Friesian bull to beef

Cavanjack

Anyone on here rearing Friesian bulls to beef at 16 months? Do they leave any money behind them? What about autumn born bulls rather than spring born, is it possible to finish them @ 16 months and leave a profit.

1chippy

i know a lad who tried a few batches and reckons he didnt make a cent on them.

whelan1

Cavanjack wrote: »

Anyone on here rearing Friesian bulls to beef at 16 months? Do they leave any money behind them? What about autumn born bulls rather than spring born, is it possible to finish them @ 16 months and leave a profit.

if you did autumn born ones, you would have them for 2 winters? would it not be better to have them on good grass?

Cavanjack

whelan1 wrote: »

if you did autumn born ones, you would have them for 2 winters? would it not be better to have them on good grass?

Was thinking that they would make more use of grass when they'd get out in the spring at 5/6 months of age. Also beef price can be higher in feb/march when these would be slaughtered.

john_cappa

Sher u couldn't fatten them! Waste of time!

Farmer Pudsey

Cavanjack wrote: »

Was thinking that they would make more use of grass when they'd get out in the spring at 5/6 months of age. Also beef price can be higher in feb/march when these would be slaughtered.

Beef price is lower in Feb/March than any other part of the winter usually. However the advantage of autaum born bulls is that you could carry to higher weights disadvantage is that they often tend to have a good bit of Holstein blood in them I saw the figures in the journal for doing spring calves. The farmer seems to be a top class operator. He has finessed his system every year. Last year they averaged about 250 kgs if I remember right this year they killed about 285 kgs. He also put some lighter bulls back to grass.

I calculated that they ate 1.5 tons of ration, first day cost of this year calves was 155 euro. I calculated that total costs were between 950 and 1000 euro.

If they average 285 kgs@ 435/kg they made 1240 euro so they left between 250 and 300 euro profit.

yellow50HX

Farmer Pudsey wrote: »

Beef price is lower in Feb/March than any other part of the winter usually. However the advantage of autaum born bulls is that you could carry to higher weights disadvantage is that they often tend to have a good bit of Holstein blood in them I saw the figures in the journal for doing spring calves. The farmer seems to be a top class operator. He has finessed his system every year. Last year they averaged about 250 kgs if I remember right this year they killed about 285 kgs. He also put some lighter bulls back to grass.

I calculated that they ate 1.5 tons of ration, first day cost of this year calves was 155 euro. I calculated that total costs were between 950 and 1000 euro.

If they average 285 kgs@ 435/kg they made 1240 euro so they left between 250 and 300 euro profit.

That assuming they will grade. Fr bullock eat more then AA or Lims will be bigger and heavier but won't grade out as well.

Farmer Pudsey

yellow50HX wrote: »

That assuming they will grade. Fr bullock eat more then AA or Lims will be bigger and heavier but won't grade out as well.

they will only grade ''O'' however the farmers doing those under 16 month fresian bulls get a premium over normal O grade bulls as the factory's need them in May/June and as well they have plenty of markets for them as they have small meat cuts. I have seen figures where contenintal bulls U16 months made nearly 4.70 on the grid

bob charles

Farmer Pudsey wrote: »

they will only grade ''O'' however the farmers doing those under 16 month fresian bulls get a premium over normal O grade bulls as the factory's need them in May/June and as well they have plenty of markets for them as they have small meat cuts. I have seen figures where contenintal bulls U16 months made nearly 4.70 on the grid

I didn't know that factories were paying a premium for these Friesian bull, nearly certain there is no one paying a premium down the south. In reality fresians - poor FCE and poor kill out. these two things are most important if you want to make quids in beef

Farmer Pudsey

From my under standing they are paying a slightly higher price. However most that are doing it are in the dairy calf-beef program. Also the farmer in question seems to be a efficient operator. I agree with you Freisian bulls have a poor conversion rate and a poor K/O. However from my calculations he made money on them. I got 4.20 for few friesian bulls in May that were over 24 months and only fat score 2=/+ so I would imagine that these bulls made a higher price than them.

bob charles

I *told* that bulls under fat score 3 are going to be getting a serious deduction. Anything to reduce price I suppose, how hard is it to get FR bulls to be 3's

Farmer Pudsey wrote: »

From my under standing they are paying a slightly higher price. However most that are doing it are in the dairy calf-beef program. Also the farmer in question seems to be a efficient operator. I agree with you Freisian bulls have a poor conversion rate and a poor K/O. However from my calculations he made money on them. I got 4.20 for few friesian bulls in May that were over 24 months and only fat score 2=/+ so I would imagine that these bulls made a higher price than them.

Are you able to reference from article about said producer

yellow50HX

Unless you have access to cheap on farm feed and are picking up the calves cheap I can't see how they can make money,unless you have economy of scale.

Farmer Pudsey

bob charles wrote: »

I *told* that bulls under fat score 3 are going to be getting a serious deduction. Anything to reduce price I suppose, how hard is it to get FR bulls to be 3's





Are you able to reference from article about said producer

The article is on page 34 of the comic. That is the thing about bulls especially friesians it is only when the factories are short of cattle that they want them other than that if you had red bulls they want white one and is you had both they would want purple one's.

Yes they will take under 16 month bulls all the time but it is very hard to make a profit on dairy bred ones.

freedominacup

Farmer Pudsey wrote: »

The article is on page 34 of the comic. That is the thing about bulls especially friesians it is only when the factories are short of cattle that they want them other than that if you had red bulls they want white one and is you had both they would want purple one's.

Yes they will take under 16 month bulls all the time but it is very hard to make a profit on dairy bred ones.

That was always the trick. We've done them on and off for years depending on various factors calf price, land availability, grain price etc but the trick used to be anyway to have them coming ready in June/July when suitable stock was less available to the factories. We used to even get a few of the smaller ones away to butchers.

Cavanjack

Why so much talk about 16 month bulls anyway, what about if they were 18 months would the quality of beef be any different?

whelan1

Cavanjack wrote: »

Why so much talk about 16 month bulls anyway, what about if they were 18 months would the quality of beef be any different?

didnt you open this thread on 16 month beef

Cavanjack

whelan1 wrote: »

didnt you open this thread on 16 month beef

Yeah I did. Sorry Didn't word that right. How come all talk of 16month from the journal and teagasc is what I meant.

Farmer Pudsey

Cavanjack wrote: »

Why so much talk about 16 month bulls anyway, what about if they were 18 months would the quality of beef be any different?

Cavanjack wrote: »

Yeah I did. Sorry Didn't word that right. How come all talk of 16month from the journal and teagasc is what I meant.

Factory's want farmers in Ireland to do what is done across Europe and that is finish bulls at les than 16 month of age. However other countries have access to by-products that reduce the cost of finishing cattle as opposed to an all cereal diet we use at finishing as we do not have access to these by-products.

As well as that we have seasonal production to try to produce as much milk as possible off grass. This leaves a situation where in the dairy herd about 80% of calves are born in a 10 week period from the spring Dairy herd. from the end of January until early April.

One of the disadvantages of this is that we end up with a large number of Freisians born in the early part of the season. The 16 month limit also consides with the time when Factory's are short of produce May/June. 18 month old bulls would be competing with grass based beef and is also too young for Freisians.

Traditionally over the last few years some farmers finished these at 22-26 months for Dec-April demand. This allowed a second year growth on cheap grass. Factory's are no longer interested in this product and are trying to discount it. The Bulls price has also failed to rise along with other cattle price.

2-3 years ago O grade bulls got the steer base price+ the QA and R&U grades got 12-18 cent a grade above this. At present Factory's tend when they have enough beef to discount these bulls 20-40 cent below the base and have no interest in over 24 month bulls. This has made this trade very hard to predict and in my opinion you need to target certain times with these cattle mainly mid Dec- Late January and late April-Late June. at the end of these period you need to get rid of any that are not finished in case they go over age.

Damo810

Cavanjack wrote: »

Yeah I did. Sorry Didn't word that right. How come all talk of 16month from the journal and teagasc is what I meant.

Thats when the factory wants them as far as I know. Having them ready by 16 months old is the problem though. Higher feed cost and lower carcase weight..