profit per head from suckling

forgot_it_all

im thinking of getting into suckling , i bought a farm last year and have 35 acres so i would hope to run twenty cows on it , say the average cost of keeping a cow per year is around 600 euro , would twenty sucklers per year produce a 150 euro profit per head ( 20 x 150 = 3000 ) , i understand that some years will see no profit due to poor weanling prices but on average is 150 per head a reasonable target

i grew up on a dairy farm but my brother runs it

blue5000

The most profitable suckler farms are finishing all the calves. That way there is more output per cow to cover the costs. Keep fewer cows and finish the calves would be my advice.

patsy_mccabe

But it's not just the cost of the cow you have to cover, it's the cost of all animals on the farm.

CloughCasey1

patsy_mccabe wrote: »

But it's not just the cost of the cow you have to cover, it's the cost of all animals on the farm.

Is that all an average suckler set up will leave per cow??

dohc turbo2

CloughCasey1 wrote: »

Is that all an average suckler set up will leave per cow??

First year at suckler here , now I've a lot of extra costs to factor in at moment since I'd so much work to do since take over but , Tegasc state ave 700 to keep a cow per year , so ud want a very good calf to sell, I was at the last btap meeting before it ended and the majority of farmers were at a loss in there profit moniters , the farmer making the profit was 100% a.i spending serious money amd finishing the calves at 16 months on 12kg of ration if I can remember correct

IH784man

What about buying Frisian bull calves of your brother and rearing and finishing them yourself to until you set yourself set up

Feckthis

blue5000 wrote: »

The most profitable suckler farms are finishing all the calves. That way there is more output per cow to cover the costs. Keep fewer cows and finish the calves would be my advice.

This has the makings of a good thread. I wonder what Teagasc say the profit per cow is when your finishing all stock?

mikeoh

U will do well to keep 20 cows on 35 acres

Grueller

mikeoh wrote: »

U will do well to keep 20 cows on 35 acres

Kept 45 on 54 acres here at one stage. All weanlings go before housing and cows split autumn and spring.
Keep 75 now on a little one 100 acres. Breed a few pedigrees now that are pushing down the number of cows as they have to be kept to 2 yo.
On good land it is doable.
Last profit monitor here was €790 per ha gross margin. Continental cows and a blue bull with limousin and parthenaise ai to breed replacements.

limo_100

you should buy the blackwhite head heifer calves of your brother and put them in calf when the time comes and either sell them or go into sucklers. by the time you get that far you will know what you want to do, best of luck with whatever you do

forgot_it_all

Grueller wrote: »

Kept 45 on 54 acres here at one stage. All weanlings go before housing and cows split autumn and spring.
Keep 75 now on a little one 100 acres. Breed a few pedigrees now that are pushing down the number of cows as they have to be kept to 2 yo.
On good land it is doable.
Last profit monitor here was €790 per ha gross margin. Continental cows and a blue bull with limousin and parthenaise ai to breed replacements.

how much is that per cow per anum ? , your figures are very impressive but id like to put this in my own terms

profit per head as opposed to per hectare

forgot_it_all

limo_100 wrote: »

you should buy the blackwhite head heifer calves of your brother and put them in calf when the time comes and either sell them or go into sucklers. by the time you get that far you will know what you want to do, best of luck with whatever you do

i have not decided what breed or anything like that as of yet , it appears to me that if you cant even make 150 per cow per year profit , it makes no sense to rent land at 150 euro per acre , i realise that most rent land for the purpose of activating entitlements but if you remove the subsidies , is there no way to make money breeding weanlings

Grueller

forgot_it_all wrote: »

how much is that per cow per anum ? , your figures are very impressive but id like to put this in my own terms

profit per head as opposed to per hectare

Stocking rate of roughly 1.9 cows per ha so close on €400 per cow gross margin. That would include selling pedigree bulls so it might be a little higher than it ordinarily would in the commercial sucklers.
In my opinion if suckler calves don't make the shipping grade they need to be finished before sale to get anything from them really. Hence the blue bull here.
By the way, congratulations on buying the land and best of luck with it.
Does your brother get heifers contract reared? Might be an option to get started without a huge outlay on stock?

forgot_it_all

Grueller wrote: »

Stocking rate of roughly 1.9 cows per ha so close on €400 per cow gross margin. That would include selling pedigree bulls so it might be a little higher than it ordinarily would in the commercial sucklers.
In my opinion if suckler calves don't make the shipping grade they need to be finished before sale to get anything from them really. Hence the blue bull here.
By the way, congratulations on buying the land and best of luck with it.
Does your brother get heifers contract reared? Might be an option to get started without a huge outlay on stock?

what is your net margin per cow ? ( may i ask )

Grueller

forgot_it_all wrote: »

what is your net margin per cow ? ( may i ask )

Might be laughed at here but I cannot tell you as last year was the first profit monitor I ever did. I never had an eye on all of that really as I work full time and it all kind of ran into each other if you follow me.

Miname

This old chestnut net gross whys and what's the lads put up his gross it's down to each individual to spend or not spend to get the net. Fair play on the 790 gross, it's around where I'm aiming for next year. Building up stock and funds to be able to finish is the big hurdle for me anyways.

Kovu

Op is banned, don't expect replies.....yadda yadda yadda.

*pats self on moderator head*

tomieen jones

Kovu wrote: »

Op is banned, don't expect replies.....yadda yadda yadda.

*pats self on moderator head*

Awe what happened here? I was following this thread but I missed something?

Kovu

tomieen jones wrote: »

Awe what happened here? I was following this thread but I missed something?

Nope. Nothing that was on this thread. It's a grand topic though, been covered numerous times before but I don't think it was brought up this year until now.

leg wax

last profit monitor here was 880 gross , sat down with teag man and accountant together , no money to be made even at 1000 gross if you need to put money into the yard or farm forget it.hence sucklers gone, first year back milking and have invested 12k out of cash flow into job and its a bad year for milk price,and all bills cleared.

patsy_mccabe

But your fulltime, aren't you Legs? Most suckler guys are part-time and working full-time off farm.

Bullocks

patsy_mccabe wrote: »

But your fulltime, aren't you Legs? Most suckler guys are part-time and working full-time off farm.

That still won't change the figures unfortunately

Miname

Bullocks wrote: »

That still won't change the figures unfortunately

But milking means you can't work off farm.

rangler1

Bullocks wrote: »

That still won't change the figures unfortunately

The suckler farmer profiled on the journal farms near here, 120 cows progeny to beef. €1200 -1300 euros/ ha gross margin, very good farmer, attention to detail, but he works very hard, bales and wraps all his own silage,grows and mixes his own ration....don't know if it's worth that.

Bullocks

Miname wrote: »

But milking means you can't work off farm.

I knew lads that did both jobs .I think there are one or two on this forum at it

Bullocks

rangler1 wrote: »

The suckler farmer profiled on the journal farms near here, 120 cows progeny to beef. €1200 -1300 euros/ ha gross margin, very good farmer, attention to detail, but he works very hard, bales and wraps all his own silage,grows and mixes his own ration....don't know if it's worth that.

I didn't see that article . I don't know if making his own silage and growing his own feed would be my cup of tea to make anything extra out of sucklers .
The bare essential tractor and machinery and damn all layout in labour is how I would go with sucklers.
I'm afraid I have no figures on our place to add to this thread but we aren't losing money on them either .
I see sucklers as a nice top up on my other income and a bit of a saving scheme if I have spare money to buy a few more with and sell offspring again . I wouldn't like to be relying on it for a full time wage with the cash hungry crowd in my house !

The Cuban

All I know is that I`m making less from the farm than my EU payments. For example in 2013 I had a gross profit of 22k, I had EU payments totaling 11k but my final net profit from the whole thing was only 5k :eek:. by the time I added up all the feed,contractor and other expenses I`m running at a loss
It seems to me that if I only kept enough stock to qualify for the EU payments then I would be better off. Suckler cows are the greatest loss making exercise there is. They just cost too much to keep.

john p mc g

limo_100 wrote: »

you should buy the blackwhite head heifer calves of your brother and put them in calf when the time comes and either sell them or go into sucklers. by the time you get that far you will know what you want to do, best of luck with whatever you do

That's good advice I did with Angus and whiteheads it gathers a few quid I sold them at 24 months incalf at 1150 each bought them for 220 a piece

Sam Kade

leg wax wrote: »

last profit monitor here was 880 gross , sat down with teag man and accountant together , no money to be made even at 1000 gross if you need to put money into the yard or farm forget it.hence sucklers gone, first year back milking and have invested 12k out of cash flow into job and its a bad year for milk price,and all bills cleared.

12k out of cash flow that's a lot for first year milking, how many are you milking?