Belgian Blues in Belgium

pakalasa

A good article in this weeks Farmiing Independent by John Shirley -

Kinda prooves the whole point about not having Belgian Blue breeding on the cow side of things, i.e. BB cows have difficulty calving.


"practically 100pc of calves are born by Caesarean section"

http://www.independent.ie/farming/beef/why-belgian-beef-is-all-about-blue-1849949.html

Prices not bad either ;
"The typical Belgian approach is to produce young bull beef of 650-700kg at 15-16 months. At about €2.80/kg liveweight, this represents an output of €1,800-2,000 for each male calf born."

vanderbadger

think they had a similar article in journal not so loing ago, the cows looked massive. Amazing that the calves are taken from the cows and bucket fed.

vanderbadger

pakalasa wrote: »

A good article in this weeks Farmiing Independent by John Shirley -

Kinda prooves the whole point about not having Belgian Blue breeding on the cow side of things, i.e. BB cows have difficulty calving.


"practically 100pc of calves are born by Caesarean section"

http://www.independent.ie/farming/beef/why-belgian-beef-is-all-about-blue-1849949.html

Prices not bad either ;
"The typical Belgian approach is to produce young bull beef of 650-700kg at 15-16 months. At about €2.80/kg liveweight, this represents an output of €1,800-2,000 for each male calf born."

http://www.farmersjournal.ie/2009/0627/farmmanagement/beef/feature.shtml

leg wax

pakalasa wrote: »

A good article in this weeks Farmiing Independent by John Shirley -

Kinda prooves the whole point about not having Belgian Blue breeding on the cow side of things, i.e. BB cows have difficulty calving.


"practically 100pc of calves are born by Caesarean section"

http://www.independent.ie/farming/beef/why-belgian-beef-is-all-about-blue-1849949.html

Prices not bad either ;
"The typical Belgian approach is to produce young bull beef of 650-700kg at 15-16 months. At about €2.80/kg liveweight, this represents an output of €1,800-2,000 for each male calf born."

you cannot compare the belgian blue cow that they are useing because they are nearly all pedigree and if not they are not,they are just registered, a blue cow in ireland that the joe soap farmer has is most likely only 50% blue, compare like with like,how many of those muscley blue cows are on comercial farms,have a look at the english belgian blue site they are breeding a pedigree blue that is been born naturely most of the time, saying that they are still not as muscley but still impressive,:P

pakalasa

leg wax wrote: »

you cannot compare the belgian blue cow that they are useing because they are nearly all pedigree and if not they are not,they are just registered, a blue cow in ireland that the joe soap farmer has is most likely only 50% blue, compare like with like,how many of those muscley blue cows are on comercial farms,have a look at the english belgian blue site they are breeding a pedigree blue that is been born naturely most of the time, saying that they are still not as muscley but still impressive,:P

Yeah, I agree with what you are saying. I was making the point that even at 1/2 bred, BB cows are still hard calving. The ICBF figures, which are taken from Irish farms, back this up. They are the worst breed for maternal calving.
Here are the figures for mean (average) Maternal calving from www.icbf.com (jan '09). See attachment.

I'm amazed at how poor the Salers are. This was their great selling point - that they could calve easily, with their big hips. Limousins are far better. Just goes to show!!

snowman707

pakalasa wrote: »

This was their great selling point - that they could calve easily, with their big hips. Limousins are far better. Just goes to show!!

+1

My daughter has a large suckler herd lol ...actually she has 2 cows 1 3/4 & 1 PBNR limousin, she uses bb AI and breeds quality stock,

there might be an unhaltered pb lim sale in roscrea in nov, if there are sufficient entries, this is being arranged with the commercial farmer in mind, should be a good source of breeding stock.

leg wax

pakalasa wrote: »

Yeah, I agree with what you are saying. I was making the point that even at 1/2 bred, BB cows are still hard calving. The ICBF figures, which are taken from Irish farms, back this up. They are the worst breed for maternal calving.
Here are the figures for mean (average) Maternal calving from www.icbf.com (jan '09). See attachment.

I'm amazed at how poor the Salers are. This was their great selling point - that they could calve easily, with their big hips. Limousins are far better. Just goes to show!!

i am not a true believer in icbf and their % for simple reason.the blue figure is always going to look bad for a simple reason i know of many farmers including my self that put commercial blue heifers and cows in calf to blue bulls knowing we are going to have a section just going for the extra muscle for showing or export. i would like to know the true figure of a 50% blue cow crossed with any other breed and see how she would compare.i had a heavy muscley blue cow ,looked like the cows in the indo on tuesday she had three sections with blue calfs,she had a lim {malibu} heifer calf on her own, that lim and her blonde {landais} heifer calf are going to the ploughing this year and will be in the blonde stand.this same lim is now back in calf to blue and if she has to have a section well next year a blonde will go back on her,getting back on track i believe the blue figures will always be distorted because of show cattle.if icbf gave figures for farmers at the end of the yearas in the average price given for weanlings from the different crosses eg lim cow x blue = 1100 euros, lim cow x lim = 950 euros ,and put all the other figures up as well it would give a clearer picture. lim cows have a low figure for calving, but what are they calving, what will their lim x lim calf be worth at the end of the year.ps glad to see blondes were at the bottom of your icbf chart:pac:

pakalasa

Legwax,
I know what you are saying but ICBF do take the breed of the dam into account. Have a look at the following. This is for the bull FHZ, a BB that is relatively easy calving. I used him myself this year on a big framed black limousin. On the 2nd box down, at the very bottom, on the right hand side, you will see the % breakdown for the DAM.

BB dams - 6%
Lim dams - 24% etc etc

http://www.icbf.com/taurus/bull_search/index.php?ani_id=415987749&target=b_calving

What a shame the Suckler Scheme is ending. The amount of information collected last year alone was massive compared to those years before.
"Penny wise, pound foolish" :mad: It had to be giving a return to the exchequer in extra exports etc.

Bitten & Hisses

IMO, the ICBF is very useful and farming in Ireland will be better off because of its work. However, I treat any data/reports from them as I treat information from the Farmers Journal: Useful pointers to send you in the right general direction, but you wouldn't want to swallow every word from them.

blue5000

yeah, garbage in garbage out!

adne

Bitten & Hisses wrote: »

IMO, the ICBF is very useful and farming in Ireland will be better off because of its work. However, I treat any data/reports from them as I treat information from the Farmers Journal: Useful pointers to send you in the right general direction, but you wouldn't want to swallow every word from them.

here here... every mans situation is different, different variables to be taken on board

vanderbadger

Bitten & Hisses wrote: »

IMO, the ICBF is very useful and farming in Ireland will be better off because of its work. However, I treat any data/reports from them as I treat information from the Farmers Journal: Useful pointers to send you in the right general direction, but you wouldn't want to swallow every word from them.

Can you tell me this, I bought a new bull earlier in the year, was happy with his ICBF score when I bought him but would often look him up, a few months after I got him I noticed his star rating was gone down, a while after that his rating went up again, whats that about anyone know?

leg wax

vanderbadger wrote: »

Can you tell me this, I bought a new bull earlier in the year, was happy with his ICBF score when I bought him but would often look him up, a few months after I got him I noticed his star rating was gone down, a while after that his rating went up again, whats that about anyone know?

most likely more data comeing in from ancestors of your bull, this is one of the problems i see with this star rateing ,in a couple of years they will change the formula as in what % goes towards calving ,what % goes towards weanling for export.it happened in the dairy cows years ago with ebi scores. when buying a bull in my own opinion for commercial purposes buy the bull in front of you not his stars,his stars will go up and down but you will have the same bull

Rujib1

leg wax wrote: »

most likely more data comeing in from ancestors of your bull, this is one of the problems i see with this star rateing ,in a couple of years they will change the formula as in what % goes towards calving ,what % goes towards weanling for export.it happened in the dairy cows years ago with ebi scores. when buying a bull in my own opinion for commercial purposes buy the bull in front of you not his stars,his stars will go up and down but you will have the same bull

Better still, buy the bull based on his offspring if you can see them!!

Had a not so good looking charolais bull up to a few years ago, but his calves were absolutely top quality.

Bought a very fancy looking bull llast year (bought as a yearling so no offspring to see). Calves only middeling He has all the stars, and is out of CF52 sire.

R1

Bitten & Hisses

leg wax wrote: »

when buying a bull in my own opinion for commercial purposes buy the bull in front of you not his stars,his stars will go up and down but you will have the same bull

I agree with you up to a point. Things like docility cannot be truly determined from examining a bull in front of you. He can be quiet and halter trained, but if his breeding is wrong, you'll get a herd of lunatics out of him.

aghead

I think icbf figures are a mis representation of the breed, as they're are only 900 full blood registered dams in the country, not even all with their calvinngs recorded, compared to a french saler cow population of 170,000 recording a 97% calving ease??

adne

aghead wrote: »

I think icbf figures are a mis representation of the breed, as they're are only 900 full blood registered dams in the country, not even all with their calvinngs recorded, compared to a french saler cow population of 170,000 recording a 97% calving ease??

:D oh look its aghead on another thread with the same plug for Salers.........

aghead

Same plug? i'm a charolais man, but just addressing misconceptions of the salers breed,

and adme i'm not even going to start with your some of your posts in multiple threads, between dosing, aborting heifers and the ability of castrated males to inseminate heifers? just a suggestion that you'd be better off refering to you're veterinary surgeon with such herd health issues. you seem to refer to boards.ie for every livestock relating decision/issue you have, maybe informative but not exactly reliable.

adne

aghead wrote: »

Same plug? i'm a charolais man, but just addressing misconceptions of the salers breed,

and adme i'm not even going to start with your some of your posts in multiple threads, between dosing, aborting heifers and the ability of castrated males to inseminate heifers? just a suggestion that you'd be better off refering to you're veterinary surgeon with such herd health issues. you seem to refer to boards.ie for every livestock relating decision/issue you have, maybe informative but not exactly reliable.

looks like your addressing the misconceptions of the salers breed alright by pasting the same paragraph into every thread :p:p
If in doubt click on agheads name and view al postings..... hhmmm funny enough all are related to how great the Salers are.........


While your on the subject of postings.... This thread was titled belgium Blues in Belgium..... what did your post relate to !!!!

As regards my posts: hhhmmm I could have swore this was a forum for open discussion and sharing of knowledge.....
As I can see from your posts alright it may be informative but now exactly reliable
:D