Finishing bullocks @ 2 years

Cavanjack

Was talking to a friend the other day his old lad is retiring and he's taking over the place. He works full time and is talking about buying weanlings in the autumn, squeezing them and finishing them out of the shed the following winter as two year olds. Is this a common practice? We always bring them to near the 30 months as ours are all dairy bred (high profit business).
He reckons the factories are looking for younger smaller carcass' and this is the way to go. He says he will have a higher turn over of cattle this way as it takes up too much land keeping cattle to 30 months.
Would continental steers get enough fat cover on them at this age and more importantly would they leave any money?

Muckit

Higher turnover doesn't necessarily equate to higher profits.

DMAXMAN

our beef job is small but that is our system. we buy watching age so that they wil be under 30 months selling in april. not the quickest way to make your fortune though. have found that you need to be buying heavier weanlings( 380 kgs+) as by the time they are castrated etc in the first winter they don't actually gain a lot of weight. have a few this year that were bought 350 kgs as they looked cheap and were lovely white charolais. they are only coming up to 2 years now and are going to be hard pressed to be finished with the rest, may end up in the mart as forward stores. running into slight problems last couple of years with weights of finished cattle, some factories not excited about buying heavy cattle( 420 kgs +)

epfff

Possible
BUt I'll nit be at it

Cavanjack

DMAXMAN wrote: »

our beef job is small but that is our system. we buy watching age so that they wil be under 30 months selling in april. not the quickest way to make your fortune though. have found that you need to be buying heavier weanlings( 380 kgs+) as by the time they are castrated etc in the first winter they don't actually gain a lot of weight. have a few this year that were bought 350 kgs as they looked cheap and were lovely white charolais. they are only coming up to 2 years now and are going to be hard pressed to be finished with the rest, may end up in the mart as forward stores. running into slight problems last couple of years with weights of finished cattle, some factories not excited about buying heavy cattle( 420 kgs +)

Yeah sure by the looks of things now an r grade is the ideal carcass according to the article in the journal last week.

Cavanjack

Muckit wrote: »

Higher turnover doesn't necessarily equate to higher profits.

True. He was saying with this system he could kill a hundred a year where if they were going back to grass to be killed before 30 months he couldn't keep near as many. Profit in numbers and all that. He has plenty of slatted sheds and reckons its handier feeding cattle inside in the evening especially when he's working full time.

severeoversteer

youll break even killing out of the shed, youll make a punt on the ones that did well for you perhaps


however youll get away with less meal for more weight if you leave it till may june time to kill them, they need to be 560kg going into the shed in autumn and over 600 coming out in march and give them a push with barley and molasses on grass for 60-70 days before the kill
they should kill out 380-420kg

freedominacup

I'm just going to throw this out there. We finished a group of HO bulls in early Dec that we had reared from caves. They would have been bought for around €400/head as weanlings the previous Oct/Nov. They got 1.5kgs of crimp and silage for first winter and got 1.5 kgs of ration at grass from March to early August. They were brought up onto a finishing diet from mid to late August and got wholecrop barley plus 5.5 kgs of a high maize blend as a finishing ration.They killed out around 340-350kgs at 20-21 months at a price of €3.65/kg.

If your buddy was finishing 10 months earlier how many more could he carry and do my figures stack up against the 30 month system? 10 months sooner on around 1 tonne of meal? It would surely cost at least a euro per day on average just to keep them alive for the extra 300 days nevermind a finishing ration so they'd need to be getting 80 cent/kg more assuming they cost the same to buy as weanlings (ie around €400 for a CH weanling). I don't really see the extra performance from the continentals in the figures ye have mentioned so far.

Farmer Pudsey

freedominacup wrote: »

I'm just going to throw this out there. We finished a group of HO bulls in early Dec that we had reared from caves. They would have been bought for around €400/head as weanlings the previous Oct/Nov. They got 1.5kgs of crimp and silage for first winter and got 1.5 kgs of ration at grass from March to early August. They were brought up onto a finishing diet from mid to late August and got wholecrop barley plus 5.5 kgs of a high maize blend as a finishing ration.They killed out around 340-350kgs at 20-21 months at a price of €3.65/kg.

If your buddy was finishing 10 months earlier how many more could he carry and do my figures stack up against the 30 month system? 10 months sooner on around 1 tonne of meal? It would surely cost at least a euro per day on average just to keep them alive for the extra 300 days nevermind a finishing ration so they'd need to be getting 80 cent/kg more assuming they cost the same to buy as weanlings (ie around €400 for a CH weanling). I don't really see the extra performance from the continentals in the figures ye have mentioned so far.

From My calculation they left about 250ish/head. The issue with bulls is will they take them next year. And if they do at what price. Free your bulls were an ideal carcass for supermarket assuming that they killed O+/R-. Wonder what way the market will be next December.

Figures on continentals are hard to judge paying 900 euro for a 400Kg weanling bull landed in the yard hard to make money out of him. Biggest issue is will the factory's continue to push down carcass weight. If they do the price of Continentals will dive as there main advantage is there feed efficiency. If you have to finish at 22 months at 350-380kgs it is hard to see a margin

freedominacup

Farmer Pudsey wrote: »

From My calculation they left about 250ish/head. The issue with bulls is will they take them next year. And if they do at what price. Free your bulls were an ideal carcass for supermarket assuming that they killed O+/R-. Wonder what way the market will be next December.

Figures on continentals are hard to judge paying 900 euro for a 400Kg weanling bull landed in the yard hard to make money out of him. Biggest issue is will the factory's continue to push down carcass weight. If they do the price of Continentals will dive as there main advantage is there feed efficiency. If you have to finish at 22 months at 350-380kgs it is hard to see a margin

We've never had any trouble getting bulls like that killed. Some have even gone to butchers for their own shops over the years esp in early summer.

mf240

What age were those fellas freedom?

Farmer Pudsey

freedominacup wrote: »

We've never had any trouble getting bulls like that killed. Some have even gone to butchers for their own shops over the years esp in early summer.

I never had until this year often had bulls up to 30 months no issue's. However this year has changed the bull story. Will wait and see how tight stock are next year before considering finishing bulls for next December/January.

factory managers that had no issues with bulls in September( even killed bulls at 28 months of age in October do not want to know about them now. Butchers will only take so many and must be near a city idealy.

freedominacup

mf240 wrote: »

What age were those fellas freedom?

Killed end of Nov 2013. Feb/Mar 2012 born. We'd usually have them gone up to 2 months sooner but back-end 2012 and spring 2013 made sure that wasn't happening.

farmer pudsey wrote:

I never had until this year often had bulls up to 30 months no issue's. However this year has changed the bull story. Will wait and see how tight stock are next year before considering finishing bulls for next December/January.

factory managers that had no issues with bulls in September( even killed bulls at 28 months of age in October do not want to know about them now. Butchers will only take so many and must be near a city idealy

I don't thnk there will be much problems getting them killed under 20 months and under 380kg carcass. The reason I mentioned butchers buying them was to emphasise that they produce good quality meat. Butchers would have no room for "manufacturing" product. There's not much point in producing beef aimed solely at a manufacuring spec and then complaining that the price isn't all it should be.

Farmer Pudsey

The issue with killing Friesian Bulls at 18 months is that unless they are November/december born tou will be competeing with grass fed cattle. When factory's have enough of these they do not want bulls or discount them to where it will not pay to keep. These also have to be pushed hard all the time. Giving a birthweight of 40kgs they need to do 1.2kgs/day from birth to kill 340kgs at less than 18 months.

This kind of preformance is exceptional and unless you have access to cheap ration not sure if it is possible. My own opinion is that they will kill about 300kgs max at that age in general and that is done well. At a price of 3.5/kg cannot see a margin some alonf the line has to take a haircut