3/4 bred bf x lm - Good suckler cows?

Mac Taylor

Hi, a dairy farmer buddy of mine has agreed to ai some of his cows to Munster ai limmy bulls. Two questions:

Any suggestions of bulls to use?
Would these made good sucklers (even with 25% Holstein breeding)


I was thinking of putting adx(Ardlea Dan) on them. (hopefully all female but sure knowing my luck - all bulls!!) Thanks.

Miname

ive 10 calving down in august. Theres a few lads ive seen with them and they get serious weight for age with their weanlings with damn all meal. ive them calving down to blonde and speckled park the first year. i'll be sticking charlaois on them after that. A neighbour has a few running with a charlaois bull and the majority are throwing orangy calves. They wouldnt be exceptionally muscly but really good growthy animals.

farmersfriend

Mac Taylor wrote: »

Hi, a dairy farmer buddy of mine has agreed to ai some of his cows to Munster ai limmy bulls. Two questions:

Any suggestions of bulls to use?
Would these made good sucklers (even with 25% Holstein breeding)


I was thinking of putting adx(Ardlea Dan) on them. (hopefully all female but sure knowing my luck - all bulls!!) Thanks.

Ideal as sucklers. We sell them springing and always great demand and repeat customers. Lots of milk and a lot of lads breed them to a blue the second year.

Dozer1

A real good place to start for a suckler cow but one issue can be too much milk, I've 2 here at the moment and always have to be on the look out for mastitis in the first month or so after calving.

Future Farmer

In the Grange Research Farm the cows found to leave the most behind them over the years have been the FR X LM over SI X LM, CH X SI & LM X CH Cows.

The only place where the FR X LM were not out-performing the others was with grade generally being 1/3 of a grade lower, but this is well made-up in the other areas, where they out-perform the others- Conception Rate - as a group I think in 2012 they were 13% ahead of the CH X SI on conception rates, and are on average 130kg lighter than them meaning they eat less over the winter and aren't as hard on land.

A lot of beef men seem to have a real problem realising the difference between a profitable cow and mighty cow, going for cows with fantastic shape, size & terminal traits (with no milk).

Cows out of the dairy herd have plenty of milk, their calves will be 3/4 continental, I would say go for it. (LM out of an MO dairy herd are also very good cows, in-general)

Mac - I'd say you wouldn't go wrong with - AHZ (if you can get the semen) then HCA if you can't get any of that. Bit surprised that he'd be willing to put ADX in them - harder calvings & longer gestations.

NCBC's 3 main Saler bulls are also very impressive, when it comes to Maternal Traits, would you think about that?

tismesoitis

Id say make sure they friesian cows and not holstein!! we ham lims outa both types and calves are far superior where no holstein blood is involved.

Mac Taylor

Future Farmer wrote: »

In the Grange Research Farm the cows found to leave the most behind them over the years have been the FR X LM over SI X LM, CH X SI & LM X CH Cows.

The only place where the FR X LM were not out-performing the others was with grade generally being 1/3 of a grade lower, but this is well made-up in the other areas, where they out-perform the others- Conception Rate - as a group I think in 2012 they were 13% ahead of the CH X SI on conception rates, and are on average 130kg lighter than them meaning they eat less over the winter and aren't as hard on land.

A lot of beef men seem to have a real problem realising the difference between a profitable cow and mighty cow, going for cows with fantastic shape, size & terminal traits (with no milk).

Cows out of the dairy herd have plenty of milk, their calves will be 3/4 continental, I would say go for it. (LM out of an MO dairy herd are also very good cows, in-general)

Mac - I'd say you wouldn't go wrong with - AHZ (if you can get the semen) then HCA if you can't get any of that. Bit surprised that he'd be willing to put ADX in them - harder calvings & longer gestations.

NCBC's 3 main Saler bulls are also very impressive, when it comes to Maternal Traits, would you think about that?

Thanks for that. Have not agreed the bulls yet with him, but it will be limousin. I was looking up the bulls today and will go with ahz or rhn. Don't fancy the salers, the few I've seen were flighty and that's saying something given it's nearly all lims here!!

Mac Taylor

tismesoitis wrote: »

Id say make sure they friesian cows and not holstein!! we ham lims outa both types and calves are far superior where no holstein blood is involved.

The cows are 75% bf with 25% Holstein. The 25% is bothering me but to get the 100% bf is next to impossible around here. Will chance a few and see how it goes. Nothing ventured nothing gained!

tanko

Have you considered using an Angus bull instead? Wouldn't be a bad cross either.

Genghis Cant

Mac Taylor wrote: »

The cows are 75% bf with 25% Holstein. The 25% is bothering me but to get the 100% bf is next to impossible around here. Will chance a few and see how it goes. Nothing ventured nothing gained!

You'll have excellent suckler cows I'd be thinking.
Would ya chance the odd BB for the craic?

Mac Taylor

tanko wrote: »

Have you considered using an Angus bull instead? Wouldn't be a bad cross either.

Have some aax cross cows already, we've crossed them with ch (crap colour, poor sellers as weanlings) better cross with the lm. For the weanling market though the best sellers are the white/yellow chx or the red lim. I'd be hoping that these would cross well with a lm bull and bring the red colour. Not looking for much am I!!!

Farrell

Mac Taylor wrote: »

Have some aax cross cows already, we've crossed them with ch (crap colour, poor sellers as weanlings) better cross with the lm. For the weanling market though the best sellers are the white/yellow chx or the red lim. I'd be hoping that these would cross well with a lm bull and bring the red colour. Not looking for much am I!!!

There is some charolais bulls bringing white calves from black cows, that maybe a short term solution, otherwise it could take 2 generations

Mac Taylor

Genghis Cant wrote: »

You'll have excellent suckler cows I'd be thinking.
Would ya chance the odd BB for the craic?

Never had a bb born here. Unless you have them very good, not a great seller around here. Two neighbours have bb bulls. One lad has what can only be described as the worst weanlings ever whereas the other lad some of best weanlings I have seem. To be fair guess who knows what there doing.If I was to use bb, it would be on pb lims. Do you use bb yourself?

tanko

Mac Taylor wrote: »

Have some aax cross cows already, we've crossed them with ch (crap colour, poor sellers as weanlings) better cross with the lm. For the weanling market though the best sellers are the white/yellow chx or the red lim. I'd be hoping that these would cross well with a lm bull and bring the red colour. Not looking for much am I!!!

Fair points alright. You're spoilt for choice starting off with those cows. RHN is €38 a straw. I saw him being sold for €6K at the carwin dispersal sale last year, serious looking bull even at 12 years old and lovely stock off him.

Mac Taylor

tanko wrote: »

Fair points alright. You're spoilt for choice starting off with those cows. RHN is €38 a straw. I saw him being sold for €6K at the carwin dispersal sale last year, serious looking bull even at 12 years old and lovely stock off him.

I didn't know he was that price! At this rate I'll try ahz. I've used him on a few pbr lims and am happy out. Thinging of keeping a son of his as a stock bull.

Genghis Cant

Mac Taylor wrote: »

Do you use bb yourself?

Rarely. Ch, Lim mainly, the odd Ba, Sim, BB, Part over the years. Find it hard to beat the Ch. Ch x Lm and Ch x Ba working well for us.

knockmulliner

Used BA xFr for many years. Great demand for them as suckler, BA bull first time then BB. GREAT mothers docile plenty milk. Totally underrated in the south,

just do it

CH heifers out of Bfr x Lm cows also make great replacements. Win win if the dairy farmer to work with. Go for it.

towzer2010

Mac Taylor wrote: »

I didn't know he was that price! At this rate I'll try ahz. I've used him on a few pbr lims and am happy out. Thinging of keeping a son of his as a stock bull.

RHN is a class bull alright. If you are going to keep an ahz calf as a stock bull would you not try a different bull for the replacement calves?

With the milk coming from the cow side you can use any bull really.

onyerbikepat

Too much milk can be a problem as mentioned above. On the first cross, you can end up with cows with big heavy udders that young calves find hard to drink. I would also try and get as much muscle as possible into the first cross. Afterall this will be the trait that is lacking the most. Try and pick Friesian cows too that are square in shape rather than angular, as this will carry through to the calves aswell.

I do think it is a shame that the two industries, beef and dairy dont try and work together for the benefit of both.

Mac Taylor

towzer2010 wrote: »

RHN is a class bull alright. If you are going to keep an ahz calf as a stock bull would you not try a different bull for the replacement calves?

With the milk coming from the cow side you can use any bull really.

Towzer, your were more awake this morning than I was last night.:D
To be thruthful, I have until April to figure what AI bull to use, I'll be sitting down with the guy in the next few weeks to agree on the bull as some of the posters have said here, he wants easy calving, short gestation etc. So i'll be studying Munster AI's beef book over next few nights to see what the options are.:cool:

just do it

Mac Taylor wrote: »

Towzer, your were more awake this morning than I was last night.:D
To be thruthful, I have until April to figure what AI bull to use, I'll be sitting down with the guy in the next few weeks to agree on the bull as some of the posters have said here, he wants easy calving, short gestation etc. So i'll be studying Munster AI's beef book over next few nights to see what the options are.:cool:

Make sure to talk to the AI man as well! One trait which I placed a lot of emphasis on in picking maternal bulls is having a negative calving interval. It seems to have worked. In 2010 the average gestation was 290 days and in 2014 it has been 285 days (and I'm finished calving). By all means look at ICBF but let it only be one factor in your decision. LM's I've used with no calving difficulty in the last year are EFZ and HCA. All EFZ calves are still young but I'd prefer them thus far. Looking at figures on ICBF HCA are wild (agree from personal experience) and strong on milk and thus not suited for X with dairy cows to produce replacements. I also heard they can be tall and lean. EFZ is a more suitable bull. Hopefully will get a few pics of them out on grass one of these days:rolleyes:.

Dozer1

just to add to JDI's previous post, I sold the inlaws a CH heifer there last year off a BFxFR, she was a twin to a bull bull held first time to AI and calved yesterday at just over the 2 years, really nice bag of milk and quiet as a lamb, me thinks I should have kept her;)

Parishlad

Sorry to drag up an old thread. This is something I am giving consideration to. Have a couple of dairy neighbours that might be willing to go down this route with me. I don't know if they have FR or HO cows but easy to find out.

MacT - how did you get on for a finish? Did you go ahead with it and if you did what bulls did you end up using?
I'm just curious to know how the process works to be honest mainly around when you would take the calf from the dairy farmer? (I work full time so bucket feeding would be a pain - not impossible though as I had to do it this year for a handful of calves.)
What if its a bull calf, presume you just have to suck it up!

welton john

We used lots of lim on early calving dairy cows last 5 years.
Hca is very easy but wouldnt use on ho(cattle from him are v quiet)
FL22 is similar to above except they they're the only calves i couldnt go near in the field.
only used a few Cvv and got lovely calves off him.(great sellers at 3 weeks)got no heifers so cant comment.
Nhl calves have consistently been by far the best every year. Way more shape than first two mentioned and heifers had lovely temperment.I think he can still be got but not certain

Mac Taylor

Parishlad wrote: »

Sorry to drag up an old thread. This is something I am giving consideration to. Have a couple of dairy neighbours that might be willing to go down this route with me. I don't know if they have FR or HO cows but easy to find out.

MacT - how did you get on for a finish? Did you go ahead with it and if you did what bulls did you end up using?
I'm just curious to know how the process works to be honest mainly around when you would take the calf from the dairy farmer? (I work full time so bucket feeding would be a pain - not impossible though as I had to do it this year for a handful of calves.)
What if its a bull calf, presume you just have to suck it up!

Parishlad, ended up with 8 AI'ed to hca (not my first choice but this is what his ai man recommended) his cows are ~75% bf. There not due until February or March. The bull calves will be sold off farm, I can have the calves from 4 weeks on but each week after they will cost me a few quid more (yet to be agreed but he is family or at least that's what I keep reminding him) will update in due course.

Mac Taylor

welton john wrote: »

We used lots of lim on early calving dairy cows last 5 years.
Hca is very easy but wouldnt use on ho(cattle from him are v quiet)
FL22 is similar to above except they they're the only calves i couldnt go near in the field.
only used a few Cvv and got lovely calves off him.(great sellers at 3 weeks)got no heifers so cant comment.
Nhl calves have consistently been by far the best every year. Way more shape than first two mentioned and heifers had lovely temperment.I think he can still be got but not certain

Nhl seemed to be a good bull to get heifers off but he is gone off to th big field in the sky. Straws are hard got now.

tanko

OZS breeds stylish heifers with good temperament and is easy calving on cows.
I'm kinda surprised to see dairy farmers putting lim bulls on their cows given their long gestation.

Mac Taylor

tanko wrote: »

OZS breeds stylish heifers with good temperament and is easy calving on cows.
I'm kinda surprised to see dairy farmers putting lim bulls on their cows given their long gestation.

Tanko, in my case he is doing me a favour, depending on how thinks work out we might come to a permanent arrangement but he is only ai'ing 8 out of 150+ and it is unlikely to be any more.

tanko

Mac Taylor wrote: »

Tanko, in my case he is doing me a favour, depending on how thinks work out we might come to a permanent arrangement but he is only ai'ing 8 out of 150+ and it is unlikely to be any more.

Fair enough, it's a nice position for you to be in.

whelan2

tanko wrote: »

OZS breeds stylish heifers with good temperament and is easy calving on cows.
I'm kinda surprised to see dairy farmers putting lim bulls on their cows given their long gestation.

lad rang me the other day asking me to use ozs and cant remember the other bull on br/fr cows for him. He would want me to keep calves for 70 days.

Bullocks

whelan2 wrote: »

lad rang me the other day asking me to use ozs and cant remember the other bull on br/fr cows for him. He would want me to keep calves for 70 days.

What was he prepared to pay for them if you did keep them for 70 days ?

whelan2

Bullocks wrote: »

What was he prepared to pay for them if you did keep them for 70 days ?

300, are there any sexed lim ai bulls?

onyerbikepat

whelan2 wrote: »

lad rang me the other day asking me to use ozs and cant remember the other bull on br/fr cows for him. He would want me to keep calves for 70 days.

And it's a win, win for both of you. The department should try and get a scheme like this off the ground. Too many fancy suckler cows out there with feck all milk.

tanko

whelan2 wrote: »

300, are there any sexed lim ai bulls?

PG have Lennon Frosty FTY €38, Dovea have Castleview Casino CWI and Elderberry Galahad EBY both €40.
Have you used sexed semen? Reports are very mixed about it so far.

whelan2

tanko wrote: »

PG have Lennon Frosty FTY €38, Dovea have Castleview Casino CWI and Elderberry Galahad EBY both €40.
Have you used sexed semen? Reports are very mixed about it so far.

i used fr sexed this time last year while it wasnt brilliant i was happy enough, used it on cows. He said he had another lad doing this for him this year and he used 16 straws and got 10 lim calves. The main problem i would have is that the first 70 days are the hardest to get the calf through, anything can go wrong

Deepsouthwest

whelan2 wrote: »

i used fr sexed this time last year while it wasnt brilliant i was happy enough, used it on cows. He said he had another lad doing this for him this year and he used 16 straws and got 10 lim calves. The main problem i would have is that the first 70 days are the hardest to get the calf through, anything can go wrong

That's v true, while it sounds like a good enough deal, ur the one taking all the risks. If anything happens to the calf I doubt if yere going to split to cost of the losses. €300 is ok money at 70 days, but ud probably get 3/4's of that at 30 days, a strong lm calf would drink a lot milk between day 30 and day 70.

Mac Taylor

Ah lads keep the big prices and negative comments until after I have paid for the calves:D:D:D

The guy I'm buying from does be on here every now and again and ye'll be giving him ideas:D:D

whelan2

Mac Taylor wrote: »

Ah lads keep the big prices and negative comments until after I have paid for the calves:D:D:D

The guy I'm buying from does be on here every now and again and ye'll be giving him ideas:D:D

have ye agreed a price? this guy will take all calves from me, he does bull beef

royaler83

Bullocks wrote: »

What was he prepared to pay for them if you did keep them for 70 days ?

whelan2 wrote: »

300, are there any sexed lim ai bulls?

This seems very much on the low side whelan considering 3-4 week old WH calves were goin at a minimum 320 this week

whelan2

royaler83 wrote: »

This seems very much on the low side whelan considering 3-4 week old WH calves were goin at a minimum 320 this week

yes , i was thinking that too, wanted to see what ye thought of it, also what about losses? 70 days is a bit long imo

Miname

il give you 300 at 60 days whelan and the bull to do the job.

royaler83

whelan2 wrote: »

yes , i was thinking that too, wanted to see what ye thought of it, also what about losses? 70 days is a bit long imo

The more i think of it the worse it gets, ya couldn't buy any sort of decent 3-4 week, barely half reared LM bull calf last spring for €200. Add a minimum 40 days onto that for your lads. You'd easily have €40 spent on vaccinations/crunch/meal etc per calf. dehorning too? and that's all going well.

A good shaped LM calf was makin €250 - €300 at 4 weeks

whelan2

Tb test too for moving

just do it

whelan2 wrote: »

Tb test too for moving

You've yet to bull the cows i.e. if they're off your winter milkers it will be 365 days before you sell them? Way too early to set a price imo. Surely you have to take market price at the time of sale into account. You know yourself calf prices can vary widely - €100-200 per head.

whelan2

just do it wrote: »

You've yet to bull the cows i.e. if they're off your winter milkers it will be 365 days before you sell them? Way too early to set a price imo. Surely you have to take market price at the time of sale into account. You know yourself calf prices can vary widely - €100-200 per head.

would be doing it on spring calvers at this stage, nearly finished ai'ing winter milkers now, plenty of time to think about it

towzer2010

whelan2 wrote: »

lad rang me the other day asking me to use ozs and cant remember the other bull on br/fr cows for him. He would want me to keep calves for 70 days.

Is he a friend that you are doing a favour for? Seems to be a great deal IMO. I'd jump at a deal like that. 2 or 3 week old lm's make that here. Actually is he providing the straws?

welton john

whelan2 wrote: »

300, are there any sexed lim ai bulls?

an average lm heifer will make 300 at 4 weeks + 20 week for 6 weeks. 420 be a bit more like it

Miname

welton john wrote: »

an average lm heifer will make 300 at 4 weeks + 20 week for 6 weeks. 420 be a bit more like it

The other side is a bucket fed calf might only make 400 at 4-5 months. I seen wh heifers sold for 315 that were well reared a couple of weeks back.