Spring flax

[jazz]

Sheep do you grow canola?

Maybe the cost of production is not something you like but thats a crop that can take some weather. Rarely a wreck in that one and I have never seen a yield under 25bu yet even in the worst yrs. Flax is hard to yield out.

[zeefarmer]

Sheepwheat, you aren't alone. You can have good crops and still feel like pulling the pin.

2018 was the only year that has really been below average in our area. It's the rent, land and equipment part of the game that makes it hard here. Good crops and prices push land values to levels where you're still at breakeven levels. Hard to compete with big guys that have paid for land already that can justify making very little on renting or buying.

I contemplate walking away almost daily. There seems to be no room for a little guy, and I don't want to play the game the big guys do.

[Sheepwheat]

Sheep do you grow canola?

Maybe the cost of production is not something you like but thats a crop that can take some weather. Rarely a wreck in that one and I have never seen a yield under 25bu yet even in the worst yrs. Flax is hard to yield out.

I used to grow 50 bushel canola long before it was sexy, when seed prices were a buck ninety five a lb. lol then I had a wreck, like 6 bushels an acre wreck. Too wet to grow. Then another, too wet to grow, went about twelve. Then final nail was the year I left out half almost all my canola crop. Unlike sf3, it yielded pretty much nothing, and quality was unsaleable. It was at least a fifty bushel crop, was the best I had ever grown.

So I quit canola, because while crop insurance was helpful, after a few straight claims, things get dicey.

So I switched more to flax, to try and avoid the risk. I have always grown flax, and thirty isn’t too hard. At least it was in the past.

Good thoughts, canola just ain’t for me any more, it really, no grain crop is. I just simply hate it anymore.

[Sheepwheat]

Sheepwheat, you aren't alone. You can have good crops and still feel like pulling the pin.

2018 was the only year that has really been below average in our area. It's the rent, land and equipment part of the game that makes it hard here. Good crops and prices push land values to levels where you're still at breakeven levels. Hard to compete with big guys that have paid for land already that can justify making very little on renting or buying.

I contemplate walking away almost daily. There seems to be no room for a little guy, and I don't want to play the game the big guys do.

Yeah it’s hard. I o have neighbors with extremely deep pockets, and I will never get a quarter again anyway, so what is the point? They have pulled four away from me with stupidly high rents is refused to pay. I just can’t compete. I am fine with that, but, you know?

[Sheepwheat]

My main question I guess is this; how to go whole hog into sheep without a bunch of debt? Lenders are idiots for farmers like me anyway. Thinking outside the box is a big laugh to them. It just isn’t sexy like land or shiny machines that depreciate.

I just don’t know how to complete the transition fast so I can wave grain goodbye for good, without it being a ten year program?

My needs are fences, forage seed, a bunch more ewes.

Been wondering about selling the four wheel drive and combine?

[jazz]

My needs are fences, forage seed, a bunch more ewes.

I would think that would be a whole lot cheaper than what iron goes for. Wouldn't $100k expand your herd quite a bit? That's not much debt.

[Grahamp]

I feel your pain sheep. 2014 was a brutal year for me and I had help. I get the stress with your wife, up until 2014 my wife had never really seen the stressful side of farming, and after she wondered why anyone would do it. Multiple years like that would have bankrupted me.

I am genuinely curious about your flax. I quit growing it in 2014 because I couldn’t get to to yield. However my Dad always said if you are going to leave a crop out leave out flax, and I have one big farm neighbour that has grown it many years and left it out a few times and it seems like it yields ok in the Springs I have observed. (They have trucks taking something off the field and their cart seems to be staying kind of busy) Did something unusual happen to your flax during freeze or thaw? I sincerely hope things work out for you.

[Sheepwheat]

I feel your pain sheep. 2014 was a brutal year for me and I had help. I get the stress with your wife, up until 2014 my wife had never really seen the stressful side of farming, and after she wondered why anyone would do it. Multiple years like that would have bankrupted me.

I am genuinely curious about your flax. I quit growing it in 2014 because I couldn’t get to to yield. However my Dad always said if you are going to leave a crop out leave out flax, and I have one big farm neighbour that has grown it many years and left it out a few times and it seems like it yields ok in the Springs I have observed. (They have trucks taking something off the field and their cart seems to be staying kind of busy) Did something unusual happen to your flax during freeze or thaw? I sincerely hope things work out for you.

My flax was never mature in the fall, most turned into papery, empty seeds. When I tried it in early November or whatever it was minus ten and the stuff was exactly like porridge with a bit too much milk on it. I have left flax out three times now. For me it has never been good, but this time takes the cake.

[Sheepwheat]

I would think that would be a whole lot cheaper than what iron goes for. Wouldn't $100k expand your herd quite a bit? That's not much debt.

For me it is a lot of debt. That is sort of part of my problem and part of what has held me back, I never was one for a lot of debt, mostly because until land prices increased, I had never built a whole lot of equity. Don’t get me wrong, I have a fairly stiff mortgage.

I guess if you get burnt so many times and left holding the bag and struggling to catch up from years past, it also helps make one more debt averse. Throw in no off farm cash to help pay the living bills, and it is even scarier. Even if I do have confidence with the sheep in that they do extremely well for us, I fear the unforeseen. And crap happens to us all. To some of us it just simply happens more. Lol. I’m the neighbor that works like a dog, but never seems to get ahead, and no one can understand it. I have no doubt I am the talk of the area as one of those guys. Lol. He doesn’t even have auto steer! Gasp!!!

I would be the guy who has an abortion storm in my sheep, and loses a whole year of lambs. I’m just that guy. I say this not to be a downer or over negative, but it is the way it is, my whole life pretty well.

Regardless the number I am talking is about half that, which kind of makes it more attainable without debt if I pinch my pennies tight.

Regardless, no one seems excited to lend money for stock, for fences, or the like anyway, unless you have a whole lot of other income to back it up. We have tried, and failed. Projections and lamb prices double or more of regular market prices don’t count if you aren’t making a solid income elsewhere, so that is what I am up against mainly.

Thanks for the listening, it really is helpful to vent and have so many responses.

[Sheepwheat]

To those who have pm’ed me. I will respond later on. I appreciate it very much. I just have to get back at it now.