starting a suckler herd

jfh

Hi all, i had a few sim weanlings this year, impressed with them but not with the prices that they made, although they were 100kgs heavier than some Char or BB. there was no demand for them. So If you were starting a suckler herd from scratch; all thoughts appreciated. thanks
what kind of cows would you be going for?
what would you cross them with?
autumn or spring calvers?

vanderbadger

red lims (quiet ones) crossed with blue bull, or maybe parthenaise cows with blues, I have heard thats a good cross but never seen such offspring

leg wax

vanderbadger wrote: »

red lims (quiet ones) crossed with blue bull, or maybe parthenaise cows with blues, I have heard thats a good cross but never seen such offspring

yes i agree with vanerbadger, and if starting with heifers i would start to calf them down in july and that gives them plenty of time to come around bulling for winter ai and sell the blues in june.

jfh

hi legwax, that's interesting, mine calved in september and sold weanlings this month, prob held onto them too long, good market for them in june?

jfh

no knowledge of parthenaise, what colour calf would a Red LM x BB be?

leg wax

jfh wrote: »

hi legwax, that's interesting, mine calved in september and sold weanlings this month, prob held onto them too long, good market for them in june?

the problem i see with calving a heifer in sept its hard to keep her there as in will she slip into october/nov look at what happened in the new suckler unit at teagasc all heifers poor rates of conception, now there was different problems on the farm but as far as i am concerned you have to give a heifer after haveing a calf longer time to come around bulling shes under alot of pressure feeding a calf and still growing herself, in dairy farms they always suggest to calve down heifers first before the main herd its no different for sucklers.as for a better price in june yes ,i was at carnew mart last night just to see the trade and if i had to hold onto my weanlings til now i would have had the extra feed costs trying to keep grass in front of thecow and calf and my cattle would have made 3000 euro less last night.bulls last night 500kg made 1000/1250 euros if the same bulls were sold in june at 400kg they would havemade 1300/1400 euro.

pakalasa

Calf the heifers 6 weeks ahead of the main herd as that's the amount they'll slip back by. According to teagasc etc. Worth giving them an extra bit of meal too after they calf, to keep them in good shape and get them back bulling ASAP.

tismesoitis

jfh wrote: »

Hi all, i had a few sim weanlings this year, impressed with them but not with the prices that they made, although they were 100kgs heavier than some Char or BB. there was no demand for them. So If you were starting a suckler herd from scratch; all thoughts appreciated. thanks
what kind of cows would you be going for?
what would you cross them with?
autumn or spring calvers?

our experience with sim is too much udder after 3 or 4 calves. had 2 sim cows that we had to help the calf on to d tit this year. love d (quiet) red lims mind and goin to use some parthanias this year to try them.

jfh

Hi tismesoitis, sorry for dragging this up again, will you be crossing the lim with a parthanias? or are you buying parthanias heifers?
trying to start a suckler herd and want to get it right form the start.
whats your opinion on salers?

tismesoitis

jfh wrote: »

Hi tismesoitis, sorry for dragging this up again, will you be crossing the lim with a parthanias? or are you buying parthanias heifers?
trying to start a suckler herd and want to get it right form the start.
whats your opinion on salers?

yeh i'll cross the parthanais on what seem to be our better cows. just using parthanais for the first time this year so still goin to breed lim replacements just in case i'm not overjoyed with what i get from parthanais. running a closed herd so won't be buyin in. don't know much about saler but get the impression they have too much frame and not enough muscle to breed the heavy muscle blues

mayo_lad

hi i'm just going to put this out there you could buy 4 or 5 limosine fresion crosses and cross them with a blue to give you a good suckler cow with plenty of milk

jfh

hi mayo_lad, yeah when we had dairy, we used to cross the last cows with a good Lim stock bull,always got good milky quiet sucklers, are you talking about having a BB cross in the dam? sorry if i'm asking something that seems obvious, no experience of BB? i always though BB were problem calvers.
thanks for the feedback

mayo_lad

i just gave bb as an example you could use any good beef breed bull on those fr/lm crosses