Thread: Does anybody do some farming ??

Originally Posted by Bluecat

Originally Posted by stroller

He's sold his stock and is back in the UK for now, Bluecat.

Sorry to hear that.
Problems with the farm?
Problems with the wife?
Or problems with Thailand?

There's a thread all about it somewhere. Just search for all the threads RC has started and it'll be easy to spot.

Originally Posted by Dalton

Hi TD members

Does any of you do some kind of farming ? fish, chickens, ducks, cattle, or any form for crops, corn, rice and so on.
If you would like to share your experience or have some questions, then please post it on this thread.

Thanks.

first. congratulations, dalton-it seems your farming forum has started up without help from the mods!
i farm clarias catfish in tanks, stocked at 2000 fingerlings per cubic metre.
it is possible to raise up to two tons of catfish in a single tank, dimensions: 2m x 1mx 1m. ie a ton of fish per cubic metre! the thais think i am fukkn crazy, coz they have been taught not to stock more than 100 fish per square metre. my fish grow out far faster than theirs, are easy to harvest, taste better, and do not stink.

Originally Posted by tsicar

first. congratulations, dalton-it seems your farming forum has started up without help from the mods!

Thanks for the support, lets see how it goes, if the thread gets a fair bit of posting, the mods might grant us a forum or sub-forum, time will tell.
I'm looking forward to your return to Thailand, and to see the operation getting up and running, after all we are only 70km apart, so see you soon.

Let's try to help this farming forum along with a serious question.

Here is the deal. We have 5 rai of a big rice field outside of P-Lok. The land is paid for, we don't have to pay for anything all we do is collect the rent from the local farmer using our land. It ain't much.

So what could we do with this land instead of renting to the locals to make money farming?

Originally Posted by tsicar

t is possible to raise up to two tons of catfish in a single tank, dimensions: 2m x 1mx 1m. ie a ton of fish per cubic metre! the thais think i am fukkn crazy, coz they have been taught not to stock more than 100 fish per square metre. my fish grow out far faster than theirs, are easy to harvest, taste better, and do not stink.

That's about the size of our tank - interesting.
But once you go for wholesaling the fish, there isn't much profit in it and you have to know what you are doing, I heard - right?

Originally Posted by hillbilly

Let's try to help this farming forum along with a serious question.

Here is the deal. We have 5 rai of a big rice field outside of P-Lok. The land is paid for, we don't have to pay for anything all we do is collect the rent from the local farmer using our land. It ain't much.

So what could we do with this land instead of renting to the locals to make money farming?

Hi HB

That depends on many things,how much work and money are you willing to invest in it, that is the first question ? rice is small money, that's a given, sugar-cane and corn isent much better. Then you can do eucalyptus, rubber or teak, that is long term, but dosent involve to much work. One thing I have noticed is the price soybean, it has increased with almost 40% over the last 4 month, and there is no sign of it going down, since they are using it for bio-fuel and it's number 1 raw-material in most animal feed. If I had some spare land I would look into soybean.
But to give you a correct advise, then you need to consider how much you are willing to invest in it.

Cheers.

Originally Posted by stroller

That's about the size of our tank - interesting. But once you go for wholesaling the fish, there isn't much profit in it and you have to know what you are doing, I heard - right?

Tsicar is talking about recirculation systems, same thing as I have, you can have very high stocking density in those systems, as long as it all works. You need to have a good working biofilter, a drumfilter or large settlement tank to remove the solids bigger than 30 to 50 micron, smaller than that you need protein-skimmers to remove the tiny ones. And most important you need a generator as back-up in-case of power-cut, if you dont have that, then you will have a lot of dead fish within minutes. The system requires 24 hours observation, not a walk in the park..

Sounds like work to me.
I'd rather stick with throwing in a few pellets now and then, thanks.

^ Sure it is, but also very interesting if you have the time to do it, ono problem is that it cant be left alone, it could lead to disaster, but if runned like a business, then it's a great challenge. We do all ourself from hatching the fry, nursery ponds, from there into the intensive recirculation system, after that of to the market. We also make our floating pellets used for feeding the fish.