cows on Done Deal.

blonde10

Evening all...I've never seen as many cows for sale on Done Deal Lately...also the amount of Springer's..what's people's opinions on this,is it that people are off loading there cows with low star rating,or is it farmers changing to spring calving,or what.from what I've seen in the marts Lately you could pick up a good first calf cow with calf at foot for under 1500...yet I was a special sale of maiden heifers in the west a few weeks back,heifers making way above 1500...what's yer thoughts

Sam Kade

Maybe they don't want to winter cows or don't have enough winter feed for them and they will buy again in spring. I presume it's suckler cows you are referring to.

patsy_mccabe

I've been looking at these also. Hard to know the real reason for selling. Not easy to get good suckler cows that tick all the boxes. Would be worth seeing the actual star ratings before parting with money. Younger in-calf heifers would be a safer bet I'd say. Any guy selling a few older cows is bound to be selling his worst ones.

Sam Kade

patsy_mccabe wrote: »

I've been looking at these also. Hard to know the real reason for selling. Not easy to get good suckler cows that tick all the boxes. Would be worth seeing the actual star ratings before parting with money. Younger in-calf heifers would be a safer bet I'd say. Any guy selling a few older cows is bound to be selling his worst ones.

Very true, I bought dairy maiden heifers a few years ago and a good few turned out to be duds, they seem to have a knack of picking out the worst replacements in the herd to sell.

Never wrestle with pigs

Calving suckler cows this time if year never made sence to me. It costs allot more. More bedding and more feeding good silage or meal.

Compared to a spring calving utilising your best grass for milk to KGs for the calf. Dry off now, keep the cow out as long as you can and feed straw/average silage to maintain or strip bcs depending on the cow. Calve and hit the grass agin.

It's less labour intensive and a far less chance of helth issues with calves over winter. Also it's allot easier to get cows back Incalf and keep a compact calving and less injerys from cows bulling one another on slats.

A euro saved is as good as a euro in your pocket.

Sam Kade

Never wrestle with pigs wrote: »

Calving suckler cows this time if year never made sence to me. It costs allot more. More bedding and more feeding good silage or meal.

Compared to a spring calving utilising your best grass for milk to KGs for the calf. Dry off now, keep the cow out as long as you can and feed straw/average silage to maintain or strip bcs depending on the cow. Calve and hit the grass agin.

It's less labour intensive and a far less chance of helth issues with calves over winter. Also it's allot easier to get cows back Incalf and keep a compact calving and less injerys from cows bulling one another on slats.

A euro saved is as good as a euro in your pocket.

They say June is the most profitable month of the year to calve sucklers. The calves will fly through the winter and take off like bullets on grass the following spring.

charolais0153

Never wrestle with pigs wrote: »

Calving suckler cows this time if year never made sence to me. It costs allot more. More bedding and more feeding good silage or meal.

Compared to a spring calving utilising your best grass for milk to KGs for the calf. Dry off now, keep the cow out as long as you can and feed straw/average silage to maintain or strip bcs depending on the cow. Calve and hit the grass agin.

It's less labour intensive and a far less chance of helth issues with calves over winter. Also it's allot easier to get cows back Incalf and keep a compact calving and less injerys from cows bulling one another on slats.

A euro saved is as good as a euro in your pocket.

Autumn calf's convert the grass in spring to weight themselves and get better prices. It's all much the same. Very handy for ai as the ai man does them in the shed and its easy to put on tail paint

Lady Haywire

Sam Kade wrote: »

They say June is the most profitable month of the year to calve sucklers. The calves will fly through the winter and take off like bullets on grass the following spring.

Best ones we ever had (ppk anyways) were calved in Oct/Nov and trained to jump through the barrier toad lib feed at the bales.

Sami23

Lady Haywire wrote: »

Best ones we ever had (ppk anyways) were calved in Oct/Nov and trained to jump through the barrier toad lib feed at the bales.

Do you not think they dirty the silage alot coming out thru the barriers on top of it ?

Lady Haywire

Sami23 wrote: »

Do you not think they dirty the silage alot coming out thru the barriers on top of it ?

Never had much of an issue with it, they tended to only jump back in for milk so they weren't tramping it too much. They learned to lie on a pile of waste silage being kept in a corner.

Mooooo

Lady Haywire wrote: »

Best ones we ever had (ppk anyways) were calved in Oct/Nov and trained to jump through the barrier toad lib feed at the bales.

I like how you say "trained" ha I have a few aa suckling a couple of cows here and they are creep grazing the paddocks, all intentional of course...

Lady Haywire

Mooooo wrote: »

I like how you say "trained" ha I have a few aa suckling a couple of cows here and they are creep grazing the paddocks, all intentional of course...

Oh totally intentional! :P We push them out through the barrier to dehorn them and leave them to their own devices to get back in so they have to figure it out fairly quickly. Braveheart was a calf that started it all off......we'd drag her round to the door to put her back in, but by the time we got round the front she'd be galloping up and down the feeding area again. So fook it, leave them out and they'll work it themselves, get to pick at the bales themselves and go out to the field if they want.

50HX

Lady Haywire wrote: »

Best ones we ever had (ppk anyways) were calved in Oct/Nov and trained to jump through the barrier toad lib feed at the bales.

and i thought i was alone at this practice .....except i didn't train them:)