jakescot

how about another mini dio ? theres a challenge for you Jordan 

this is very good Ruben, see the cattle in the first cattle shed?........you have a lot of the britains running bull... ?are they all real or did you cast copy some ?

if they are real they are worth a small fortune , mandy might back me up there

thank you for sharing and look forward to seeing more

be a bit "tippy" now

and of course the actual shade of brown /black/reddish/grey  you require could be varied to suit the soil type to where the dio was going to be set , if desired.

to elaborate I mean I have allsorts from  a rich earthy brown on some fields ,to black peaty type soil in others to grey cold clay in others with a very light gravelly sandy gravel in others so really the colour as long as it was roughly right it would be fine but I know many parts of dumfriesshire have that reddy boulder clay soil from one end of the farm the the other so someone there might want a reddy brown on the cows feet and in the gateways.............

if that makes sense 

I can recommend  the gorse bushes for what it`s worth,a very useful addition to a layout , oh and yes I agree the pond looks great.the new ray ducks and  failing you finding an,even the canada geese would would great on it .

I remember  at school we were friendly with two lads who came from another town......they came on a double decker bus  with a group of rather fit girls one of whom was our mates big sister ..........this led to a rather unhealthy obsession in girls gymnastics, volleyball , netball ,in fact anything they did during lunch hour..we used to go and play football on the old home towns training pitch  of course this always led to a walk past the gym, and on the way back........got more than one detention for perving !    oh and being late for afternoon registration........this actually led us to accept the challenge  to play hockey  against the school team ............they beat us ! you think boys are rough ......those sticks went everywhere.....miss cook the gym teacher was laughing her head off as was mr boyd the head gym teacher......he gave us some stick and suggested we give them the opportunity to play us at football or rugby..         needless to say miss cook banned that idea  rather sharpish ...............        oh the memories !

sean,  yes you are correct, globally the price  meat is fetching is too low to make it highly profitable for UK and much of europe  to make it profitable and  if meat get much more expensive folks will stop buying it , it will become a very luxury item then the type of livestock numbers we currently have wont be around and then what do we all do?......................

there used to be 90 pigs here,never in my day though some of the old pig houses are still around........ they made cheese you see so the whey was surplus......from the ayrshire cow dairy.many farms in this area did and the dairymen often moved on if they had a liking for making cheese to a "cheese dairy" if you happened not to do so.My family were dairy folks before they got the farm tenancies  in their own right. 

I`d love to have a farm that was capable of growing everything I needed with some surplus to sell occasionally being even better.I`d then be able to have some BIG fancy kit      even if it was only on whilst the contractors did the job........

round here I`d say 85% of us don`t grow our own cereal ,some farmers grow some but very very few , less than 5% I`d estimate would grow enough to feed their stock.

As for pig farms I only knew of 4  large units , 2 over in wigtownshire , Dourie farming,messrs Christie and Robinsons of Culbae  one sold them a few years back and can`t tell you whether the other one still has pigs or not...The 3rd at Lockerbie , I`ve forgotten his name...... was taken out by foot and mouth , I don`t know if he re stocked.One of my vets was at the slaughter..............chilling to hear him recount that story.The 4th was buccleugh estates and I think they sold them too as uneconomic a fair few years back.

if we only had a crystal ball and something to show us the way forward things might be easier

yes we get it, mum subscribed years ago,when dad refused to pay she used to add it to the paper bill, we got it changed  to the business account when it came to me..........one of my favourite publications

once again Tris, my condolences to yourself and everyone .As you say the pain and suffering  is over for her now and she`ll be at peace...

All in all, its getting harder to make money with livestock, and all these stupid townies who have one pig are probably the smart ones.... the days of cheap food are over.... livestock farmers are selling up all over europe, its the supermarkets fault and we all will be worse off for it.....       

yes well thats part of it, the govts and the comon agricultural policy are also to blame .....the CAP is rotten to the core with far too many rules and regulations being imposed on us all and too many folk siphoning off money that should go to farmers.    We have this type of discussion regularily  but as yet can`t seem to find any  sensible and achievable  answers................off topic there  sorry  Sean  to the feed prices I can`t comment on pig producers but i can tell you one guy in wigtownshire used to buy 1800 cattle a year , grew silage and cereals to feed them , has now sold all his cereals,bought less and only fed them silage with a little hard feed.........the price of the fat cattle isn`t high enough he says to make money. the problem highlighted above by  schw84.................how he`s going to get back into big numbers of cattle remains an issue...perhaps he`s not too worried .........up horn down corn and vice versa . 

feed to us for cattle and sheep has rocketed too , I can`t grow enough to be self sufficient  so perhaps a radical rethink is needed.........who knows , in our wet west where harvesting the cereal is the biggest problem ,perhaps we need to think more about forage rape , kale etc.  One thing is for sure with the price for sheep feed quoted to me  at £ 224  a tonne , cattle hi magnesium rolls at £212  and beef cake at £208 , theres going to be no cheap winter feed for me and this will leave little money later in the year for doing any reinvestment...........another age old problem.

Add the  fuel and fertiliser price to that and its getting ridiculous.  perhaps we do need to have a pig or two, a few hens for eggs and a bigger than current veg plot to try and minimise the effects of these rising food prices... at least as farmers ,we can do this for ourselves.

its a funny old game  but long term farming , well at least food production has to be a good industry to be in.With a rising  global population, food is going to become scarce,perhaps wont be too long until were getting paid more to grow more , intensify and all that goes along with that.

got to say i`m very much with Robbo here,  I`m liking the higher detail and am in no way able to do it myself

bloody hell these look good

wow... Zwolle is like 36 euro's a table for 2 days, and that is the biggest show in europe! How on earth do they think 154 pounds is justifiable?

rip off britain??

sad news indeed tris.........not nice to see . hoping they have her comfortable.

happy birthday marcus..have a good one   

you do help the look of these models Blake,fair play to you.

ros have certainly upped their game of late and these lot just go prove that .....good work and welcome additions

aye could be a bit big, the old crystal went up to 120 or 130hp tho didnt they?

you have been busy there Jordan,very good so far

well the cab wouldnt have the proper slant but am sure that could be remedied???

that forschritt thingy resembles an old zetor crystal a bit  does it not?.......... both eastern european........maybe ?

The MB looks smart too

Oh no Sue you can`t burn your collection !!!       don`t do it !!!!! surely things arent that bad.......   

sorry I couldn`t resist that  \

we bought a gas fire back panel and surround recently too, alison did at least

, £200, £199  and £614  its to fit after that expected to be 2 man days

for me a FORD 40 series workshop manual dvd version, couldn`t get it out of the case then it promptly broke in half, never done that in all my life and Ive handled THOUSANDS of cd`s 

many happy return there Mark, and rick, and anyone else ive missed recently............I keep missing this topic only remember  it occasionally 

thats  some machine there phil, you will enjoy trotting round the countryside in that

as reported elsewhere......breaking the hydraulic lever cable on the claas, sometimes I wonder what next