Selling Calves

owen.fitz

Well lads, a friend of mine was telling me recently that he is buying calves around March/ April and feeding them hay and concentrates for a few weeks, putting them on grass for the summer and selling them before the winter. Im just wondering if he will be able to sell these? Do other farmers want to be buying cattle coming into the winter and if so what would a rough price be for what he is selling? Thanks

_Brian

He should easily get €400 a head for them.

whelan2

What breed?

CloughCasey1

Tell him to buy them in Nov. He can have them out to grass for late feb and have strong animals the following Nov. Not in it otherwise. Also unless they are a smashing calf buy buy whiteheads.

owen.fitz

He had around 11 of them, 2 or 3 were whiteheads and the rest were gotten from a dairy farmer, friesan crosses. Cant remember what he said they were crossed with

owen.fitz

CloughCasey1 wrote: »

Tell him to buy them in Nov. He can have them out to grass for late feb and have strong animals the following Nov. Not in it otherwise. Also unless they are a smashing calf buy buy whiteheads.

Would it be worth his while if he had to be feeding them over the winter? Would it increase the selling price that significantly?

CloughCasey1

owen.fitz wrote: »

Would it be worth his while if he had to be feeding them over the winter? Would it increase the selling price that significantly?

If he buys at 3weeks old in nov he'll give them milk replacer for another 10 weeks or so. And they won't eat too much until grass. March calf won't make much use of grass until August imo which is not as good as early grass for putting on weight on young calves. Year old bullocks for plain cattle would be a better sell that 6mt old plain bull weanlings. In our local mart during autumn weanling sales these types are generally sneered at.

Sam Kade

_Brian wrote: »

He should easily get €400 a head for them.

He'll also pay €250/hd for them as calves and around €150 to rear them up to selling, profit=nil.

_Brian

Sam Kade wrote: »

He'll also pay €250/hd for them as calves and around €150 to rear them up to selling, profit=nil.

Indeed.. and for ~€250 he's not getting the top calves either, spring round here ex farm lads were still looking (and getting) €275 for He heifers and €300+ for He bulls, at those prices I don't think the numbers stack up to make much if anything on them.. I miss having sucks but not so much that I'll do it for nothing.

Obviously I was being vicious saying €400, but, buying sucks in the spring and selling them in the back end of the same year isn't going to leave profit. Your handing them over just as they are ready to grow, you've taken the bulk of the risk - done the hard work of rearing them - alnd letting someone else make the money.

CloughCasey1

_Brian wrote: »

Indeed.. and for ~€250 he's not getting the top calves either, spring round here ex farm lads were still looking (and getting) €275 for He heifers and €300+ for He bulls, at those prices I don't think the numbers stack up to make much if anything on them.. I miss having sucks but not so much that I'll do it for nothing.

Obviously I was being vicious saying €400, but, buying sucks in the spring and selling them in the back end of the same year isn't going to leave profit. Your handing them over just as they are ready to grow, you've taken the bulk of the risk - done the hard work of rearing them - alnd letting someone else make the money.

+ 17 million

owen.fitz

If you were to buy the calves in November, would they have to be fed concentrates everyday until they go out on grass or can they be put on a mixture of concentrate and hay or even just be fed hay?

_Brian

owen.fitz wrote: »

If you were to buy the calves in November, would they have to be fed concentrates everyday until they go out on grass or can they be put on a mixture of concentrate and hay or even just be fed hay?

When on milk its important to build them up to 1kg of meal before weaning them, they would also need to be eating roughage, ideally good straw and not hay..

Then the 1kg minimum would need to be continued until they hit grass and indeed until the weather is decent.

We never feed hay to sucks - maybe a sprinkle mixed into straw to get them started on straw but they will naturally eat straw anyway.. They will eat silage just fine.