what price limo/charolais heifers ~250kgs?

locky76

I'm putting in an order for 5 heifers around the 250kg mark, they are to be charolais or limos and will be bulled in August to an angus, what could I expect to pay for them?

limo_100

locky76 wrote: »

I'm putting in an order for 5 heifers around the 250kg mark, they are to be charolais or limos and will be bulled in August to an angus, what could I expect to pay for them?

id say anywhere between 600 and 750 for good quality ones. Would you not buy them yourself?

Phil Iam

A 250kg weanling probably born last April /May calving down May 2015 around 2 year old I can't see them having much milk!

limo_100

Phil Iam wrote: »

A 250kg weanling probably born last April /May calving down May 2015 around 2 year old I can't see them having much milk!

what would age have to do with milk?

Genghis Cant

Saw 2 Red Lims today 290Kgs, not overdone, plenty of size, R grade types €750

Farrell

limo_100 wrote: »

id say anywhere between 600 and 750 for good quality ones. Would you not buy them yourself?

It's getting close to grass time, I'd budget an extra €100

Miname

Your looking to buy heifers to hold around eating grasss and bull and then hold another 9 months and then if you get a live calf sell maybe 9-10 months further on and as stated above maybe have no milk. Thats over 2 years waiting for a maybe along with tests dosing and the work involved. It might be something if they were being picked from your own cows for set reasons but you will be buying blind without previous knowledge.
If you want to go down that route buy black limo heifers from friesain cows, they will be a plainer looking animal but at least should have milk and for e800 you should be able to get one to throw straight in with the bull. Alternatively theres loads of clearance sales and cows with calves at foot or even springing arent overly expensive right now.

locky76

i bring in 5 heifers to the herd every year so I've 5 cull cows going out so it's a revenue neutral exercise. Keeping my own heifers to bull hasn't worked because they're half angus therefore I'm losing the hybrid vigour with their offspring. I've bought dairy crosses to bull the last few years but I'm not overly happy with their offspring because they're not grading as well, milk isn't as big an issue as it's made out to be as I'm a suckler to beef so anything they lack due to poor milk they make it up at finishing with better grades and also with compensatory growth. Mu best finishers every year are from cows that are mainly continental...
Fair play though, it's good to have a thorough examination :-)

Miname wrote: »

Your looking to buy heifers to hold around eating grasss and bull and then hold another 9 months and then if you get a live calf sell maybe 9-10 months further on and as stated above maybe have no milk. Thats over 2 years waiting for a maybe along with tests dosing and the work involved. It might be something if they were being picked from your own cows for set reasons but you will be buying blind without previous knowledge.
If you want to go down that route buy black limo heifers from friesain cows, they will be a plainer looking animal but at least should have milk and for e800 you should be able to get one to throw straight in with the bull. Alternatively theres loads of clearance sales and cows with calves at foot or even springing arent overly expensive right now.

Muckit

locky76 wrote: »

......milk isn't as big an issue as it's made out to be as I'm a suckler to beef so anything they lack due to poor milk they make it up at finishing with better grades and also with compensatory growth.

My best finishers every year are from cows that are mainly continental...

I would be of the same opinion as yourself, although teagasc are saying this is totally wrong. All their farm walks last year and indeed for the last few years are pushing milk in the cow as being paramount. Indeed at their suckler walk in Grange late last year they had THEIR figures and charts to show that their cows with the most milk had the calves that killed out the heaviest carcase weight and graded better. Calves from continental cows never caught up according to them even though I argued the case that genetics would surely win out after the calves were weaned.

BUT as we all know it's easy to skew figures to give whatever message you want to push.

hugo29

700-800 mark depending, heifers seem to be gone crazy at the moment

Bellview

Muckit wrote: »

I would be of the same opinion as yourself, although teagasc are saying this is totally wrong. All their farm walks last year and indeed for the last few years are pushing milk in the cow as being paramount. Indeed at their suckler walk in Grange late last year they had THEIR figures and charts to show that their cows with the most milk had the calves that killed out the heaviest carcase weight and graded better. Calves from continental cows never caught up according to them even though I argued the case that genetics would surely win out after the calves were weaned.

BUT as we all know it's easy to skew figures to give whatever message you want to push.

agree completely. with suckler though how do you really measure milk. some of the data used is UK data and the maternal program in some breeds is skewed towards Uk but when I look at offspring of these 'super' Uk bulls they are poor & hard to finish...even with a load of milk..

Genghis Cant

Bellview wrote: »

agree completely. with suckler though how do you really measure milk. some of the data used is UK data and the maternal program in some breeds is skewed towards Uk but when I look at offspring of these 'super' Uk bulls they are poor & hard to finish...even with a load of milk..

Like a lot of things in life, there's a happy compromise. A suckler cow is useless with not enough milk and can be a liability with too much.
So how much is enough? Look at the calf and you'll know. Some of our best breeding cows don't look to have a lot of milk but they leave some calf after themselves.

hugo29

Genghis Cant wrote: »

Like a lot of things in life, there's a happy compromise. A suckler cow is useless with not enough milk and can be a liability with too much.
So how much is enough? Look at the calf and you'll know. Some of our best breeding cows don't look to have a lot of milk but they leave some calf after themselves.

agree with you there genghis, we get hung up on a bag of milk, judge the cow on the calf in the sales ring, that never lies