Calf to beef systems?

CluanBomb

Anyone operating this system?

Interested to know If its beef men that are purchasing calves from dairy farms or more a case of dairy lads putting a beef bull on the cows and doing it on the side?

Seems like a good system if you can get or produce calves from cross fr cows and beef bulls at the right cost.

Insp. Harry Callahan

Yip doing a bit of it here now for a few years, I work with sucklers aswell though selling them out this winter.
Sourcing the right calf is very important, massive variation in quality. I was fattening them as bulls but fattening them as bullocks this winter.

Very interesting article in Tuesday's farming supplement about calf to beef potential profitablity if you get a chance read it.

bbam

Insp. Harry Callahan wrote: »

Sourcing the right calf is very important, massive variation in quality..

This is the problem...
Too many easy calving small framed HE & AA being used.. Buying calves at 2-3 weeks its near impossible to tell..
One local farmer I bought 4 calves off this year had changed his bull, calves are only average compared to previous calves..

We don't finish as our ground is heavy and unsuitable.. Sell off at ~350kg..
Must dig out that article from tuesday...

CluanBomb

Stocking rates of finishing animals per ha is obviously higher but I am very ignorant to the systems people are employing with this and if it is much more viable than sucklers( which is not very!) I better look at that article!

Guess I'd like to know the following is anyone is willing to share.

Age purchasing calves at and rough price?
Breeds?
Where sourcing the calves from?
Feeding from purchase to finish ie meal powdered milk etc?
Cost of this feed?
Age of kill?
Advantages/disadvantages over traditional dry stock or suckling beef enterprises in your opinion/experience!

bbam

CluanBomb wrote: »

Stocking rates of finishing animals per ha is obviously higher but I am very ignorant to the systems people are employing with this and if it is much more viable than sucklers( which is not very!) I better look at that article!

Guess I'd like to know the following is anyone is willing to share.

Age purchasing calves at and rough price? 3-6 Weeks old, €250-350
Breeds? HEx, Chx, AAx,
Where sourcing the calves from? Farms, Mart, Dealer
Feeding from purchase to finish ie meal powdered milk etc? No simple answer, powdered milk for minimum time..
Cost of this feed? Milk replacers vary hugely in price per feed, make sure you work out price per feed as bags vary from 55-80 feeds per bag
Age of kill?
Advantages/disadvantages over traditional dry stock or suckling beef enterprises in your opinion/experience! No calving down cows so more controlable if your working away from home.

I'm looking forward to seeing the details of the report as €2000/Ha is serious going.. I could easily be enticed away from fulltime work if that were attainable..

freedominacup

bbam wrote: »

This is the problem...
Too many easy calving small framed HE & AA being used.. Buying calves at 2-3 weeks its near impossible to tell..
One local farmer I bought 4 calves off this year had changed his bull, calves are only average compared to previous calves..

We don't finish as our ground is heavy and unsuitable.. Sell off at ~350kg..
Must dig out that article from tuesday...

Stop selling @ 350 kg. You have the hard slog done and aren't getting paid for it. The only year we ever got paid for that sort of thing was '11 when everything with 4 legs and a pulse was getting mad money. Got almost €2/kg that year. We were finishing everything before that but were getting back into cows and everything else had to go. You've already got the calf rearing sorted. Make top quality forage and try to get your hands on green grain at harvest. We have never fed more than 6kg to finishing cattle I just don't see how fellas make a return on it.

bbam

freedominacup wrote: »

Stop selling @ 350 kg. You have the hard slog done and aren't getting paid for it. The only year we ever got paid for that sort of thing was '11 when everything with 4 legs and a pulse was getting mad money. Got almost €2/kg that year. We were finishing everything before that but were getting back into cows and everything else had to go. You've already got the calf rearing sorted. Make top quality forage and try to get your hands on green grain at harvest. We have never fed more than 6kg to finishing cattle I just don't see how fellas make a return on it.

Have no experience here in finishing cattle at all...
And I'd suspect to be successful its not just a case of feeding heifers on to 550kg and up the road to the factory...

freedominacup

bbam wrote: »

Have no experience here in finishing cattle at all...
And I'd suspect to be successful its not just a case of feeding heifers on to 550kg and up the road to the factory...

We had very little experinence of calf to beef before we started other than some years there'd be a few stragglers that ended up being finished but it's not rocket science esp when you are being rooked for your 350 kg beast. There's a lot of daylight between what you get for them and a finished beast. It ain't Delboys "this time next year....." but IMO there's nothing out of selling stock between dropped calves and finished most years. With a dropped calf you are going to the mart with a by-product and will generally take what's on offer if prices are good then great if not you have to suck it up because you haven't room for them, at all stages in between that and finishing you don't get paid for your work. As bob said more than once that's what sfp is for.

CluanBomb

"Age purchasing calves at and rough price? 3-6 Weeks old, €250-350
Breeds? HEx, Chx, AAx,
Where sourcing the calves from? Farms, Mart, Dealer
Feeding from purchase to finish ie meal powdered milk etc? No simple answer, powdered milk for minimum time..
Cost of this feed? Milk replacers vary hugely in price per feed, make sure you work out price per feed as bags vary from 55-80 feeds per bag
Age of kill?
Advantages/disadvantages over traditional dry stock or suckling beef enterprises in your opinion/experience! No calving down cows so more controlable if your working away from home."

Thanks for above reply. We have sucklers here so we would begin introducing meal at weaning time to ours.

At what point would ye take the calf off the milk replacer, put on concentrates, introduce to grass/hay/silage?

Interested in the cost and method of replacing the cow and what people would think best practice would be!

J DEERE

bbam wrote: »

I'm looking forward to seeing the details of the report as €2000/Ha is serious going.. I could easily be enticed away from fulltime work if that were attainable..

What report was this?

bbam

CluanBomb wrote: »

At what point would ye take the calf off the milk replacer, put on concentrates, introduce to grass/hay/silage?

Calves on replacer for 8-10 weeks, they have meal with them from the day they arrive and need to be eating 1kg before weaning..
Good clean straw and clean water available since day they arrive...

Grass as soon as possible... have sometimes fed milk at grass if weather is good enough...

JohnBoy

From reading about dairy bulls over the last few years it seems that one of the key factors is birth date of the calves, you need to be buying them as early in the year as possible to get as much grazing for them as possible.

In light of this, how do autumn born dairy bulls stack up? given spring born calves will be housed for a period of time anyway are autumn born calves even better than early spring born if you have the early grass to support them?

or will there be extra costs of wintering them that cancel out the longer grazing season?

Just an idle musing

bbam

JohnBoy wrote: »

From reading about dairy bulls over the last few years it seems that one of the key factors is birth date of the calves, you need to be buying them as early in the year as possible to get as much grazing for them as possible.

In light of this, how do autumn born dairy bulls stack up? given spring born calves will be housed for a period of time anyway are autumn born calves even better than early spring born if you have the early grass to support them?

or will there be extra costs of wintering them that cancel out the longer grazing season?

Just an idle musing

We didnt buy last spring as prices were unjustified and crazy. So we bought mostly Aug born sucks.
Didn't see any real difference in their weights. Spent less time indoors at rearing time which is good from disease perspective.

J DEERE

bbam wrote: »

We didnt buy last spring as prices were unjustified and crazy. So we bought mostly Aug born sucks.
Didn't see any real difference in their weights. Spent less time indoors at rearing time which is good from disease perspective.

Did you not find that they were ready for the grass straight away? I'd like the idea of buying autumn calves for that reason. Also turn out would be earlier with them as they would be less likely to poach. At what age would you introduce silage and how much meal would you feed roughly?

RaggyDays

Age purchasing calves at and rough price? Depends on the situation, if its for a cow with a huge bag of milk then anything up to €350 but as young as possible to keep the price down. (Age wont matter if the calf is getting new milk and who wants to be wrestling with a big old strong calf to get him to suck a cow)

Breeds? Again it depends on the situation, but I find white heads are the cheapest to rear on the bucket. Again for a cow then it`ll be a continental type

Where sourcing the calves from? Local farmers but I prefer the mart to be honest, you just get a better selection

Feeding from purchase to finish ie meal powdered milk etc? Depends on how old you buy the calf at but at a minimum they need milk/milk replacer until they are 12 weeks.

Cost of this feed? Volac olympian €37 (must buy min ten bags) Calf follow on ration from then on starting at 1kg/head/day until they are 5months old. After that it all depends on when you intend selling them

Age of kill? I Don’t bring them that far but 30 months would be the soonest I`d think

Advantages/disadvantages over traditional dry stock or suckling beef enterprises in your opinion/experience!
Adv : =
Don`t have to feed a cow, no late night calvings etc
Cheap to get into a nice number of cattle if you can wait the year or so
You can have an even aged bunch of cattle
Since your not keeping cows you can keep a lot more young animals (see disadv )

Disadv :=
Calves are very costly.
Maverick is too!!!
Bucked reared don`t ever thrive as good as a suckler
The calf you bought in spring may be worth less than what you paid for him in November at 6 months of age!!:eek:
If you get TB with a huge number of calves then you`ll know about the cost of feeding them!!:eek:

Free tip
When starting out buying calves stay away from anything that looks the least bit unhealthy. For example if they have hair loss, dirty tail, swollen or just a big navel. groggy/tired, lying down (yes in the mart they do that)
.

Damo810

I read the article alright, they said that it was achieved through the good beef price (think they got 4.50 per KG) but even in a bad year their profits wouldn't fall below 1000!

Would be interesting to hear more about the place, because thats still some serious going, especially when compared to suckling.

Just found the article..

http://www.independent.ie/business/farming/calftobeef-trial-reaps-stunning-results-from-traditional-methods-29622688.html

Doesn't sound like theres any mortality rate factored in and also that it's dependent on bonus schemes, meaning animals will have to meet certain requirements to comply.

J DEERE

Positive figures alright. That article will benefit the dairy man next spring when farmers think it's justifiable to pay crazy prices for Hereford and angus calves. Won't be long about eroding margins

poor farmer

JohnBoy wrote: »

From reading about dairy bulls over the last few years it seems that one of the key factors is birth date of the calves, you need to be buying them as early in the year as possible to get as much grazing for them as possible.

In light of this, how do autumn born dairy bulls stack up? given spring born calves will be housed for a period of time anyway are autumn born calves even better than early spring born if you have the early grass to support them?

or will there be extra costs of wintering them that cancel out the longer grazing season?

Just an idle musing

I have been rearing autumn born dairy c alves in years .I keep them bulls,so you have to have them gone under 24 months.
The biggest problem is you end up selling them when the beef price is sh....e. ,like now.

freedominacup

poor farmer wrote: »

I have been rearing autumn born dairy c alves in years .I keep them bulls,so you have to have them gone under 24 months.
The biggest problem is you end up selling them when the beef price is sh....e. ,like now.

Funny thing about that just got a call from a factory agent looking for bulls more or less out of the blue. He knows it's HolX we have. Go figure, there must be a stir.

Farfield

I have a fair few white head calves out of my friesien cows and have been thinking how would it work if you let them out to grass the first summer and then put them into shed and push all the rest of the way on meal and straw. Not sure if it would make enough of a margin. Reason I would contemplate it is because I have a good supply of nice calves and loads of accommodation to house them, but wouldn't have enough grass for the second year to graze them. That goes to the dairy cows!