It's getting dry...lawns look like shit!

**Bren** · 9th February 2008, 14:49

Just mowed my lawns...man its starting to dry up down here...grass is going all brown and ugly...I don't like watering lawn in summer as it seems a waste just to have a patch of green....

How ya all doin with your lawns?
I feel sorry for all the cockies out there, especially since I used to work on farms and know how hard it is to keep it together in a drought.

PS...no rusted out car bodies on my lawn...wife dont take too kindly to that

**cowboyz** · 9th February 2008, 14:56

dont feel sorry for farmers at all. if they havent made target by now then it isnt gonna happen. cows would have given up eating grass by now anyway and an excess of $7 payout isnt hurting anyone.
sick of hearing about how poor off farmers are EVERY year.

Now golfers on the other hand. Hate playing off hard ground. That is where the real trouble lies.

**Mental Trousers** · 9th February 2008, 15:01

Getting dry?? The brother inlaw was looking at drying off 1.5 months ago.

**chanceyy** · 9th February 2008, 15:03

hmm its pretty dry but still a fair bit of green at the base .. my horses are not complaining since i strip feed there is still plenty for them to eat

**Bren** · 9th February 2008, 15:05

Originally Posted by cowboyz

dont feel sorry for farmers at all. if they havent made target by now then it isnt gonna happen. cows would have given up eating grass by now anyway and an excess of $7 payout isnt hurting anyone.
sick of hearing about how poor off farmers are EVERY year.

Now golfers on the other hand. Hate playing off hard ground. That is where the real trouble lies.

i understand what you are saying...my concern isnt that the farmers aint gonna make enough money, it's more targeted towards the lovely bovines who do get distressed in these climes, and subsequently lose condition. Hay and silage is not as good on the animals as the natural green stuff, and to see cows lose condition is not nice, especially if it is a cow that you see twice a day on a regular basis.
No, Drought is hard on the animals and also on the farmers. As food dwindles it gets more and more expensive to buy more in...the laws of supply and demand see to that.

Another thing you need to remember is agriculture is one of this countrys backbones. generally if farmers are doing well then the aveage joe blo is as well, but if the farmers start to get pinched at the wallet then they spend less...the small towns are the ones that mainly suffer through that...

**Bren** · 9th February 2008, 15:06

Originally Posted by Mental-Trousers

Getting dry?? The brother inlaw was looking at drying off 1.5 months ago.

poor bastard...i feel sorry for him, i really do...waikato is usually so green

**Steam** · 9th February 2008, 15:08

I hear there's a couple of feed companies in Christchurch that are doing the best business they have ever done. Ever.

**yungatart** · 9th February 2008, 16:30

It dries out here almost every summer. The lawns crackle underfoot.
Tis only lawn and it greens up as soon as you get the first shower. I've got better things to do than water my lawn.

**bucket boy** · 9th February 2008, 16:59

Originally Posted by cowboyz

"Dont feel sorry for farmers at all. If they haven't made target by now then it isnt gonna happen. Cows would have given up eating grass by now anyway and an excess of $7 payout isnt hurting anyone sick of hearing about how poor off farmers are EVERY year"..

Thats the typical towny answer as a farm manager I haven't had a pay rise in 6 years due to low pay out ,as soon as they announced this years pay out ,every company that the farmer deals with double if not trippled there prices ,then we have a drought.But they don't put prices down !As for having done targets in the start of Feb what a joke .And as for pay rise it will be the same this year as every other year..not happening. Nothing worse than looking at hungry skinny cows.

**skelstar** · 9th February 2008, 17:22

Most farkin boring thread ever LOL! We had 'watching grass grow', and now we have 'watching grass not grow'?

**Dooly** · 9th February 2008, 21:17

My area is known to be the dryest in Hawkes bay, and its pretty baren around here.
Just seemed like a few weeks ago we got a few extra nags in to help eat the grass down.
Got rid of them last week.
Our 6 horses have grass still up on the top of the hills.
This year I brought 200 bales of hay a while back, before the demand hit as I left it a bit late last year and paid mega.
Not feeding out yet, hopefully not for a month or so.

It can rain all week as far as I'm concerned, just be fine for the bikes on the weekend!

**cowboyz** · 9th February 2008, 21:31

Originally Posted by bucket boy

Originally Posted by cowboyz

"Dont feel sorry for farmers at all. If they haven't made target by now then it isnt gonna happen. Cows would have given up eating grass by now anyway and an excess of $7 payout isnt hurting anyone sick of hearing about how poor off farmers are EVERY year"..

Thats the typical towny answer as a farm manager I haven't had a pay rise in 6 years due to low pay out ,as soon as they announced this years pay out ,every company that the farmer deals with double if not trippled there prices ,then we have a drought.But they don't put prices down !As for having done targets in the start of Feb what a joke .And as for pay rise it will be the same this year as every other year..not happening. Nothing worse than looking at hungry skinny cows.

actually. that should read... thats the typical experienced sharemilker of 16 years answer. I did my duty for enough years in the bay of plenty, taranaki and the waikato. Every year farmers have to bitch about something. When the payout was $3.50 (it was only about 7 years ago) farmers were bitching about it being dry in the summer. At $3.80 they bitched about it being dry in the summer. $5.50 was the best we saw and they still bitched. We fed Siliage, maize and PKE to get through. And as a farm manager I would hope that you are up to date on energy levels of feed rather than the (now) outdated and simplified dry matter content. I used to be heavily involved in discussion groups when I was in the game and every time I hear someone tell me how they are up on production by 2000kg (or whatever) over the previous year I have to ask, doesnt that actually mean you were down 2000kg last year?
By "making target by feb" I meant the feb target by feb. You go back over the last 6 years production and work out how much milk you made from 20 feb till dry off and it will be fairly consistant. Mainly because grass is such a poor quality this time of year, just like last year and the year before and the year before that, that you will be milking off supplement feed anyway. I used to shut the round right down about now and not feed out at all during the winter. Any excessive year would be interesting to see milking days and how the following calving/mating cycles went.
Year in and year out. If you manage efficiently then the bottom line does not change by a great deal.

But you know this, you have just fallen into the trap that every farmer falls into which is constant complaining about something. Usually how they dont get paid enough.