suckler herd replacements

tomieen jones

So from reading an article on agriland teagasc advice getting replacements from the dairy herds !simental and limousine crosses! I'm interested in hearing your experiences of this? I bought 7 angus x fresian heifers and put them to an angus bull there last month at 18 months
they should have plenty milk but also importantly because being bucket feed are very very docile which is a pleasure compared to the true sucklers we have

Bullocks

tomieen jones wrote: »

So from reading an article on agriland teagasc advice getting replacements from the dairy herds !simental and limousine crosses! I'm interested in hearing your experiences of this? I bought 7 angus x fresian heifers and put them to an angus bull there last month at 18 months
they should have plenty milk but also importantly because being bucket feed are very very docile which is a pleasure compared to the true sucklers we have

I'm all for it , you mentioned the two main points, milk and quietness. Plus it keeps breeding them simple if you don't want to AI or have separate bulls for replacements / selling .
The only downsides I find now are the price of calves (could be a bit cheaper ) and the smaller type bulls dairy farmers are using mighnt be ideal to throw cows that can calve good sized calves in the future.
It would be worth a few suckler farmers to supply the semen of a bull of their choice (and the dairy farmer of course ) and buy the calves out of good roomy milkers .
Maybe the dairy farmer might not want to go to extra trouble with a slightly harder calved bull but if ye have any buddies milking it wouldn't be any harm to chat to them and see how they might accommodate you for the sake of a few of their calves .
Hard to beat a nice lim x fr !

bogman_bass

I'm a big fan of the BBxFr cow myself. But regardless of breed, that extra handling early on is worth its weight in gold by the time they are cows

Miname

Have a share of Lim x fr. Tried Ba on them with poor enough results. Put a low set lim and got super calves and put ch on a few, got good calved but the colour was off so not great sellers but good weight for age.

Kovu

A neighbour sourced a few bbx ho/brfr a few years ago (I'm guessing at the HO but they were narrow as all hell when they arrived) and they're only turning into proper cows now, didn't throw good calves the first couple of years, were v average. Have super calves this year, look to be off a part.

I have great fun looking over hedges

Feckthis

Know a guy breeds only blonde bulls on bb x fr cows. He works as a manager on the farm with two other staff. Not sure how many cows he keeps but they must be making money to pay all the wages. He swears by the bbx fr cows!

Bullocks

Feckthis wrote: »

Know a guy breeds only blonde bulls on bb x fr cows. He works as a manager on the farm with two other staff. Not sure how many cows he keeps but they must be making money to pay all the wages. He swears by the bbx fr cows!

We have a few bbxfr here but I wouldn't be a big fan of them TBH , some brilliant calves but they wouldn't be consistent good breeders either . I find the blue breeding in them is a bit soft aswell , they are nearly always the first with a snotty nose or a bit lame

Farrell

Bullocks wrote: »

I'm all for it , you mentioned the two main points, milk and quietness. Plus it keeps breeding them simple if you don't want to AI or have separate bulls for replacements / selling .
The only downsides I find now are the price of calves (could be a bit cheaper ) and the smaller type bulls dairy farmers are using mighnt be ideal to throw cows that can calve good sized calves in the future.
It would be worth a few suckler farmers to supply the semen of a bull of their choice (and the dairy farmer of course ) and buy the calves out of good roomy milkers .
Maybe the dairy farmer might not want to go to extra trouble with a slightly harder calved bull but if ye have any buddies milking it wouldn't be any harm to chat to them and see how they might accommodate you for the sake of a few of their calves .
Hard to beat a nice lim x fr !

I agree on this, but Dairy farmers weren't keen as they could possibly lose on the calf. Sucks have gotten dearer the last few years, if calves were prepaid at €400, there is a chance that come spring the Dairy farmer could get €450/500, why should s/he lose out on the income

Bullocks

Farrell wrote: »

I agree on this, but Dairy farmers weren't keen as they could possibly lose on the calf. Sucks have gotten dearer the last few years, if calves were prepaid at €400, there is a chance that come spring the Dairy farmer could get €450/500, why should s/he lose out on the income

I agree , and if the correct calf is a bit dearer I wouldn't mind as an extra €50 on the right future cow is small money but the problem at the minute is people paying above average money for below average calves . If this was corrected the dairy man might look a bit closer at breeding a better beef calf instead of the easiest calver with the shortest gestation (I'm sure a happy medium could be found ) especially while milk price is down and calf sales might mean more to them

Farrell

Bullocks wrote: »

I agree , and if the correct calf is a bit dearer I wouldn't mind as an extra €50 on the right future cow is small money but the problem at the minute is people paying above average money for below average calves . If this was corrected the dairy man might look a bit closer at breeding a better beef calf instead of the easiest calver with the shortest gestation (I'm sure a happy medium could be found ) especially while milk price is down and calf sales might mean more to them

How many dairy farmers have a big % of BF rather than xbreed, the dairy farmer cares about milk out the gate followed by as much as possible for calves/ culls, they're not going to jeopardise that to the "hobby" folk.
But I would like an arrangement for a high scc with 2 BAX/BBX heifers

Feckthis

Bullocks wrote: »

We have a few bbxfr here but I wouldn't be a big fan of them TBH , some brilliant calves but they wouldn't be consistent good breeders either . I find the blue breeding in them is a bit soft aswell , they are nearly always the first with a snotty nose or a bit lame

I noticed that myself with Bb calfs being slow to get up and suck. Ye really can't beat a good limo bull in my opinion.

Bullocks

Farrell wrote: »

How many dairy farmers have a big % of BF rather than xbreed, the dairy farmer cares about milk out the gate followed by as much as possible for calves/ culls, they're not going to jeopardise that to the "hobby" folk.
But I would like an arrangement for a high scc with 2 BAX/BBX heifers

Damn all BF around I'd say unfortunately but sure it wouldn't hurt to ask .
I wonder would it pay the to buy a few BF culls that would be fit for breeding another few calves and put a limo to them for selling as replacement heifers (maybe sexed semen ) .

Bellview

Bullocks wrote: »

Damn all BF around I'd say unfortunately but sure it wouldn't hurt to ask .
I wonder would it pay the to buy a few BF culls that would be fit for breeding another few calves and put a limo to them for selling as replacement heifers (maybe sexed semen ) .

Best chance of BF is around the Dovea area as Dermot Cahill (RIP) was always very true to the BF. My experience is the real large numbers dairy man would take 200 euro a calf once its out fast & cow is milking... their game is milk not waiting for an additional 3 weeks to get a calf. The dairy herd also have a calving interval of circa 380 days so they cannot afford too long gestation either... although from ICBF you would believe beef has a calving interval issue for an eternity... then look back over 4 years and the beef has not been far away from dairy with exception of last 2 years.. so tighter calving has been done before Although I must admit I saw a neighbour near home who has a Charolais running with his cows..

Farrell

Bullocks wrote: »

Damn all BF around I'd say unfortunately but sure it wouldn't hurt to ask .
I wonder would it pay the to buy a few BF culls that would be fit for breeding another few calves and put a limo to them for selling as replacement heifers (maybe sexed semen ) .

Being asking for a while, lots are culling for scc, & not in-calf, this is something they can't plan early in the year.
Weary of Strong HO %, as narrower cow & restrictions on Bull selection, which is against what sucklers are about

Grueller

Feckthis wrote: »

Know a guy breeds only blonde bulls on bb x fr cows. He works as a manager on the farm with two other staff. Not sure how many cows he keeps but they must be making money to pay all the wages. He swears by the bbx fr cows!

Importing coal and selling that and a lot of oil help too. Have I the right man?

Future Farmer

For me hands down the best suckler cow out of the dairy herd is a LM out of a MO, all the way.

Red with a white stripe down the face, lots of milk, super cows.

Not many around though.

bogman_bass

I had a couple of HExMO cows at one time. Great cows

Future Farmer

But in reality you probably want the cows to match your system rather than system to match cows, if that makes sense.

High bike

Maybe I'm missing something here but if you buy replacements off dairy herd how do you know they have the stars for breeding before you buy?

Bullocks

High bike wrote: »

Maybe I'm missing something here but if you buy replacements off dairy herd how do you know they have the stars for breeding before you buy?

I don't know unless you can check online from a tag number like a bull . I wonder if you shot off an email to ICBF would they be able to give you an answer? They were saying that it was a way of buying in replacements if you didn't have them within your own herd so they must know something about it

High bike

Bullocks wrote: »

I don't know unless you can check online from a tag number like a bull . I wonder if you shot off an email to ICBF would they be able to give you an answer? They were saying that it was a way of buying in replacements if you didn't have them within your own herd so they must know something about it

Bought a couple of AA x bf cows last year and they were 5* but didnt find that out till their were in my own herd,might try icbf but to be honest the way the stars are up and down so much I wouldn't have too much faith in what they say

tanko

High bike wrote: »

Bought a couple of AA x bf cows last year and they were 5* but didnt find that out till their were in my own herd,might try icbf but to be honest the way the stars are up and down so much I wouldn't have too much faith in what they say

The farmer selling the animals should be able to get the info from icbf even if he isn't a member of it I think.
If a farmer is selling 4/5 heifers or cows its in his own interest to have this information anyway when selling them.

High bike

tanko wrote: »

The farmer selling the animals should be able to get the info from icbf even if he isn't a member of it I think.
If a farmer is selling 4/5 heifers or cows its in his own interest to have this information anyway when selling them.

but maybe not in the interest of the poor suckler farmer trying to buy:D

charolais0153

If ye find the bulls tag number or ai code ye would be able to see his stars and the majority of friesans would have a high replacement value because of there milk i wouldn't be worried about stars unless they were a blue or charolais.any of the dairy bred cattle we have are either 4 or 5* or no sire recorded

Bellview

High bike wrote: »

Bought a couple of AA x bf cows last year and they were 5* but didnt find that out till their were in my own herd,might try icbf but to be honest the way the stars are up and down so much I wouldn't have too much faith in what they say

the way that ICBF have set up their ever changing stars will suit any heifer out of dairy herd as they will have Milk behind them and would nearly be always 5 star... even if the beef sire was a 2 star... but saying that ICBF will surprise us all by changing the metrics again in the future

conseng

We have a few heifers here, hex off dairy farms with no sires recorded. Is there a way to get a star rating for them?

Milked out

conseng wrote: »

We have a few heifers here, hex off dairy farms with no sires recorded. Is there a way to get a star rating for them?

Got a letter from a lad up in meath that has heifers calved down that originally came from my herd looking for their site details. For whatever reason I didn't put in the tag of the bull we had at the time of registration. I just checked agfood profile and got the tag number of the bull we had at the time and emailed it on to him. The address should be on the card could try dropping the farmer a letter with contact details and I'm sure he'll oblige

farmersfriend

Need to know tag number of sire, a lot of dairy calves are registered just as breed but no sire number, u can enter this on animal events on agfood and then join herdplus on icbf to get the rating of heifers. I'd imagine it would be worth doing if selling suckler replacements!

conseng

Thanks for that, I might try that approach, it does seem very open to abuse / inaccuracy though. We have an older batch also, all 5 stars, was a bit disappointed to get no rating on the younger bunch. Surely there should be a search function of some sort before purchase.

Western Pomise

Was talking to an auctioneer who works in several West of Ireland marts this eve,he was saying by and large he finds farmers looking for replacement weanlings are still very much buying with 'their eyes' and aren't too worried about stars.

patsy_mccabe

Well the bull that made 14K recently at the limousine premier sale had only one star for replacement. He did go to Wales though.

Bullocks

Western Pomise wrote: »

Was talking to an auctioneer who works in several West of Ireland marts this eve,he was saying by and large he finds farmers looking for replacement weanlings are still very much buying with 'their eyes' and aren't too worried about stars.

I'd believe that , I was watching heifers being sold a few weeks ago and any that were announced suitable for the scheme didn't make a penny more than the ones that hadn't stars . Now in saying that most of them weren't bought for breeding I suppose . So a specific breeding sale would have been a better place to compare prices maybe

ganmo

conseng wrote: »

Thanks for that, I might try that approach, it does seem very open to abuse / inaccuracy though. We have an older batch also, all 5 stars, was a bit disappointed to get no rating on the younger bunch. Surely there should be a search function of some sort before purchase.

I'd imagine they'd be concerned that it might get abused by nosey neighbours.

jfh

this might have been answered before so apologies if so..
is there anyway to check a heifers stars if the farmer that's selling her is not part of icbf?

reason I'm asking is because I bought some BBX heifers of a dairy farmer, he's not part of icbf & this was before the genomics scheme came in, some are only one star.

High bike

jfh wrote: »

this might have been answered before so apologies if so..
is there anyway to check a heifers stars if the farmer that's selling her is not part of icbf?

reason I'm asking is because I bought some BBX heifers of a dairy farmer, he's not part of icbf & this was before the genomics scheme came in, some are only one star.

Might be wrong but I think the best way to go about it is to get the bulls no and check him out on icbf and if he has the stars you should be ok as Dairy cows will have them from milk and calves