BB—Lancaster Farming, Saturday, June 7,1980 Glenn Shirk talks (Continued from Page B 6) realizes that the cow is the vehicle through which he markets everything. His income comes from the marketing end. He must work for his cows before they’ll work for him. Time management is an important element for any manager. A good manager must recognize the jobs most significant at this point in tamft. He must know the priority jobs to be done and be timely doing them. He must put the person best suited to a job on that job. It may mean if there’s hay to be baled and it’s milking time, that he hire a neighbor to run the baler, even though it may be more enjoyable for him to con tinue baling. He must, however, use seasonal breaks in the weather to best advantage. He must also realize that harvesting hay is more weather dependent than for instance com planting. It may mean postponing the planting to insure getting top quality hays. An error of judgment over a couple of hours in haymaking could, mean paying for the mistake all year long in lower quality forages, less milk produc tion. An extra 15 minutes spent watching for cows in heat and settling them may be worth an extra $3O-50 in breeding fees saved. Tune spent properly will be the most profitable tune the farmer can spend. And last, any good manager allows himself free tune to literally get away from his business and look at it from the outside. He needs tune to enjoy the other aspects of life. If he ties himself down with too many financial and tune com mitments, he makes himself a slave to his business. This kills the ]oy of farming and means that he has lost control of his business. A dairy manager must continually monitor income and expenses. He must manage the financial aspects of the operation, always maximizing mcome and minimizing expenses In all aspects of financial planning, he must allow flexibility. It’s wise to size his operation to the size of his land and time resources. A few extra acres of com, for instance, allows the dairyman to harvest the crop as grain or silage depending on the weather and his needs. In a poor season he would have the extra silage he needs, in a good season he could sell the com as an extra cash crop. Generally forages are the most expensive for the dairyman to buy. For this reason, forage crops are generally the most profitable crops raised on a dairy farm. It’s generally true that you can buy grain almost as cheaply as you can raise it. At the same time, it may be profitable to have a few acres for feed grain production. When you raise top quality forages, you are hedging to some extent. Not only will they make the most money through the extra milk, but the higher the value of your heifers, the more the extra forages are worth to you to feed to those heifers, har vesting the forage income when you sell or use the heifers. Good financial manage ment may mean put ting your money into the herd instead of into ex pensive equipment. It may mean getting someone to do custom work so that you can save on equipment. Diversification can if properly managed be sup portive. If for instance you have a 60 cow capacity farm with room to milk only 30 cows, you might farm tobacco or another crop to build up a strong financial base before expanding present facilities to ac comodate 60 cows. Or diversification can be counterproductive, taking the dairy manager away from proper management of his herd. The good financial manager works with as large a margin of profit per cow as possible. For in stance, if his level of profitability is 10 percent, a 10 percent inflation rate Berks to sponsor farm pond program LEESPORT The Berks County Extension Service has scheduled a Farm Pond Management Program for Wednesday, June 25th, from 7 to 9 p.m. The program will be held at the Berks County 4-H Community Center Pond, located directly behind the Berks County Agricultural Center. The topics to be covered include aquatic weed con trol, fish management and stock, pond construction, design and maintenance, and a question and answer period. A fishing demonstration will be given by the Fresh Water Anglers club on proper equipment and techniques for fresh water fishing. Also a seining DON'T BE SLOW Call Now To Place Your CLASSIFIED AD Ph: 717-394-3047 or 717-626-1164 could wipe out his profit. And the bigger you get, the more your margin of error narrows. At times it may be necessary to cut down on the herd to increase your margin of profit and thus increase your survival ability. Farming can be a good way of life, Pat, but first it must be profitable. In next week’s paper we’U take a look at the young dairyman both from the aspect of management and from the use of his limited resources. We’ll study the most frequent road to suc cess for him and give examples for him to use demonstration will be given for a reproduction check of the pond’s aquatic life. Program participants include Penn State Wildlife Resource Specialists, Robert Wmgard and Terry Rader; Ammon Ziegenfus, Waterways Patrolman; Roy Shryrock, Soil Conservation Service; and Dave Trasatt, Fresh Water Anglers Club. The program is open to all pond owners, present and future, or interested sport smen. If there are any specific questions concerning the program, please contact Richard S. Kauffman, County Agent, at the County Extension Office (phone: 378-1327). The program will be held ram or shine. HYDRA-MAC LOADERS AREN’T ANIMALS, THEY’RE MODERN MACHINES. . . 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