Advice on what breed to change to..

dasheriff

I am culling alot of my existing herd at the moment and am looking for advice on what breed to change to..i have belgian blue simmental and charlaoin in my head but im steering mainly towards simmental..
I am currently running a high quality charlaois bull with them..

All opinions welcome, thanks in advance..

reilig

dasheriff wrote: »

I am culling alot of my existing herd at the moment and am looking for advice on what breed to change to..i have belgian blue simmental and charlaoin in my head but im steering mainly towards simmental..
I am currently running a high quality charlaois bull with them..

All opinions welcome, thanks in advance..

It really depends on what type of calves you want and what you want to do with them. In the past 15 years we changed from an Angus herd to a herd of chaorlais x Limousin cows and we run a good Chaorlais bull with them. We sell most of our bull calves for export at 10 to 13 months old. Some of the heifers are bought for breeding and some are bought for export. For the last 3 years we have been using Belgian Blue AI on black limousin cows. All calves from these are usually bought for export. Last year's BB calves made €2.50 to €3 per Kg live weight.

We do not buy in any non pedigree replacement breeding cows - we only use our own breeding. We try to use ai on our better breeding Ch/LM X cows with the hope of breeding replacement heifers.

Last year we bought a number of pedigree limousin heifers from a relative at €1200 each. They have calved in the last few months and appear to have some of the best calves in the herd. Would hope to buy more this year.

pakalasa

Are you selling weanlings or finishing cattle on farm / selling stores.

Hard to beat BB's out of Limousines for weanlings.

Finishing on farm, then Charolais out of Simmentals. Buyers of stores go mad for these. The way the beef industry works here in Ireland, even with the new price grid, slaughter weight still comes before fancy shapes.

I breed my own replacements too, from my best cows. I use all AI and I try to match the bull to the cow. For example, a Red Lim cow that lacks milk but is beefy and fertile, then I cross her to a Simmental. A simmental cow with loads of milk but lacking a bit of shape, then I use a Lim Maternal Bull like FL21,SIX or Nin, all bulls that breed heifers with big hips.
It will take years, I know but at least I'm moving in the right direction.

dasheriff

Thanks for the advice lads thats a great help..i have them all spring calving and sell as weanlings in the autumn..

haybob

I'm thinking of getting a few short horns myself

dasheriff wrote: »

I am culling alot of my existing herd at the moment and am looking for advice on what breed to change to..i have belgian blue simmental and charlaoin in my head but im steering mainly towards simmental..
I am currently running a high quality charlaois bull with them..

All opinions welcome, thanks in advance..

dasheriff

haybob wrote: »

I'm thinking of getting a few short horns myself

Would shorthorns produce the type of weanling i want though??..

haybob

I doubt it to be honest, the heifers will sell well but the bull wealings may not. I'm looking at em to feed outside on land a good bit away from the yard. The land was on a ten year lease and it's back to me now, I'm considering sheep (I hate sheep), fattening weanling or short horn cows due to their low maintance but them you have calving and I'd have to house em to have an eye on em, The land is not in REPS but my own farm is so I'm not sure what to do...

dasheriff wrote: »

Would shorthorns produce the type of weanling i want though??..

bogman_bass

Did you consider the angus/ hereford route at get the premium offered by some factorys?

dasheriff

bogman_bass wrote: »

Did you consider the angus/ hereford route at get the premium offered by some factorys?

I sell them as weanlings and i dont think they would be worth much in the ring..

tismesoitis

its very hard to look past belgian blue especially when u sell as weanlings.

bogman_bass

Is is advice about what breed of cow to change to or what breed of bull to use on your cows?

dasheriff

bogman_bass wrote: »

Is is advice about what breed of cow to change to or what breed of bull to use on your cows?

Well advice on breeds of cows is what i was originally looking for but all advice is welcome..

reilig

Well if its advice on cows that you're looking for then it is very hard for you to look beyond continentals. ie. Chaorlais, Limousin, Belgian Blue, etc. It appears to be the calves of these breeds of cows, crossed with a BB bull that achieve premium prices.

morning delight

reilig wrote: »

Well if its advice on cows that you're looking for then it is very hard for you to look beyond continentals. ie. Chaorlais, Limousin, Belgian Blue, etc. It appears to be the calves of these breeds of cows, crossed with a BB bull that achieve premium prices.

+1, but I'd avoid too much BB in the cow. They have a tilted pelvis which can lead to calving problems

blue5000

And I'd tend to avoid charolais in the cow because of poor milk, that leaves you with limosines or trad breeds like aa or hereford, simmental can be good but one simmental cow would eat what two aa cows would eat. If you are selling weanlings ch or bb bull seems to be the way to go at the moment. If you are on poor land go for the hardier aa or hereford cow, if you've good land limo x brit fresian would probably suit you better.

pakalasa

Just wondering, where's the best place to get good Limousin cross Friesain replacement heifers?
I was looking thorugh the marts a while back. Found them very hard to get.
Do people buy direct from farmers?
Are there many FR's left or has the Holstein taken over completely?

blue5000

Yeah should be a good few on dairy farms using dovea ai, you'd have to persuade a farmer then with a limousine bull to part with a few...small ad might work in journal?

reilig

What sort of money would you be thinking about giving for limousin x Fresian Heifers that are fit for the bull????

I have moved away from having any fresian breeding in my cows. In the past I always thought that I needed to have a bit of milk behind a heifer, but I'm finding that milk is only half of what you need. I have black Limousin cows that are 1/4 AA. They have very little milk, but when I put an BB bull on them, they are always the best sellers as weinlings.

last year I bought a few pedigree Limousin heifers. This year is their first calves and honestly, they are great quality calves and are going to be great sellers - I won't be selling them as pedigrees. 2 of the cows are off Rocky who is renouned for being from a poor milk line, but also renouned for size shape and quality.

I fear that calves off half fresian heifers would be narrow and poor quality. I do not think they would be suitable for export buyers and I fear that you would be producing for the lower and less profitable end of the market.

vanderbadger

reilig wrote: »

What sort of money would you be thinking about giving for limousin x Fresian Heifers that are fit for the bull????

I have moved away from having any fresian breeding in my cows. In the past I always thought that I needed to have a bit of milk behind a heifer, but I'm finding that milk is only half of what you need. I have black Limousin cows that are 1/4 AA. They have very little milk, but when I put an BB bull on them, they are always the best sellers as weinlings.

last year I bought a few pedigree Limousin heifers. This year is their first calves and honestly, they are great quality calves and are going to be great sellers - I won't be selling them as pedigrees. 2 of the cows are off Rocky who is renouned for being from a poor milk line, but also renouned for size shape and quality.

I fear that calves off half fresian heifers would be narrow and poor quality. I do not think they would be suitable for export buyers and I fear that you would be producing for the lower and less profitable end of the market.

reilig did you buy them in calf or as 2 years old and put them in calf yourself, how were they in term of docility..good red lim cows are as good as any I reckon, they cross well with everything and i think they are a more durable cow than the charolais when on slats.. if they are quite they are the biz

pakalasa

The problem with breeding your own, which I am doing BTW, is that to get an-incalf heifer down the road, you'd want to be AI'ing around 40% of the Herd to good Maternal bulls. 40% is the figure used in the Dairy side of things anyway.So that's 40% less good quality BB or Charolais weanlings less to sell in the Autumn.
When you add it all up, there is a lot of cost involved. You'd want to be guaranteed a good heifer at the end.

I have few yearling heifers coming through now (18 months) which I will breed in the Autumn. They're by HKG (simm) and Nin(lim), and they look good quality. But they may not produce the goods.
I tried to calf them down at 24 months before, but I found them slow to go back in calf and so they slipped back from the rest.

reilig

vanderbadger wrote: »

reilig did you buy them in calf or as 2 years old and put them in calf yourself, how were they in term of docility..good red lim cows are as good as any I reckon, they cross well with everything and i think they are a more durable cow than the charolais when on slats.. if they are quite they are the biz

I bought them at 18 monts old and used ai on them - all to millbrook tanco. They were lively enough when I got them first. The relative that i bought them from would never have handled them. He's the sort of guy who would go to look at them on the tractor and just drive through them. They have settled very well with me - in fact, last week, I was able to put tail paint on all 4 of them in the field.

I don't intend crossing them with anything. In France 90% of breeding cows are pedigrees and I read an article in a french agriculture journal about a french agriculture university visit to Irish suckler farms. They basically made a joke of how we cross breed everything. Their exact words were something like "breeding out the profit". Basically they said that the only cross breeding that we should do is with Belgian Blues. They made a joke about seeing a brown/black cow which a farmer claimed was a chaorlais and his best breeding cow. They just could not understand why Irish Farmers felt that they needed to cross breed everything and they felt that we were losing a lot of profit by doing it.

On the same note about pedigrees / cross breeds, there is a small article / letter in today's journal which argues the benefits of keeping pedigree cows and breeding pedigree calves for beef rather than just for breeding.

bogman_bass

There is also an interesting article about using shorthorn and angus cows to reduce the size and so reduce the maintinence cost of the cow

thetangler

pakalasa wrote: »

Just wondering, where's the best place to get good Limousin cross Friesain replacement heifers?
I was looking thorugh the marts a while back. Found them very hard to get.
Do people buy direct from farmers?
Are there many FR's left or has the Holstein taken over completely?

I have 2 black lm heifers 2 yr old off britrish fresian cows ill sell if the price is right pm me if intererested

pakalasa

thetangler wrote: »

I have 2 black lm heifers 2 yr old off britrish fresian cows ill sell if the price is right pm me if intererested

.....is that why they call you the tangler.:D
No, I've enough for this year, thanks anyway.

tismesoitis

pakalasa wrote: »

The problem with breeding your own, which I am doing BTW, is that to get an-incalf heifer down the road, you'd want to be AI'ing around 40% of the Herd to good Maternal bulls. 40% is the figure used in the Dairy side of things anyway.So that's 40% less good quality BB or Charolais weanlings less to sell in the Autumn.
When you add it all up, there is a lot of cost involved. You'd want to be guaranteed a good heifer at the end.

I have few yearling heifers coming through now (18 months) which I will breed in the Autumn. They're by HKG (simm) and Nin(lim), and they look good quality. But they may not produce the goods.
I tried to calf them down at 24 months before, but I found them slow to go back in calf and so they slipped back from the rest.

this year we started ai,ing cows to maternal bulls only if they produced a very good BULL calf the previous calving. reckon theres a better chance on average of getting a heifer calf if the last one was a bull? if it works then there will b more bb bulls also. its goin to b interesting to see how it pans out. anyone know if there is any research in relation to this?

blue5000

NZ guys with dairy cows found the earlier you served a cow when she was in standing heat the more likely a heifer calf was the result. I think the logic was the male sperm would swim up immediately and get to the fallopian tube too early, ie before the egg. If the cow was served later in the heat the male sperm would get there just in time, now its not 100% effective, only about 55% chance for heifer calf.

So if you want heifers serve early rather than later.

---

:pac:

tismesoitis

yeh i heard that somewhere alrite but does early service not affect conception rate?

locky76

pakalasa wrote: »

Just wondering, where's the best place to get good Limousin cross Friesain replacement heifers?
I was looking thorugh the marts a while back. Found them very hard to get.
Do people buy direct from farmers?
Are there many FR's left or has the Holstein taken over completely?

i bought them as suck calves from a neighbour a few years ago who had brought them to four or five weeks old, sound man sold the ones who were tough to feed so the ones i bought all flew it.
i bucket fed them with maverick then, it sounds like a lot of work but i can walk up to and lay my hand on any of the bucket fed cows in my herd, you can't beat a quiet herd.