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  1. #1
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    A dairy farm in Thailand

    Well I finaly managed to get an album created so here's some stuff from the farm


    This is my house, It was derilict when we first came up here, no ground floor either, still not bad for a couple of 100,000 thousand...have'nt got the IPstar any more.



    This is looking accross the land from the water tower, the road is no longer there.



    My tracter with Jack the gay/katoy driver and Boo the fem lesbian in the back... bamboo fence is crap really, but we had loads of it so did'nt cost anything...still satnding as well
    I have more than the average number of arm and legs

  2. #2
    punk douche bag
    ChiangMai noon's Avatar
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    I think this might be really interesting thread, any chance of talking about the background of the whole idea??

    It's not everyday you come across a welsh farmer in rural Thailand.

  3. #3
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    more farm stuff



    View from my water tower looking down towards the house,



    Milking palour and holding area



    paddock and feeding type place on the right

  4. #4
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    Quote Originally Posted by ChiangMai noon
    I think this might be really interesting thread, any chance of talking about the background of the whole idea?? It's not everyday you come across a welsh farmer in rural Thailand.
    Yea hang on a bit, still trying to load the pic's....GPRS...grrrrrr

  5. #5
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    My tracter with Jack the gay/katoy driver and Boo the fem lesbian in the back..
    sorry RC but gotta ask: does your wife get to choose the staff..?
    'cause if it was my call, i'd have me a couple of 'nice' cowgirls...
    if ya catch my drift

  6. #6
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    Even more pic's...bored yet ?



    Milking the cows, no automatic machine here, but at least we dont have to do it by hand, my wife in purple, and Tom the butch lesbian in the background



    Cow's hanging around waiting to be milked



    The big balck and white cow is evil...she's the boss cow, so far she's broken two of my ribs and gave me a good gouging about two days ago. I'd sell her but she's one of my best milkers and really well behaved as long as you dont go into her "teritory"

  7. #7
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    Quote Originally Posted by in4zip
    sorry RC but gotta ask: does your wife get to choose the staff..? 'cause if it was my call, i'd have me a couple of 'nice' cowgirls... if ya catch my drift
    Well that all the pic's for now. Staff is one of our biggest problems...."pretty cowgirls" dont last long. It can be quite heavy work and if you see form one of the pics you need to get "right up and personal" with the cow's when you are milking, which puts a lot of people off....geting the odd kick is an ocupational hazard I'm afraid.

    The butch lesbian (Tom) is my misses anutie and at the moment our only ramaining staff, although her partner comes back on weekends. Usually me and Tom take care of the farm, with my wife filling in if one of us is sick or I a have a hangover

  8. #8
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    see your point, quite right.. i never mentioned getting rid of Tom and Kate

    i was just planning "milking" the utters of ... how to put it ... the rest of the human resources on the farm

  9. #9
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    The big balck and white cow is evil...she's the boss cow, so far she's broken two of my ribs and gave me a good gouging about two days ago. I'd sell her but she's one of my best milkers and really well behaved as long as you dont go into her "teritory"
    jayzus! and i thought construction was a hazardous occupation...

    *in4zip in his list of things to try,
    downgrades his "in the future"
    dairy farm to vegetable garden
    with maybe at most some goats*

  10. #10
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    Quote Originally Posted by ChiangMai noon
    any chance of talking about the background of the whole idea??
    Well I originaly came out here after taking a redundancy package in the UK. I was lucky that I was still geting paid for the first 4 months, so just rented an apartment in Phuket and had a look for something to do.

    After looking at the usual bar's, resteraunts, small hotels ect for a month or so I came to the conclusion that they just were'nt sustanible as the leasehold's are a killer. Around the same time it was my wife's mother's birthday so my misses asked me to come up here for a few days. We were going to book into a hotel, but when we got here I found out the nearest inhabitable one is about 40 km away.

    Luckly my mother-in-law has a shop which they live in so the "old" house was empty and she said that if I was up to it I we could stay there. No internal water and no electricity at the time, but we rigged up a power point and could have a fan or a light on. I enjoyed it so much here that we stayed about 3 weeks. During this time someone said "why dont you open a dairy farm" at first I thought it was crazy, but we took a trip around some of the other farms in the area and from what the said and how they lived that seemed to be doing allright. There was 7 rai of land avalible here but the rest(65 rai)was rented out until a year later, my mother-in-law offerd us the land and the "old" house if we wanted it.....food for thought

    Anyway back down to Phuket, got on the internet and did as much research as I could on dariy farming in Thailand and most of the milk yields and costs came out much as I had been told, so I gave my months notice on my appartment and decided to give it a go. My wifes brother went on a free gov course in dairy type stuff, you need someone with the paper from that working on the farm to be part of the co-op.

    So off we trapse back up here, start modernising the house, while still living in it. 1 bed under a mossie net, and still the one power outlet, showers on a bowl out the back

    The first farm was not that big , I made it big enough to cope with about 30 head and bought about 15 cows initialy just to see if it was a going propersition. Probaley cost about 300,000 to build the farm and 600,000 for the cow's (they were expensive back then). If ity did'nt work out I'd just sell the cows and probably end up loosing about 400,000 which at the time I could of afforded to walk away from.

    Anyway it worked!! we were making money, so it was just a case of scaling up to make a comfertable ammount (well not that simple with lots of stuff in between but I wont bore you with details). 2 years after opening we were full and the land was back for us to use so built the "new" farm to expand, it can cope with about 150 head. We actuall hit 100 head last year, but have had problems this year not least lack of staff, so have dropped down to around 60 which is easier to look after.

    The farm buildings, house and shop cover about 17 rai with about 50 left over for crops, grass. I've tried most crops, but are'nt realy much of a farmer and with having to sub everything out the returns were marginal. This year we've put it all over to grass for the cows (which I should of done years ago) as it cost us about 20,000 a month just for hay and with fresh grass the milk yield goes up about 40%
    Last edited by RandomChances; 28-04-2006 at 10:44 AM.

  11. #11
    punk douche bag
    ChiangMai noon's Avatar
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    Thanks for that.
    I had assumed you were a farmer in wales before hand.

    What is the biggest difficulty you have come across?

  12. #12
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    Quote Originally Posted by ChiangMai noon
    I had assumed you were a farmer in wales before hand.
    Everyone thinks that, I was an Aircraft Engineer.

    Quote Originally Posted by ChiangMai noon
    What is the biggest difficulty you have come across?
    Wow big list. Pretty steep learnig curve. I really needed to learn it all from scratch, from the actuall milking (we used to go down the road and help one of the other farms before we opened) How to look after the cows, getting the feed right, buying and selling, learning to be a vet, and doing it all in a forigen language.

    Farm wise the biggest problems are :-
    Conseption rates- if a cow's not pregnate it will just give less and less milk, you should get a calf a year off a cow, here due to the climate, poor forage, poor "heat" detection and poor vet's it's around 18-20 months

    Quality forage - You have to feed the cows food concentrate, but it's expensive. Rice straw is the most comman forage but it has the nutritional value of a cardboard box (about 2-3% protien). We used to buy in fresh bailed grass, but it got too expensive, mainly to transport it form where they grow it to here. We also treat rice straw with Urea, which ups the protien to around 8 %. One of the reasons we've downsized is to try and be self sefficiant in grass at leas for most of the year

    Mastitis- A bactrial infection of the udders, all farms get the problem even in the west, but here with the high humidity and temp's its a pain, you can treat it but cant sell the milk for anything up to 1 week after treatment. If it happens to be one of you best cows giving say 25L of milk a day, then thats over 2000 bhat plus the medicen you've lost..just off one cow

    Parasites- Tick's are a killer again due to the climate, had a big infestation last year had to get rid of a load of cows, you need to spray the land and cows regularly. You also get internal parasites which drop the milk yield a lot. If you inject the medicen to treat it you can't sell the milk for 45 days.

    Hot season it's too hot..low milk yield, wet season too muddy...lots of mastitis..low milk yield...cold season its just horrible getting up in the morning

    Staff- Someone has to manage the whole thing, if you just rely on others to do it you'll go down the drain.

    Generaly we only get about half the milk yield as back home, but cost's are less and fresh milk is relitivly expencive here....in fact I think we get more per/liter than they do back home

  13. #13
    I am in Jail
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    Great thread!

  14. #14
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    Quote Originally Posted by Lily
    Great thread!
    Thanks lilly. Sadly I think it need's more whores or TV admin in it for truly mass appeal

  15. #15
    Thailand Expat Storekeeper's Avatar
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    If I'm not mistaken RC ... most of what you wrote I saw once before in your blog ? Do you still have and update it ?

  16. #16
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    Quote Originally Posted by Storekeeper
    If I'm not mistaken RC ... most of what you wrote I saw once before in your blog ? Do you still have and update it ?
    The pic's were mostly on there, the rest I just wrote this morning....an exclusive . I dont think there is much in there (the blog) if anything about how it all started and the actuall mechanics of running it.
    I think the blog is still there but have'nt updated it in ages, posting pic's is a real pain with my connection and a text only blog is just boring.

  17. #17
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    Quote Originally Posted by RandomChances
    Even more pic's...bored yet ?
    Not a bit, always wanted to see what your place was like.

  18. #18
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    Yes RC, this thread is fantastic. Perhaps it will give me the initiative to get off my butt and do half as much as you have. It is just so nice to see the photos and real commentary.

    Thank you mate,

    AO

  19. #19
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    RC,

    Yur mugshot was in that blog wasn't it ? Seems like it was a picture of you and some people sitting on something resembling a porch ? 3 or 4 people. You wear glasses ?

  20. #20
    I am in Jail
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    Quote Originally Posted by RandomChances
    Thanks lilly. Sadly I think it need's more whores or TV admin in it for truly mass appeal
    Well, I dont know RC, all those cows pregnant to different blokes constantly.

    All the talk of udders and stuff, that should get them in.

  21. #21
    Northern Hermit
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    Great thread. This is all a career switch for you? No farming, dairy or otherwise experience? Gotta respect your work ethic and determination.

  22. #22
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    Quote Originally Posted by Storekeeper
    RC,

    Yur mugshot was in that blog wasn't it ? Seems like it was a picture of you and some people sitting on something resembling a porch ? 3 or 4 people. You wear glasses ?
    This one SK ?



    That was christmass dinner a few years ago at my place...Lamb not Turky. The back of the house is a big veranda, great when it's not rainy season. The other guy used to be my closest Falang neigbour about 35 km away, we had a falling out shortly aftre this involving him making my hand bleed by repeatdly banging his face against it. He's dissapered now after mortgageing his misses land to the bank !!

    This is a better one of me i look a bit "gay" in the first one



    Me and my niece at the boat races, one third of my brother-in-laws head and my mate rong in the background.....I'm the one with glases

    FF I used to fix aircraft...no farming. It's not that hard work really, usually a couple of hours in the morning and afternoon, when we were bigger it was actually less work, just supervising it.
    Last edited by RandomChances; 28-04-2006 at 03:03 PM.

  23. #23
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    An excellent thread RandomChances!
    So what time do you get up in the morning to do chores?

  24. #24
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    Quote Originally Posted by hillbilly
    So what time do you get up in the morning to do chores?
    Usually up at 6 start milking about 6:30, finnished by about 8:30, but being the boss I'm flexible. At the moment 1 person can do it all but it hard work on your own, we only have 1 staff so some times the misses will go and help. If we both want to get away we'll get some part time in. Afternoon start about 3:30-4:00 finnish about now 5:30....In fact I've just sat down

  25. #25
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    Damn thats really so cool. How about 3:30 in the afternoon, with the heat is it hard to get going again?

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