buying calves in early spring

lalababa

Has anybody got an opinion about making a profit on 50 acres of good grass by buying in young heifer /bull calves from a few weeks old from dairy stock in early spring for around 150euros and putting them out in late may and selling them as weanlings in late oct?? And any particular breeds would be best also heifers versus bull calves?? Thanks.

leg wax

lalababa wrote: »

Has anybody got an opinion about making a profit on 50 acres of good grass by buying in young heifer /bull calves from a few weeks old from dairy stock in early spring for around 150euros and putting them out in late may and selling them as weanlings in late oct?? And any particular breeds would be best also heifers versus bull calves?? Thanks.

if you want to make a profit i would suggest getting them outside when they are settled into a feeding routine after a fortnight on your farm no straw vet bills hopefully, its a route that needs the animal to perform without any set backs and they will really have to look good when going to mart as you will have yours standing alongside suckler calves and frs never look good alongside beef.

reilig

leg wax wrote: »

they will really have to look good when going to mart as you will have yours standing alongside suckler calves and frs never look good alongside beef.

This is the main difficulty that you face. Calves off dairy cows will never match up to calves of continentals. I have a neighbour this year who bought week old calves at EUR100 in February. Fed them Maverick for 10 weeks along with a good helping of ration up until 3 weeks ago. He sold them at a weinling sale then. They averaged EUR350 per head. They were CHX and BBX, 5 bulls and 4 heifers. Total loss making exercise. Swears that there is far more to me made out of buyiing weinlings in early March, putting them out on grass until October and selling them off again,

johnpawl

reilig wrote: »

This is the main difficulty that you face. Calves off dairy cows will never match up to calves of continentals. I have a neighbour this year who bought week old calves at EUR100 in February. Fed them Maverick for 10 weeks along with a good helping of ration up until 3 weeks ago. He sold them at a weinling sale then. They averaged EUR350 per head. They were CHX and BBX, 5 bulls and 4 heifers. Total loss making exercise. Swears that there is far more to me made out of buyiing weinlings in early March, putting them out on grass until October and selling them off again,

Why did they make such poor money?

reilig

johnpawl wrote: »

Why did they make such poor money?

The calves were half freisian. They had poor muscle despite all the ration eaten. It was very difficult to put condition on them. they were the lowest priced animals on the day of sale at the mart.

snowman707

reilig wrote: »

The calves were half freisian. They had poor muscle despite all the ration eaten. It was very difficult to put condition on them. they were the lowest priced animals on the day of sale at the mart.

in fairness for €100 what would you expect ? they must have been proper screws to start with,

back to op's post

I think you would be better off buying weanlings or yearlings, they is a massive amount of "runners" presently coming into the marts as a result of a 2009 being a difficult year to get cows back in calf, the pick of these are being bought for export,


back to buying off FR cows, as stated they will not match the offspring of continental cows but it is still possible to acquire decent cattle, capable of r and o grades,


if buying off a dairy farmer ask to see his cows, and if they are holstein or holstein X best to avoid , they will just grow and grow and as reilig says muscle will be lacking


last spring I saw a lot of yearling hereford heifers selling for small money ,these were good quality, obviously off British fr. cows would have left a lot of money if slaughtered about now, might also be worth considering joining the hereford Prime

another advantage would be be, in the unfortunate event of getting locked up with tb you be able to sell the stock as normal

Dunedin

snowman707 wrote: »

these were good quality, obviously off British fr. cows

There is a huge difference between the British Fr and the Holestein.


would many diary herds still have the British Fr??????? I wouldn't have thought so but out of the diary game a long time................