Finishing Freisians bullocks

Danzy

I have a ban of bullocks, lot of decent frames but they are still cut from the black and white cloth, so there are a few Ps as well and the best will be doing 0=.

Some of them are gone over 30 months i'm wondering is it worth giving them a bit of ration, surely would take a bit for them to be hit by going too fat.

I'm hardly going to be at risk of hitting a bad grade fat score given their breed.

Does it make a bit of money though if i'm tipping the ration bucket in to the trough.

Why i'm asking is i've not had them before and also while i've good amount of good cover ahead, no butty stuff, the quality of many of the fields has slipped, so its no fresh Italian Rye etc. Good fattening land though all the same

Should I horse out the ration and be damned or not.

Danzy

Bump

Bass Reeves

Sending cattle in under fat (2-/2+) is a no no. At present grading is very tight. If you fed them 4-5kgs/head for six week would it turn finish them. If they all scored FS 3 and 50% went up a fraction of a grade it might add 6-8 cent on to the finishing price if averaging 350kg at slaughter it would add 25 euro to there price before extra weight.

Barley and soya hulls (70/30) would be adequate. It should be possible to get taht delivered in bulk( they will not bag it) for sub 200/ton. The cost will be 30-35/head. However you also have to remember that if 1-2 slip down to P-/+ you have less choice of processors ansd some processors penalise these cattle by 20c/kg so maybe 70/head.

If they were mine I would feed them but it would have to be barley and hulls or barley and hay/straw at sub 200/ton.

cute geoge

The best to fatten is maize yellow meal mixed with barley ,a couple of kgs for the next six weeks will work a treat and you will always get this back on the dooble

Sam Kade

cute geoge wrote: »

The best to fatten is maize yellow meal mixed with barley ,a couple of kgs for the next six weeks will work a treat and you will always get this back on the dooble

Yeah, it's energy they need to fatten, maize meal and grass would work well.

Carrigogunnell

Im going to throw a spanner in the works here and suggest maybe housing them. No one know wat the weather is going to do from now on and the power is slowly slipping out of grass id find it hard to see them covered in 6 weeks.

Danzy

Thanks lads, went for the Barley and hulls.

They will be finished off it in 6 weeks.

With the bad weekend we had here they needed it. If the weather turned I could be left with no options but to start moving them before I felt comfortable and that would be a costlier mistake than a little bit of ration.

Danzy

In fairness to them they have done reasonably well over the last few months so i'm confident that they do ok.

My concern was that given they are overage and in decent enough shape would i only be piling on weight that would be only fat and it wouldn't pay me.

A few may be finished indoors. There is one, his card has him as AAX but he hasn't even the slightest resemblance to one, more like a Red British Friesian, he has some frame for carrying weight and he is filling it well.

tanko

I saw three Feb/March 2013 FR bullocks weighing between 700-750 kgs sell for approx €1150 last week. They were like giraffes.

Bass Reeves

Carrigogunnell wrote: »

Im going to throw a spanner in the works here and suggest maybe housing them. No one know wat the weather is going to do from now on and the power is slowly slipping out of grass id find it hard to see them covered in 6 weeks.

Fresians are bad converters assuming that these are up on 700kgs they would need 12-14kg DM/day. If you house they will not preform for the first few weeks. Silage would be costing 12-15c/kg DM along with 5kgs of a rationn they be costing 2.5/day to feed inside. I get cover on them and be off loading them as they come fit.

charolais0153

Bass Reeves wrote: »

Fresians are bad converters assuming that these are up on 700kgs they would need 12-14kg DM/day. If you house they will not preform for the first few weeks. Silage would be costing 12-15c/kg DM along with 5kgs of a rationn they be costing 2.5/day to feed inside. I get cover on them and be off loading them as they come fit.

What is the cost of grass per kg /dm

Bass Reeves

charolais0153 wrote: »

What is the cost of grass per kg /dm

3-5c/kg at a guess. I normally put grazing down at 50c/day in my costings. I knwo there is more exact measurements.