely I'd go more for the "feed lot" type beef, buy in 12-16 month old bulls and fatten them up. The breeding of beef cattle can give you good returns but IMHO you just have to wait sooo long for your return.

Say you buy in 5 pregnant Brahmins...a few months for them to give birth and then 12-16 months before you sell any, Ok say that 3 calfs are bulls the others are cows, you sell the 3 bulls about a year and a half later for around 15,000 bhat each, giving you 45,000 bhat and keep the two female ones. Ok your herd grows, but you have to wait probably about 3 years before those 2 extra female calfs give birth.

I used to keep all our female calfs and at one point I had around 50 of various ages. The growth potential is great but that 3 year wait is a killer as they are just eating your profits all the time. I ended up getting rid of most of them (kept the older ones). I worked out it would cost me about 20,000 bhat to raise a decent milker to the point where it would actually produce (about 3 years old), but the price of milk cattle had droped a fair bit in the last year and I can buy in 6-7 month pregnant cows(first baby) for around 25,000 a head and not have all my money tied up for 3 years. Once you put in the mortality rate for raising your own at about 5% and the added staff burden of looking after them all there is not much differance in the cost really.

We still keep a few but only form my best cows, but as there are less of them we can look after them better and get much better groth rates.

RC

Here's a copy of something I've posted before and the post link if you want to read the whole thing.

As chownah said on an earlier post, cattle here are usually reared one of two ways.

1. "Free Range" or what most of us would call free range, these are the people that actually raise cows, they will have mainly female cows and calfs, which are taken out and grazed on anything really but not usually fed much if any consentrate. A couple of times a year they will get their "surplus cows" take them to market and sell them to the "feed lot" operators.

2. "feed lot" they dont usually raise cattle, but buy in slightly immature cattle from the free range people, these are then kept pened, and feed either rice straw or hand cut grass along with concentrate food, the better the "forrage" you feed them the lower your concentrate costs will be. They will probably be injected with anti parasite drugs (the free range usually are'nt) and then fattened up for 3-4 months and sold on for meat, you cant sell for meat until 45 days after the anti parasite injections, depending on which ones you use, as far as I am aware there are no growth hormones currently used here, mabye some of the really big farms use them, but I've never come across it and I have links and cataloges of most of the big vetenary suppliers here in Thailand.

Consentrate food is made from a mix of localy avalible products and as far as I know does not contain the remains of other animals (well excluding fish meal). The "protien" part is usually provided with soya, fish meal or some other high protien nut type product along with a variety of other things (corn, casava, sohgram). These are the things that provide the protien and carb part of the food but are expensive to buy, the "bulk" of the food is then provided from a variety of by-products form various sources (ground corn husks, rice husks, brewers grains) which are cheap to buy but contain little actual food value. The result is either a powder or pellets that have a protien content of around 18% and cost about 5-6 bhat/kg. We actaully used to make our own and I have a few recipies for differet mixes for different protien contents, making you own drops the price down to around 3-4 bhat/kg (we dont do it now as the quantities would just be to difficult to handle).

The "free range" people make their money from actally raising the cows and the feed lot by adding the weight allthough some farms combine the two. Free range you need some land for grazing, and someone who has the time to take the cows out looking for grass and to look after them while they are eating it, they are usually just fed rice straw in the hot/cold seasons when there is nothing growing, they will try to sell their bull cows at around 12-16 months and look to buy in female cows preferably pregnant.

The "feed lot " people look to buy in 12-16 month bulls and then keep them for 3-4 months of fattening up, usually penned and all the food is brought to them, as a general rule of thumb for "thai" cattle you woud be paying around 1000 bhat per month of age (i.e a 12 month 12,000 bhat ect). The dificulty of making money from feed lot comes from knowing the market and knowing how to feed them for maximum weight gain against cost, the margins are pretty tight so if you end up paying even a 1000 bhat over the odds you would be making a large cut into your profits (I've been told about 2000-3000 bhat profit a cow over a 3 month period).

There are local beef cattle markets virtually everywhere and a lot of trading goes on farm to farm, the bigger markets you need to get there early, even the night before in some cases, until you know the market well you will need someone with LOT's of experiance with you or you will end up buying at a price that will leave you litttle profit.

There are more and more farms doing Charolaise/Brahmin crosses its not someting I've gone into in a lot of detail, but they seem to mainly deal with agents rather than buying and selling on the markets.

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=47761

It sound's to me as they want to do the "feed lot" type farm, just buying and selling. Infrastructure is pretty cheap, you can make the pens out of wood, bamboo is excelent for fencing.

Obviously its possible to lose money and there is always the temptation to use the money invested in the cows, rather than just the profits. For example..you buy 10 cows for 150,000 bhat and sell for 180,000 bhat, if there are'nt any suitable cows to buy then that 180,000 bhat starts burning a hole in the pocket so instead of having 30,000 bhat and buying an other 10 cows they might use some of the money and then have only enough to buy say 8 cows....it's a downward spiral and I've seen it happen a few times.

Other than that you should'nt really lose money....you may not make any or lose a little bit, depending on how mush you buy and sell for but baring any major disasters the only way you will lose much is by bad managment.

Just as a bit of a guide bagged food is about 6 bhat/kg and at the moment hay (rice straw) is 20 bhat a bail. You will have to feed on the low end 2 kg of bagged food and half a bail of hay a day, so thats around 2000 bhat in feed costs for 3 months. Beef cattle at the moment are going for about 40 bhat/kg so to make 2000 bhat in 3 months they will have to gain at least 100kg in body weight, thats not including you transport costs, medicen (not expensive) labour ect. Those are pretty tight margins IMO.

RC

15 C here this morning, been like it the last few days. Two quilts on the bed, and I've had to dig my fleces out...blody freezing, dont know how I'd cope if I had to go back.

Well it's morning now, and this post is a lot less interesting when sober.

At the end of the day greed and a longing for power is human nature plain and simple no matter where you are from.

Anyone that thinks that greed and consumerisum are western inventions and that Thailand used to be some sort or agrerian utopia before "falangs" came here is living in some sort of fantsy land.

Kringle.

A bit harsh mate.....well more than a bit and pretty much uncalled for, of course Ice Maiden needs to grow up , she's 17, but still manages to post far more mature stuff than a lot of members here. Phrahaps you should climb down off that pedestel you seem to have put yourself on.

As my grandmother used to say "if you have'nt anything nice to say about people .....just shut up"

RC

It's an "ex-pat" someone who used to be a "pat" but has given it up??

I want to make a good reply to this but I'm a bit drunk....tommorow

I'll hold my hand up and say I actually like McD's. I probably like them more here than I did back home. It's nice sometimes after eating thai food everyday to have a nice exotic falang meal like a double cheese burger . I rarely if ever eat KFC....it's not like fried chicken is that hard to get here anyway.

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I fully agree....but why don't you get your burger at a restaurant like Bob's Texas burger joint in South Pattaya Road? That's hat I call a burger...

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I'll hold my hand up and say I actually like McD's. I probably like them more here than I did back home. It's nice sometimes after eating thai food everyday to have a nice exotic falang meal like a double cheese burger . I rarely if ever eat KFC....it's not like fried chicken is that hard to get here anyway.

Cheers Qual,

Well it's a traditional old Thai house with multiple entry points ie the floor which has slats big enough to poke you finger through! But yes matbe I'll ask around for a snake expert! On this island we have a predominant cobra population as far as snakes are concerned. King cobras I do believe! Great!

Seonai

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seonai, I also live in a "traditional" thai house, our kitchenis actually outside on the veranda. virtually every one I know has rat's /mice usually living in the roof, it seems like its a seasonl thing here anyway, during the wet season they look for high, dry ground. Never had problems with then in hot or cold season.

Usually I put some of those sticky things around and it gets rid of them pretty quickly....until some more turn up, had a few snakes over the years in the kitchen including at least one cobra, they dont stay long though especially if there is no food source, so really get rid of the rats and the snake will go away (if it has'nt already)

Everything in the kitchen needs to be kept in screwable/sealable/chew proof containers, otherwise the rats/mice/ants will get to it

I live there, just asked the wife if she had heard of " DJ Ooy" , she had'nt ( but then again she has'nt heard of the Beatles or Elvis either) neither have I. As for the town in general, It's a fairly standered Thai reginol capital, Large Chineese/Thai comunity, famous for the New year celabrations.

Shopping is pretty good they now have a large Big C, Makro and all the local shops. Bung Bora Pet is supposed to be the largest source of fresh water fish in Thailand. Nakorn is the starting point of the Chao Praya river, where 3 rivers converge into one.

Good food and night market allong the river bank in the night, a couple of medium class hotels, the Piman is the most well known and also hosts the D'D Disco. A nice enough park in the center of town and a good hospital (Siri Sawan)

Oh and a nice Wat overlooking the town.

The province is mostly agrocultural, rice, sugar cain, maize, typicaly flat farmland of the central plain.

Thats about it really if you want to know anything specific (non DJ related

just PM me)

RC

I think I'll try making some of those crumpets....my mouth is watering.

SW are the closest to the Heinz beans we get in UK IMHO, the hinez veggie beans are horrible, add a know of butter to the SW ones makes them taste a lot better.

Ramdom, I understand what you are saying but the model that the OP was interested in was the 150bhp turbo/intercooler  model which is critisized for its fuel consumption.  About 7kpl.

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BTW, you can get the clocks changed in most garages, even the digital ones, so I would'nt go too much on the milage.

I've got a Frontier Cab 2wd (about 80,000km), That we mainly use for the farm, but not heavy work, just sending the milk to the dairy everyday, and a Isuzu 4 door 4wd (140,000 km), which although not used for the farm (much) has probably had a harder life than the Nissan. They are both about the same age although the Isuzu has nearly twice the milage on it.

They both are very reliable, but the Nissan feels old and loose compared to the Isuzu which still feels new and tight after 140,000 km. It probably depends on your usage, but IMO the Isuzu is the much better pick-up in terms of ride, handling ect. The Nissan is cheaper on fuel though, it just comes down to what you want to pay. Whit the slow depreciation on the Toyotas and Isuzus I've always thought new is the better deal, but second hand the Nissans are considerably cheaper.

RC

Sometimes I'm glad I have'nt UBC

Well done to the All blacks though

The only people who think that "Khon Korat" are not from Issarn are "Khon Korat"

Any one know what Mai Makaa Moo is. I've got that as the flooring in the house. Very hard and heavy, yove got to drill it before nailing it, but it is really old so has probably hardened over the years.

IMO Mango is really nice for furniture, had a big mango tree that got blown over in the storms this year and had two big tables made from the wood, very nice.

Since we've moved off pig farming, to fish

My pladuk were in about a month before the pla nin so were much bigger . I was initially worried that they were all ate, but they seem to be doing fine, although it took them a while to start growing as the pla duk used to eat all the food. I've recently noticed that i've got baby fish in as well. I thought that pla duk were supposed to be really prolific breeders.

This is my first year of doing fish and I'm in two minds wether to do it on a bigger scale. I've been told that I could stock 10,000 in my pond, but that would mean heavy feeding, probably need some sort of airation and would sell them all at the same time to an agent then start again. At the moment all I do is throw a net in pick out the biggest , then we eat some and sell some from the shop ( give a fair bit away as well). It more than covers my costs and I make a little bit, plus I've got fish to eat whenever I want . I only give 5 kg of food a week ( 100 bhat) so no problems and it looks like its going to be pretty self sustaining with the babies coming through.

All in all I leaning towards just doing it the same way although it is tempting to get 10,000 in I have a feeling that the growth rates and the cost/return would not be as good. I'm still unsure that I will have water in the pond all year, although I can top it up if nessesary. I'm going to get a light put in above the pond soon to attrack all the night insects and you know those UV insect traps they are supposed to be good as well, catch the insects then put them in the pond.

As for putting in weed's I have no idea, but its good to get "vegitation" growing in the pond as it gets the "eco system" going.

RC

Ok I'm not an expert on it , but here's my take.

Basicaly you have three ways to go. Small scale raising of pork, to be sold localy. Large scale rasing of pork, or the raising of piglets, the lats two you would really need a contract with one of the big aggro companies (read CP).

Small scale is just really that you just keep a few pigs and feed them any leftovers, and bagged food, Plachon is probably right in saying that the "black pigs" would be a better bet as the meat is in demand and will fetch a higher price.

If you want to go into it large scale you will IMHO have to get a contract with someone like CP, you will then basicaly be working for them (I wont get into the pro's and con's of that). If you are rasing meat they will supply you with pigglets and you will just keep them ( I cant remember how long for) and sell them back to the company, they will pay you for the weight increase, more or less the same system as chicken farms.

The other way you can sometimes do it with CP is to rasie the piglets, you buy the sow's off them and when they have pigglets you keep them for a month or two and sell them back to CP. I've been told that it more profitable than raising meat but not always avalible.

Both of the second options you will have to get planning permission for the farm (as they smell a lot ) and it's probably a better idea not to use your money, the banks have been throwing money into pig farms since the bird flue, get land as cheap as you can to build it on. You should'nt really be seeen as a competitor as most (90+%) of the large scale farms are tied into the big companies. The banks like giving money for pig farms as the bulk of the money is tied up in infrastructure and you get a buissiness plan from the companiy.

The best way of opeinig one in my opinion is the same as a thai family did up the road, they borowed 10 million to open a large (5 shed) pig farm, on some really bad land the had, but they skimmed money off during the build (about 3 million) bought some decent farm land, car ect. So if the farm does'nt make any money they'll just let the bank forclose lose the crappy piece of land and still be 3 mill better off

Bannork, Pla Nin are plant eaters, I thought the idea of adding any manure was to "green" up the water rather than them actually eating it. It would depend on the quantities you have stocked the pond at weather this would be enough. I've got 1000 Pla Nin and 1000 Pla DuK (cat fish) in mine and its a fair size pond. If it's not over stocked they will live to a certian extend off the natural pond life (cat fish eat the insects as well) If you want to go into it comercialy (ie 10,000 plus in my sort of sizes pond about half a rai) you will need to feed more as they will totaly exahast any life in the pond. I only give about 1 kg of fish food a day to mine and their growth rate has been prety good, but the water fills from the runoff from my farm so it's prety high in nutrients.

RC