best weanling breed?

johnpawl

was thinkin of buying a few charlaois cows and putting them in calf to a belgian blue and selling the weanlings round this time every year... Would this be a good choice breed to make a few pounds? Also would there be any advantage to having the charlaois cows purebred? New to this craic as my father sold off the dairy cows few years ago..
One last question.... when i see people n about the price belgian blue weanlings make are these PB or what?

reilig

johnpawl wrote: »

was thinkin of buying a few charlaois cows and putting them in calf to a belgian blue and selling the weanlings round this time every year... Would this be a good choice breed to make a few pounds? Also would there be any advantage to having the charlaois cows purebred? New to this craic as my father sold off the dairy cows few years ago..
One last question.... when i see people n about the price belgian blue weanlings make are these PB or what?

A few words of advice.

Just because people are getting big prices for BB weinlings doesn't mean that they are making a huge profit on them.

The prices that people are talking about here for BB weinlings are usually for commercial BB's rather than pedigree.

Putting a pedigree BB bull onto a pedigree Chaorlais cow is a big risk - big chance that the calf will be double muscle and you might have to section your cow to get the calf out.

Belgian blue breeding on commercial cows is tricky. You need to know what you are doing. You need to know how to feed your cows properly so that the calves aren't too big - ie not let your cows feed ad lib. You need big cows. They need to be broad and capable of calving big calves. BB isn't suitable for putting on heifers.

Chaorlais cows are the cow of choice for suckler farmers in this country. Chaorlais weinlings sell well in the marts and attract both weinling export buyers and store cattle buyers around the mart ring. If you are not used to breeding sucklers start with chaorlais cows and cross them with a chaorlais or Limousin bull the first year. You will have an idea of how easy calving they are and you will have more experience with them and can choose to put Belgian Blue on them the second year if you think that they are suitable.

pakalasa

Watch the Charolais though for milk. If they have no milk, then they aint much good!
Also if you have wet land, they're the heaviest of the breeds. They can cut up land that bit more.

johnpawl

sound, thanks alot for the replies..Right I'll steer clear of the belgian blue for now...If I was to buy a few charlaois cows what'd I be looking out for and roughly what kind of money would I be talking about?The land is dry alright but is there a problem with charlaois and milk?

leg wax

i would question your choice of dam breed if you are going to go down the export road in the future.

johnpawl

leg wax wrote: »

i would question your choice of dam breed if you are going to go down the export road in the future.

What would you do if you were me? basically starting from scratch with herd.. have 50 good acres. 3 bay slatted unit, cubicle houses n scrapers all from dairy herd which is sold..

leg wax

johnpawl wrote: »

What would you do if you were me? basically starting from scratch with herd.. have 50 good acres. 3 bay slatted unit, cubicle houses n scrapers all from dairy herd which is sold..

have you any animals at the moment

pakalasa

JP,
I started suckling from scratch a few years ago. Made a few mistakes along the way, but took the advice of others which helped me a lot.


Here are a few tips;

• If you're buying cows or breeding heifers in the mart, get there early and go into the pens to see which ones are quiet. Even one mad cow will make life hell.
• In the first year calf the heifers about 6 wks earlier ahead of your normal calving date. Give them an extra bit of meal too, after calving, as heifers, especially when they have a calf at foot, take a long time to come bulling after calving.
• In the first year only use easy calving bulls, be it AI or or a bull running with them. Trying to get top priced weanlings the first year from heifers is not worth it.
• As for the breeding in the cow, there's a good rule that says - let the cow have the frame and the bull add the muscle. Everybody has their own preferences, but the most popular is the Limousin. They have a good balance of everthing. Their only downfall is they can be a bit on the mad side. If you continously cull the wild ones and only use bulls with a good docility index you should be fine.
• I wouldnt go mad paying big money for cows/heifers either. It's often the plainer types that produce the best weanlings. Do you know anyone that might sell you a few, a friend or relative that you trust.
• You dont have to jump in the deep end either, could start from 20 cows or so and build up the numbers as you go along.

Sorry if this is all abvious - dont know how much experience you have!;)

Tora Bora

leg wax wrote: »

i would question your choice of dam breed if you are going to go down the export road in the future.

Why? Is it the milk issue, or do you just consider charolais cows just generally unsuitable for production of export standard weanlings.

snowman707

each year we sell some bulling heifers LM X MO and LM X MOX, they must be producing the goods, we have repeat customers coming 100 miles each year,

they bull them to Lm first year and BB thereafter.

johnpawl

pakalasa wrote: »

JP,
I started suckling from scratch a few years ago. Made a few mistakes along the way, but took the advice of others which helped me a lot.



Here are a few tips;

• If you're buying cows or breeding heifers in the mart, get there early and go into the pens to see which ones are quiet. Even one mad cow will make life hell.
• In the first year calf the heifers about 6 wks earlier ahead of your normal calving date. Give them an extra bit of meal too, after calving, as heifers, especially when they have a calf at foot, take a long time to come bulling after calving.
• In the first year only use easy calving bulls, be it AI or or a bull running with them. Trying to get top priced weanlings the first year from heifers is not worth it.
• As for the breeding in the cow, there's a good rule that says - let the cow have the frame and the bull add the muscle. Everybody has their own preferences, but the most popular is the Limousin. They have a good balance of everthing. Their only downfall is they can be a bit on the mad side. If you continously cull the wild ones and only use bulls with a good docility index you should be fine.
• I wouldnt go mad paying big money for cows/heifers either. It's often the plainer types that produce the best weanlings. Do you know anyone that might sell you a few, a friend or relative that you trust.
• You dont have to jump in the deep end either, could start from 20 cows or so and build up the numbers as you go along.

Sorry if this is all abvious - dont know how much experience you have!;)

No not too obvious, appreciate the avice!!
At present we've about twenty cows, mostly angus hereford crosses. Had a BB blue bull last year with 'em, and alot of the calves dont seem great compared to what I saw at the mart last week, have two fine bull weanlings far better than the rest so I checked their mothers and both their mothers are piedmontese crosses, the only pied we have. Anyway, my father,s talking bout retiring shortly and he's going to sell out everything so I was wondering where to go from here..The fact that the two pied cows had the better calves set me to thinkin on what to do, so thats my situation...Basically starting from zero...also working full time off farm but have alot of hols..

adne

johnpawl wrote: »

No not too obvious, appreciate the avice!!
At present we've about twenty cows, mostly angus hereford crosses. Had a BB blue bull last year with 'em, and alot of the calves dont seem great compared to what I saw at the mart last week, have two fine bull weanlings far better than the rest so I checked their mothers and both their mothers are piedmontese crosses, the only pied we have. Anyway, my father,s talking bout retiring shortly and he's going to sell out everything so I was wondering where to go from here..The fact that the two pied cows had the better calves set me to thinkin on what to do, so thats my situation...Basically starting from zero...also working full time off farm but have alot of hols..

BB crossed with Angus or Hereford don't turn out well, the BB are low in stature as are the AA/Hereford so you end up with a butty calf.

Best cross for BB is from a LMX cow