replacements

whelan1

was at a farm walk today where the farmer had exclusively used a charolais - cant spell it:rolleyes:- bull with his dairy cows for the last few years and bought in replacements , was also talking to another guy last night that only used belgian blue on his dairy cows and also bought in all replacements .... this seems crazy to me as you never know what you are buying in , does any one else have views on it , would work out quite expensive in the long run , me thinks

Pacoa

You'll never have a good herd buying someone else's second best imho. Or at least your herd won't be as good as it could be.

irishh_bob

whelan1 wrote: »

was at a farm walk today where the farmer had exclusively used a charolais - cant spell it:rolleyes:- bull with his dairy cows for the last few years and bought in replacements , was also talking to another guy last night that only used belgian blue on his dairy cows and also bought in all replacements .... this seems crazy to me as you never know what you are buying in , does any one else have views on it , would work out quite expensive in the long run , me thinks

i wouldnt put a continental bull on dairy cows if my life depended on it and i also believe in breeding your own replacements , bought in dairy animals are always the most likely to cause problems , that and the price of them

whelan1

ye a charolais of all bulls to use ... most of them have a very long gestation period ... its hard to understand in this day and age

bogman_bass

We used a good bit of blue seamen when we were milking but would never touch a CH. The calves are big boned from the start. no thanks. we bread all our own replacement accept for the year we lost a number of cows to TB when we were lucky enough to buy from local guys.

leg wax

when i was in milk i put all cows in calf to blues, and found that 5 calfs could buy me in a calved heifer from most of the top herds in the country, for me it cut out extra land rental extra loans from banks for buildings extra bills for the general up keep of the replacements, i could put all my effort into getting the best return from my cows and land.