Derrypatrick herd

whelan1

polod wrote: »

IMO grange is pure point less .......they are based on some of the best land in ireland there .........if they can or cannot make money there how could someone with poor land in west or north west make a few bob....................suckler research should be carried out in Mayo, Sligo, Cavan , longford , leitrim etc.........where most of the suckler farms are located ....how could someone possibly compare a farm in leitrim for example to meath .......it just doesn't make sence to me.

its similar to moorepark in the dairying

polod

whelan1 wrote: »

its similar to moorepark in the dairying

government for ya :rolleyes:

bluenun83

polod wrote: »

IMO grange is pure point less .......they are based on some of the best land in ireland there .........if they can or cannot make money there how could someone with poor land in west or north west make a few bob....................suckler research should be carried out in Mayo, Sligo, Cavan , longford , leitrim etc.........where most of the suckler farms are located ....how could someone possibly compare a farm in leitrim for example to meath .......it just doesn't make sence to me.

sure there trying to get a demo herd for the west of ireland set up for the last year or so.

polod

bluenun83 wrote: »

sure there trying to get a demo herd for the west of ireland set up for the last year or so.

there was a research farm in ballinamore co. leitrim i think a few years ago and they closed it......maybe they will maybe they wount only time will tell

bluenun83

blue5000 wrote: »

I was down in johnstown castle at the dairy calf to beef open day this week, with the clear message that these systems were not profitable. Barely a cent to be made. it showed that the profit was so sensitive to calf price and concentrate price that the 16 month system was completely unprofitable. All things being fair and equal, i'll bet you won't see a road to bankruptcy heading on that story!!! Just calling a spade a spade here!!


Hi bluenun was any of those dairy bull beef systems profitable? I read a paper on it earlier and it didn't look too good either here:

http://www.agresearch.teagasc.ie/moorepark/Publications/pdfs/ProfitableBeefProductionfromtheDairyHerd.pdf

I think the only way that this beef system will work is if the meat factories are prepared to pay for leaner beef that is finished off grass. It simply doesn't pay to horse in concentrate (barley + soya!) into these sort of cattle.

Finishing bulls at 16 months (dairy of beef sires) is what the factories want; however, the factories know now that trying to finish at this stage of life is not economically viable. So they know that if they want them at this age they'll have to pay a premium rate to cover the farmer. I doubt that they will. This year in particular, calf prices went ape in springtime. Buying calves at 200 quid at a few days old would eat into the potential profit later on. It turned out that the bulls would have made more profit if they were'nt finished and just sold before the finishing stage, but i think this years cattle prices are repsonsible for that.

flatout11

problem with derrypatrick is taht it tried to have a bit of everything to please everyone (breed wise)... and i belive its gonna add 2 to 3 more breeds to confuse the issue...
starting with 120 heifers was bound to be a problem... the infertile lue bull didnt improve things much either, but like it or not **** happens although you wuold think they would see the repeats and get suspicious!!!
if they were aiming at a suckler calf to beef system its a pity they didnt just keep it simple lm x fr or sim cows charo bull and push the boat out
see what it could do...
the answer
kg per cow per ha per year ..... thats what its all about
problem is at a open day 90 % of the crowd would get bored of this and leave
we do love a circus
still on a positive note at least farmers are talking about cow fertility/calf mortality etc.....

Conflats

I think that ok Teagasc did make mistakes with derrypatrick and for years beef farmers wanted a demonstration herd like curtins farm in cork, now that they got it they will nit pick at everything and right too but for any farmer to start saying how perfect they are is a complete b****x, they only love to complain about something. and regards the BETTER farmers Teagasc are trying to find a easier way to bring the results of their research to the farmer and i think its a good idea farmers beef men in particular need to improve to compete and regardless of sfp your farm should be turning a profit and doesnt matter about farm size if you work the basics right weather you have 10 cows or 100 cows you can set yourself a target. If one person can say they never made a mistake well they must be some person because its human nature and in grange ok they messed up with the bulls and i ask anyone who wants to give out about the staff in grange go up and meet them, and this ****e about semi state lads yea every business has a few who do f**k all but its not just in the public sector. And last piont if your not happy about the journal and Teagasc dont avail of them or there research do your own thing and keep going with your 'great' farms

Bodacious

+ 1, well said

flatout11

the BIGGER question is are demo farms in teagasc really contributing to the overall farming world????
just to preface this, i thought the grange lads were very open and honest at the open day and i thought there was good info on offer if you knew what you were after
do demo farms work?
they can provide a lot of information ... but...
they are state farms and yes they do clock off in the evening (maybe we all should tis a buisness after all )
but to be fair its only a job for them and there payed by the hour besides do most teagasc lads not farm aswell....
The reality is a 'demo farm' needs to be a real commercial farm belonging to a real farmer where the decisions/responsability is down to 1 person.... (not a group of 5 to 10 all with ideas/interests)
on this farm you put in place the best practices/research available and monitor the progress!!!!
personally i dont belive in 'blueprints' they sound great and some of us but is it not more important to understand the problem (eg. grassland management) and think on your feet in your own farm suituation rather than do x on march 1st and y on march 2nd
you need to treat a farm like a buisness and examine your weaknesses
last time i looked i know i had plenty!!!!!!

bluenun83

Conflats wrote: »

I think that ok Teagasc did make mistakes with derrypatrick and for years beef farmers wanted a demonstration herd like curtins farm in cork, now that they got it they will nit pick at everything and right too but for any farmer to start saying how perfect they are is a complete b****x, they only love to complain about something. and regards the BETTER farmers Teagasc are trying to find a easier way to bring the results of their research to the farmer and i think its a good idea farmers beef men in particular need to improve to compete and regardless of sfp your farm should be turning a profit and doesnt matter about farm size if you work the basics right weather you have 10 cows or 100 cows you can set yourself a target. If one person can say they never made a mistake well they must be some person because its human nature and in grange ok they messed up with the bulls and i ask anyone who wants to give out about the staff in grange go up and meet them, and this ****e about semi state lads yea every business has a few who do f**k all but its not just in the public sector. And last piont if your not happy about the journal and Teagasc dont avail of them or there research do your own thing and keep going with your 'great' farms

Well said indeed

reilig

bluenun83 wrote: »

sure there trying to get a demo herd for the west of ireland set up for the last year or so.

Isn't is in sligo that they are trying to set it up? On some of the finest land in the country?? I'd prefer to see a demo farm on marginal land. It would be far more realistic.

bluenun83

reilig wrote: »

Isn't is in sligo that they are trying to set it up? On some of the finest land in the country?? I'd prefer to see a demo farm on marginal land. It would be far more realistic.

Haven't a clue where,
The IFA are mad to get it up and running and more than likley be a front runner with it, so i doubt they'll pick somewhere that will leave more lads with something to complain about!!

flatout11

could be wrong but i thought the farm in sligo was for a 'greenfield' dairy ... was it not in doonally hse. where sligo ai was?
do you think they will go for a 'greenfield' site ?

Conflats

is the idea of some of the better farms in the west not there to bring the message to the farmers in that area, where grange develops the ideas and then the better farmers implement them?? because it would make sense and the reason why its in grange is because Teagasc does not have the money to pay lads up in the west to set up a farm, rent land,stock it, and move research facilities there, wonder why they didnt set up another in athenry like they did with ballyhaise or else they are waiting to get things rolling in one first before moving

Bitten & Hisses

bluenun83 wrote: »

2. In the forum at the open day, the lad from ICBF stated that they were going to generate a new index for suckler cows - as in the index currently in place (SBV) does not work!!!!

If the old Suckler beef value was used to select the Derrypatrick herd in the first place, then they were always starting off from a bad foot, and clearly that has shown in the fertility last year.
What you end up having is charolais cows out of CF52 that are high in overall SBV because of the carcass weightings in the index fro the beef traits are too high. You know and i know that any CF52 straws used at home are for ****ers that will be haning up in 20 or 22 months time, and not in the cow.

This has been a pet hate of mine for the past while. I have focussed on trying to have docile, fertile, cows with easy calving bloodlines, much to the detriment of the SBV on my herd. I believe that the weighting is skewed towards beef carcase value.

pakalasa

Ya, the Suckler Beef Value doesn't mean anything really. It's all the other indexes lumped into one. A bull with a high SBV, tells you that the bull is a 'good bull' but it doesn't say in what way. You really have to look at the other sub-indexes to make sense of it.

flatout11

pakalasa wrote: »

Ya, the Suckler Beef Value doesn't mean anything really. It's all the other indexes lumped into one. A bull with a high SBV, tells you that the bull is a 'good bull' but it doesn't say in what way. You really have to look at the other sub-indexes to make sense of it.

thats the problem, look the icbf are trying but i cant understand what their obsession with these combined indexes are, if i want a sell export weanlings it means nothing if i want to finish cows it means nothing and if i want to breed a suckler cow..... pure guesswork ...... but we are all told about the great 5 stars that mean????
whats your opinion on the milk index???

blue5000

Its a bit rough and ready alright. If you have an ok cow sired by a bull in ai her sbv value is high no matter what she is like. But if you have an outstanding cow by your own stock bull the bull will probably be dead 10 years before he is recognized as a good bull.

I'd use it as a guide though before buying a bull. The good stuff will still come out on top, it is hard to breed for every genetic trait at once!

It takes three generations to make progress, but only one generation to fcuuk it up.:o

flatout11

blue5000 wrote: »

It takes three generations to make progress, but only one generation to fcuuk it up.:o

well thats the truth!!!
i would like to see a index that was reflective of maternal traits,
using calf weaning weight is a limited guide as meal feeding can account for a lot, in france they use 120 day weight,
funny thing is if you compare lims for example on milk yeild those with high EBVs on the basco (british icbf...) site are often poor on the ICBF index

pakalasa

flatout11 wrote: »

.. but we are all told about the great 5 stars that mean????
whats your opinion on the milk index???

Each star is 20%, so 5 stars means it is in the top 20% for that trait. One star - it is in the bottom 20% etc.
I love to know how they measure the milk index. I remember years ago reading that they weighed the calf before and after it suckled the cow. I don't think ICBf are doing that on a wide scale. I got a letter from them asking to fill up data on my cows milk, a while back - must do it.

flatout11

sure it has to be from weaning weight, i think the GROW calves are weighed but sure how many of them are out there,
what happened to that suckler cow survey??

bluenun83

flatout11 wrote: »

sure it has to be from weaning weight, i think the GROW calves are weighed but sure how many of them are out there,
what happened to that suckler cow survey??

The only way you can measure it to some degree, is by measuring at weaning. They are (ICBF) introducing a new thing by more weights at weaning to get an some indication of milk performance.

And yes the economic weightings on the carcass index within SBV are way to high, hence the new thing they are bringing out.

They main reason for you having a good stock bull and it not getting recognised, is that it takes large numbers of progeny on the ground to give an accurate indication of how the bull is performing. The more numbers (progeny) then the higher the reliability. Its not much having stars if the reliability is down at 5%. AI bulls get hundreds on the ground every year, hence their increased reliability.

The carcass indexes are easy to do, because the data is in the factory. The only thing they need to do is get the weanling exporters to weigh before their sold.

General rule of thumb as i see it is that for every 5 animals you get on the ground from a bull, you'll get 3 that are what they say they'll be, 1 that will be under expectation, and 1 that will be over what is expected. Its not perfect, but there is nothing like it anywhere else in the world!!!

The EBI system was far from perfect when it started off, but it is gradually getting better and better. The same should happen with this.

flatout11

the thing is the ebi system had acess to a large volume of data on a yearly basis...
the real problem areas in beef breeding are the maternal side
yes carcass is not an issue
calving difficulty - farmers will actually record this so i dont think this is a major problem
now the suckler cow.....
i cant see large numbers of farmers weighing their calves mid summer .... it is a pity but without this kind of data the number of sires with decent info will be extremely limited and progress will be slow as we will be relying on old bulls with large numbers of daughters in production,
i still think that the sbv value should be scrapped as i feel it is missleading and somewhat irrelevant, the new star system is a good means of conveying the information but if it were kept to
carcass
weanling
and maternal

horses for courses

pakalasa

Ya but when it comes to MILK, how do you seperate the beef genetics of the cow from her milk genetics. If you know what I mean.
By that I mean, if a cow has a good weanling, how much of that is down to the beef breeding of the cow rather than the milk she produces.

bluenun83

pakalasa wrote: »

Ya but when it comes to MILK, how do you seperate the beef genetics of the cow from her milk genetics. If you know what I mean.
By that I mean, if a cow has a good weanling, how much of that is down to the beef breeding of the cow rather than the milk she produces.

Irrespective of beef breed type, average weights of calves at birth, by and large, are not different from each other. If the cow does not have enough milk then you would expect poor performance up to weaning. Overall average daily gain would be poor. Therefore, weaning weights would reflect the "milkiness" of the cow type. The beef genetics come into play in the performance of the calf while on milk (their ability to put on weight relatively quickly with adequate nutrition).

flatout11

pakalasa wrote: »

Ya but when it comes to MILK, how do you seperate the beef genetics of the cow from her milk genetics. If you know what I mean.
By that I mean, if a cow has a good weanling, how much of that is down to the beef breeding of the cow rather than the milk she produces.

If we know the pedigree of the herd and have adaquate contempory groups (ie calves of the same sire age etc...) then you can seperate out the maternal genetic contribution to the animals performance, from my limited understanding of genetics good data is key.

the problem as i see it is that the information neccessary to do this is not there at the moment. The information we are using is not entirely suitable, but its the best available, the only record of weight for most is the sale weight of calves at 6 to 10 months of age,
at which piont feeding can mask the effects of the cow, if we had the weight at 4 to 5 months i think we could make real progress....

Bigbird1

bluenun83 wrote: »

Irrespective of beef breed type, average weights of calves at birth, by and large, are not different from each other. If the cow does not have enough milk then you would expect poor performance up to weaning. Overall average daily gain would be poor. Therefore, weaning weights would reflect the "milkiness" of the cow type. The beef genetics come into play in the performance of the calf while on milk (their ability to put on weight relatively quickly with adequate nutrition).

well said,

A well bred calf needs adequate milk to make full use of its genetics.

thats why some pedigree breeders often have a fresian cow in the yard

bluenun83

Bigbird1 wrote: »

well said,

A well bred calf needs adequate milk to make full use of its genetics.

thats why some pedigree breeders often have a fresian cow in the yard

Pedigree breeds are excluded from datasets in ICBF for that very reason.

just do it

Maybe they're not doing so bad. GM/ha in 2013 was €905 compared to an average of €570 for the better farms

bogman_bass

They were always going to make mistakes in the first couple of years when they found were the limits were with what they could do. Comebine that with the fact that all the stock was bought in and you were bound to have a tough first year (as many of the new entrents to dairy are about to find out!)