Future of suckler farming.

Thunderbird

I just want to know what people think about the future as the return from sucklers is poor now but with a mass shift towards dairy.will the lads who stick to sucklers get better returns from it as a result of demand.

patsy_mccabe

I doubt it. When the dairy herd eases up on expansion, they will be using more beef bulls so more beef cross calves from the dairy herd.

orchard farm

On marginal land here,will keep at it as dairy is a no go,i dont like sheep and land around me is unplantable due to rare orchids growing and other environmental issues so option is limited even if suckling costs me money

20silkcut

Did you purposely title this thread “sucker farming” ðŸ˜

Who2

It's doomed, I can't understand lads who do the same thing every year and expect something different. Any lad with more than fifty acres around his yard needs to quit his job and go milking with a new robot. If that doesn't work finishing aa and Hereford cross for Larry is the next best option. A step up from the slums of suckler farming is to go finishing golden charolais but it's only slightly better now because you don't want people talking about buying nice animals, sure it's all about the vanity if your not buying fr x.

Thunderbird

20silkcut wrote: »

Did you purposely title this thread “sucker farming” ðŸ˜

Ah no twas the autotype😉

tanko

Thunderbird wrote: »

Ah no twas the autotype😉

Its more appropriate to leave it the way it is.
Im waiting for everyone else to quit so that i can make a fortune, hurry up and quit will ye!!!!

Base price

tanko wrote: »

Its more appropriate to leave it the way it is.
Im waiting for everyone else to quit so that i can make a fortune, hurry up and quit will ye!!!!

Was out for lunch last Sunday and went on a bit of a pub crawl afterwards. Over the course of the evening met three different farmers (mid 40's to early 50's) who told me that they were quitting farming next year and going to plant forestry. One is dairying (50 ish cows) and the other two keep sucklers.
I think the two wet Summers in a row was the last straw.

patsy_mccabe

Had a relative that had his own business making hurleys. For the last 10 years or so, he was retiring every time I met him. He worked right up to the time he passed away.

K.G.

The number of suckler cows has always ebbed and flowed over the years it just is on an ebb.at the moment.you could argue that the growth of sucklers over the last 30 years was at the expense of dairy cows as fellas got out of dairy due to quota and moved into suckers.it can also be said be said that sucklers numbers were artifially high the last number of years due to grants and thing s.are now returning to their natural numbers.at the end of the day sucklers are really only replacing ration in a farm system in rearing young stock if the calf is available.

20silkcut

Base price wrote: »

tanko wrote: »

Its more appropriate to leave it the way it is.
Im waiting for everyone else to quit so that i can make a fortune, hurry up and quit will ye!!!!

Was out for lunch last Sunday and went on a bit of a pub crawl afterwards. Over the course of the evening met three different farmers (mid 40's to early 50's) who told me that they were quitting farming next year and going to plant forestry. One is dairying (50 ish cows) and the other two keep sucklers.
I think the two wet Summers in a row was the last straw.

A lot of guys get philosophical about life in their 40’s and 50’s when they accept things are pretty much as good as they are going to get and they have given up on taking over the world.

Base price

20silkcut wrote: »

A lot of guys get philosophical about life in their 40’s and 50’s when they accept things are pretty much as good as they are going to get and they have given up on taking over the world.

In two of the cases the children are grown up and living away from home. The other guy is single, has over 100 acres of mostly good land and is unlikely to find anyone to settle with other than on the high stool beside him

Donegalforever

tanko wrote: »

Its more appropriate to leave it the way it is.
Im waiting for everyone else to quit so that i can make a fortune, hurry up and quit will ye!!!!

I am also waiting for almost everyone to quit.
Something tells me that I will have a long wait.

Farm365

Is anyone on here making a profit from suckers? If so would you mind sharing what system do you use, breed, stocking rate, type of land etc

bogman_bass

We're probably doing things back to front. If you have an 8 month winter in the west why have sucklers that you have have to keep inside. Should we have the cows in the east and south where they have a chance of getting grass early and finish them in the west? If you are going to have animals in the shed you might as well have animals that can be pushed in the shed

Bullocks

bogman_bass wrote: »

We're probably doing things back to front. If you have an 8 month winter in the west why have sucklers that you have have to keep inside. Should we have the cows in the east and south where they have a chance of getting grass early and finish them in the west? If you are going to have animals in the shed you might as well have animals that can be pushed in the shed

It would be worth thinking about but I dont think it would suit everyone in the west to go finishing .
On either side of the country finishing off grass is just about profitable not to mind trying to keep them fleshed and finished in a shed on silage and meal .
In very western counties slurry storage and even ground to spread on is not enough
I think aswell if the boys on the east have them calved down and grown to stores or for finishing and there is twist of money left by finishing them they will not sell them up here for us to get the last few bob when they could keep going themselves (and rightly so )
The only reason we typically sold weanlings / light stores was because we hadnt the fodder / housing /bedding / early or late grass to give them a good do .

What we had was rough grazing that could hold a few cows outside , calve in spring and sell the calf in autumn without spending on the cow .

We all know the price of weanlings in the mart is slack so we should equally be slack on spending anywhere we can .
Cow type , stocking rate and knowing your market and selling time are the most important things in my opinion and they can change massively between farms so dont leave it all up to ICBF or Teagasc for a game plan . Sit down and work out a personal plan for your own farm and expectations

patsy_mccabe

Farm365 wrote: »

Is anyone on here making a profit from suckers? If so would you mind sharing what system do you use, breed, stocking rate, type of land etc

What do you mean by money? If you mean that there is something left after paying all bills, then yes. If you mean am I eating into my single payment then no.

If you're not making money then ask yourself;
- What is your calving interval?
- What daily weight gains are you getting?
- Do you soil test, spread lime, fertiliser?
- Do you get the most from grass, use paddocks etc?

I honestly think suckler guys would be far better to forget about chasing the €1000 weanling and look instead at the margin per cow.
For me either calving at grass or at 3 years is way too late.

Bullocks

patsy_mccabe wrote: »

What do you mean by money? If you mean that there is something left after paying all bills, then yes. If you mean am I eating into my single payment then no.

If you're not making money then ask yourself;
- What is your calving interval?
- What daily weight gains are you getting?
- Do you soil test, spread lime, fertiliser?
- Do you get the most from grass, use paddocks etc?

I honestly think suckler guys would be far better to forget about chasing the €1000 weanling and look instead at the margin per cow.
For me either calving at grass or at 3 years is way too late.

I agree with all your points .
Except in my case I much prefer calving at grass , but if I was selling before housing it wouldn't work for me cos they wouldn't be heavy enough to sell in autumn .

blue5000

Originally Posted by Farm365 View Post
Is anyone on here making a profit from suckers? If so would you mind sharing what system do you use, breed, stocking rate, type of land etc

My motto is KISS.

AA x Au cows, calve to grass, finish bulls at 18-24 mths, sell a few heifers for breeding when I can. Cows are small, easy (read cheaper) to winter. There are no 800kg cows here, or 700kg cows either. Teagasc are looking at weaning % weight, ie. weight of weanling as a percentage of the cow's weight at weaning, I've weighed a few in the past and they're at 60%, the lighter the cow is the easier it is to hit 60%.

I run 2 stock bulls, an angus goes with Aux cows, Au bull goes with AAx and a few blonde cows which I kept to build numbers after tb a few yrs back. I didn't use ai this year, but in the past I've used terminal ch ai on the blonde cows.

I don't go on a skiing holiday but I'm not starving either. Costs are cut to the bone, closed herd, very little spent on vaccines, machinery is old, mostly maintained by me. Contractor does silage, hedge cutting, dung spreading, sows, sprays and cuts barley. I plough, do my own slurry, fertiliser and re-seeding.

Land type is fairly good, if I wanted to I could plough about half of it, the wettest land is in forestry and I'm in glas, with the wettish land beside the forestry used for LIPP, hay meadow and bird cover. Lowish SR as there is barley grown which is mostly used indirectly to finish and bed bulls.

I know I'm painting a bit of a rosy picture here, but it's not perfect. I don't have a lot of buildings, 50 cubicles with slatted passage for feeding, 3 bay straw bedded shed. Some weanlings are outwintered, usually on kale, but I didn't grow any this year.

Biggest problems I have are;
1) fragmentation and
2) cash flow,
80% of money comes in in the last 3 months of the year. There is room for improvement though, my P&K levels have dropped, so will have to get them up to grow more grass. Half thinking of going organic next time it opens, but there isn't a market for organic bulls, yet. I don't want to be keeping a steer for two or three years for an extra 50 cent/kg. My wife works part time.

I don't know about the future though, a few lads in my discussion group have switched to dairy, others are rearing dairy bred calves to beef. Of the lads that switched the majority of them were chasing the fancy weanling market and the costs between zipper cows, creep meal and big hungry cows were breaking them. Others that switched were buying dairy calves, rearing them and doing such a good job on them that there was sfa difference at slaughter between the reared calves and the suckler cows that they had to question why bother with a suckler cow?

squinn2912

Good thread this I'll look forward to getting a better look. Friend of mine is beefing fresians, another buys weanlings and another is trying out bringing heifers to springing then selling. All have their appeals. I wonder is it more about fitting into a system well rather than the particular system?
We have lim cattle cows 650-750kgs, fancy enough calves but a range in quality. I think good cattle make a difference if selling as stores as we do. The finnishers can afford to give a wee bit more. We've a good calving index but it's well spread out to suit space availability

Bullocks

blue5000 wrote: »

Originally Posted by Farm365 View Post
Is anyone on here making a profit from suckers? If so would you mind sharing what system do you use, breed, stocking rate, type of land etc

My motto is KISS.

AA x Au cows, calve to grass, finish bulls at 18-24 mths, sell a few heifers for breeding when I can. Cows are small, easy (read cheaper) to winter. There are no 800kg cows here, or 700kg cows either. Teagasc are looking at weaning % weight, ie. weight of weanling as a percentage of the cow's weight at weaning, I've weighed a few in the past and they're at 60%, the lighter the cow is the easier it is to hit 60%.

I run 2 stock bulls, an angus goes with Aux cows, Au bull goes with AAx and a few blonde cows which I kept to build numbers after tb a few yrs back. I didn't use ai this year, but in the past I've used terminal ch ai on the blonde cows.

I don't go on a skiing holiday but I'm not starving either. Costs are cut to the bone, closed herd, very little spent on vaccines, machinery is old, mostly maintained by me. Contractor does silage, hedge cutting, dung spreading, sows, sprays and cuts barley. I plough, do my own slurry, fertiliser and re-seeding.

Land type is fairly good, if I wanted to I could plough about half of it, the wettest land is in forestry and I'm in glas, with the wettish land beside the forestry used for LIPP, hay meadow and bird cover. Lowish SR as there is barley grown which is mostly used indirectly to finish and bed bulls.

I know I'm painting a bit of a rosy picture here, but it's not perfect. I don't have a lot of buildings, 50 cubicles with slatted passage for feeding, 3 bay straw bedded shed. Some weanlings are outwintered, usually on kale, but I didn't grow any this year.

Biggest problems I have are;
1) fragmentation and
2) cash flow,
80% of money comes in in the last 3 months of the year. There is room for improvement though, my P&K levels have dropped, so will have to get them up to grow more grass. Half thinking of going organic next time it opens, but there isn't a market for organic bulls, yet. I don't want to be keeping a steer for two or three years for an extra 50 cent/kg. My wife works part time.

I don't know about the future though, a few lads in my discussion group have switched to dairy, others are rearing dairy bred calves to beef. Of the lads that switched the majority of them were chasing the fancy weanling market and the costs between zipper cows, creep meal and big hungry cows were breaking them. Others that switched were buying dairy calves, rearing them and doing such a good job on them that there was sfa difference at slaughter between the reared calves and the suckler cows that they had to question why bother with a suckler cow?

Do you buy in much meal blue ,or can you finish/ feed them mostly from what corn you grow ?
I'm guessing you are one of the few if not the only fulltime suckler farmer here , I wonder how many fulltimers there are with suckler farms in ireland .

Is it worth having 10/15 calving at a different time of the year to be able to help with cash flow .
Or a different approach I saw done was a lad selling some of his heifers that he knew wouldnt finish as well as his better ones during high price times when grass is plentiful .
It would put a few quid in his pocket when he needed it earlier in the year and he would replace them later in the year with nicer ones for less money when he started getting factory cheques .
I think I made that sound more complicated than it actually is :rolleyes:

Bullocks

squinn2912 wrote: »

Good thread this I'll look forward to getting a better look. Friend of mine is beefing fresians, another buys weanlings and another is trying out bringing heifers to springing then selling. All have their appeals. I wonder is it more about fitting into a system well rather than the particular system?
We have lim cattle cows 650-750kgs, fancy enough calves but a range in quality. I think good cattle make a difference if selling as stores as we do. The finnishers can afford to give a wee bit more. We've a good calving index but it's well spread out to suit space availability

I think as you said , finding a system that suits yourself best is better than chasing a slightly better paying one that wont work as well on your own farm

orchard farm

Bullocks wrote: »

I think as you said , finding a system that suits yourself best is better than chasing a slightly better paying one that wont work as well on your own farm

Youve hit the nail on the head here,only you can know what system suits you and your farm.full time organic suckler here.100per cent net income from subsidies here,cattle cover costs and tax.only way i could stay at it fulltime no real fancy cattle just a means to cover inputs.if c.a.p went belly up id be belly up too

blue5000

Bullocks wrote: »

Do you buy in much meal blue ,or can you finish/ feed them mostly from what corn you grow ?
I'm guessing you are one of the few if not the only fulltime suckler farmer here , I wonder how many fulltimers there are with suckler farms in ireland .

Is it worth having 10/15 calving at a different time of the year to be able to help with cash flow .
Or a different approach I saw done was a lad selling some of his heifers that he knew wouldnt finish as well as his better ones during high price times when grass is plentiful .
It would put a few quid in his pocket when he needed it earlier in the year and he would replace them later in the year with nicer ones for less money when he started getting factory cheques .
I think I made that sound more complicated than it actually is :rolleyes:

We have an arrangement with a local miller, barley in and bull ration out, let's just say it makes it worthwhile to grow the barley, I don't want to go into too much detail here. Bulls get about 1.25 ton/hd and cows get about 50kg of oats pre-calving. I sell cull cows over the summer to help spread the income.

orchard farm wrote: »

Youve hit the nail on the head here,only you can know what system suits you and your farm.full time organic suckler here.100per cent net income from subsidies here,cattle cover costs and tax.only way i could stay at it fulltime no real fancy cattle just a means to cover inputs.if c.a.p went belly up id be belly up too

I have to agree, there's a lot of money coming in that way here too. But think of it this way, how much value added is coming into this country from beef exports? It shouldn't be too hard to divide the amount of beef exports by the number of calves born per anum to get a rough guestimate. Have you been organic for long orchard farm?

orchard farm

blue5000 wrote: »

We have an arrangement with a local miller, barley in and bull ration out, let's just say it makes it worthwhile to grow the barley, I don't want to go into too much detail here. Bulls get about 1.25 ton/hd and cows get about 50kg of oats pre-calving. I sell cull cows over the summer to help spread the income.



I have to agree, there's a lot of money coming in that way here too. But think of it this way, how much value added is coming into this country from beef exports? It shouldn't be too hard to divide the amount of beef exports by the number of calves born per anum to get a rough guestimate. Have you been organic for long orchard farm?

I hear that!just went organic in 2015 best decision ever,would like to eventually set up farm market etc but like i said it suits my farm type,layout etc

Grueller

Perhaps I am overly optimistic here but I believe with the dept being allowed to re couple payments to a degree that we will see a substantial suckler cow payment.
1. Factories are bemoaning smaller carcasses already
2. Suckler cows are a serious wealth generator for factories etc. Basically everybody bar farmers.
3. For rural survival particularly west of the Shannon they are important.
4. Factories will have high value markets for them in reasonable numbers, maybe not the numbers there now.

I think this payment will be introduced in a way not dissimilar to BDGP but I do believe that it will be a substantial payment.

patsy_mccabe

I think you may be right Grueller. Without the suckler cow, the Irish beef industry would be in serious trouble. If you are an exporting country, for any product not just beef, you need to be producing right at the top quality wise. Beef from half bred dairy crosses don't work in any other country so why should they work here. Think of any other beef exporting country, it ain't dairy crosses they're at.

Bass Reeves

Too many mugs buying into factory's propaganda about smaller carcasses. Maybe at present with the Italian and German beef price hitting the same high ad the UK price that there is a demand for a limited amount of extra heavey carcasses. But this is only now translating into an price increase. Factory's will get all the weights or specs they want of they play fair on price. How long the kill can stay at 38k+ is a good question bit a suckler subsidity that increases production leaves everybody a winner but the farmer.

What is worse is that we have our farm organisations and the GO spewing and believing this propaganda. If the processors want heavier carasses let them pay a bonus for them, let them pay QA on cattle to 36 months of age.
IMO all this demand for heavy carcasses is due to the price rise in the German and Italian market

patsy_mccabe

It's not just carcass weight, It's meat yield that's the real earner for factories. Suckler farmers are just not being rewarded for this.

https://amp.independent.ie/business/farming/beef/meat-yield-has-to-be-the-bottom-line-34910950.html

Tomjim

how much per cow is the BGDP at the moment?

Lady Haywire

Tomjim wrote: »

how much per cow is the BGDP at the moment?

Think it works out around €79 when you take off the deductions.

-€79.63 to be exact.

Edit- Not everyone gets the same as it's based on land/divided by cow numbers in a base year so above is what we get. Dunno max/min.

Bullocks

Tomjim wrote: »

how much per cow is the BGDP at the moment?

I dont know but I'm not in the BGDP scheme so hope its not a requirement if the a suckler cow payment is brought in

Grueller

Lady Haywire wrote: »

Think it works out around €79 when you take off the deductions.

-€79.63 to be exact.

Edit- Not everyone gets the same as it's based on land/divided by cow numbers in a base year so above is what we get. Dunno max/min.

That is pretty much nail on the head.

carrollsno1

patsy_mccabe wrote: »

I think you may be right Grueller. Without the suckler cow, the Irish beef industry would be in serious trouble. If you are an exporting country, for any product not just beef, you need to be producing right at the top quality wise. Beef from half bred dairy crosses don't work in any other country so why should they work here. Think of any other beef exporting country, it ain't dairy crosses they're at.

Was on an ag trip to the uk last spring the ABP man said that the first cross wagyu off a frieisan is the best meat in the world apparently it "melts at room temperature" and some lunatics are paying hundreds of pounds for this steak in high end london restaurants. However i cant see them taking off in ireland as they look too much like jersey stock and the neighbours would be talking about poor me with my screwy cattle, even though they could be turned out earlier while there big continentals are still indoors

Bullocks

carrollsno1 wrote: »

Was on an ag trip to the uk last spring the ABP man said that the first cross wagyu off a frieisan is the best meat in the world apparently it "melts at room temperature" and some lunatics are paying hundreds of pounds for this steak in high end london restaurants. However i cant see them taking off in ireland as they look too much like jersey stock and the neighbours would be talking about poor me with my screwy cattle, even though they could be turned out earlier while there big continentals are still indoors

Sure if they hang an ould freisan cow for long enough it wouldnt be bad either

carrollsno1

Bullocks wrote: »

Sure if they hang an ould freisan cow for long enough it wouldnt be bad either

Problem sorted lets all hop on the dairy bandwagon so. Sure if we leave all the screws hanging long enough we wont need suckler bred stock at all.



(Only joking BTW before anyone loses the plot

Bass Reeves

patsy_mccabe wrote: »

It's not just carcass weight, It's meat yield that's the real earner for factories. Suckler farmers are just not being rewarded for this.

https://amp.independent.ie/business/farming/beef/meat-yield-has-to-be-the-bottom-line-34910950.html

Again you are buying into Factory, Teagasc and other propaganda

take a look at what happen with the grid on meat yield I will use a 4/kg base price

Friesian 330kgs DW O-3- 3.76/kg price paid 1240 euro @67%; meat yield=221kgs or 5.61/kg of meat yield

LM dairy cross 350kgs DW O+3 price paid 4/kg or 1400 euro @69% meat yield=242kg or 5.78/kg

HE cross 350kgs DW O+3 price paid 4.1/kg or 1435 euro @70% meat yield=245kg or 5.85/kg

Suckler Cont 370kgs DW R+2+ price paid 4.18/kg or 1546 euro @70% meat yield=259kg or 5.97/kg

Suckler Cont 440kgs DW U=3+ price paid 4.30/kg or 1892 euro @75% meat yield=330kg or 5.73/kg

If you look at it only when the carcass weights of suckler bred cattle increases up above 400kgs will meat yield count and even then it has to go well above 450kgs or over 30 months to compete with Friesian beef. Dairy bred and dairy cross cattle are being driven into the O-/O=4= grade at present to give the factory's cheap beef to fill supermarket trays.

If the base price is sub 4/kg the dairy cross beef really hammers all the rest it would take a base up near 4.5 before the suckler bred meat yield begins to count. At present processors are spinning because of demand from mainland Europe for however long the demand remains. And of course this is eulogised by the IFJ and the IFa because of this scared suckler cow.

Bullocks wrote: »

Sure if they hang an ould freisan cow for long enough it wouldnt be bad either

In a blind tasting competition HO friesian beef beat all the rest for flavour and tenderness.

Grueller

Bass Reeves wrote: »

In a blind tasting competition HO friesian beef beat all the rest for flavour and tenderness.

In another one though Blonde acquitaine came out tops. The individual animal and the life it had has a part in this. A butcher local to me kills lambs for my freezer and he says that in the olden times when he could kill them on farm the meat was far better due to lack of stress moving and loading etc.

Willfarman

The suckler cow is important for ifa levies it seems. If they were worth a ****e they would of been suggested an extensification type payment. Subsidise a marginal reduction in numbers.. and actually get out bed with Goodmans and Brownes (who are rubbing their hands gleefully at the thought of subsidised production).

Bass Reeves

Grueller wrote: »

In another one though Blonde acquitaine came out tops. The individual animal and the life it had has a part in this. A butcher local to me kills lambs for my freezer and he says that in the olden times when he could kill them on farm the meat was far better due to lack of stress moving and loading etc.

And what you have posted there all points to traditional and dairy breed cattle comming out on top for taste and tenderness as they are less flighty cattle. Because of this they will react less to stressful situtations compared to sucker bred and especially continental bred cattle

Willfarman wrote: »

The suckler cow is important for ifa levies it seems. If they were worth a ****e they would of been suggested an extensification type payment. Subsidise a marginal reduction in numbers.. and actually get out bed with Goodmans and Brownes (who are rubbing their hands gleefully at the thought of subsidised production).

At present less and less dairy bred calves and weanlings going through marts. Most suckler bred cattle go through marts. If you want to see how the propagand system and vested interest works and has worked you only have to look at what happened to Oliver McDonnal. He was a dairy/beef farmer who wrote for the FI until ablut 4-5 years ago. He was a regular contributor to the dairy section and to beef as well. About 4-5 years ago he wrote an article critical about AI and especially regarding sexed semen.

He wrote that on there farm that the sexed semen was not preforming, that the heifer/bull ratio was very poor and that repeats were a huge issue as well as the cost involved. There was an outcry in part led by the IFJ who carried the propaganda from the AI compained the next Thursday. The following Tuesday the FI apologised and retracted the story and Oliver never again wrote in the FI. Fast forward 3 years and everything he stated was proved right and Teagasc advisded it clients to not use or limit there use of sexed semen as it was unproven technology.

MIKEKC

Bullocks wrote: »

Do you buy in much meal blue ,or can you finish/ feed them mostly from what corn you grow ?
I'm guessing you are one of the few if not the only fulltime suckler farmer here , I wonder how many fulltimers there are with suckler farms in ireland .

Is it worth having 10/15 calving at a different time of the year to be able to help with cash flow .
Or a different approach I saw done was a lad selling some of his heifers that he knew wouldnt finish as well as his better ones during high price times when grass is plentiful .
It would put a few quid in his pocket when he needed it earlier in the year and he would replace them later in the year with nicer ones for less money when he started getting factory cheques .
I think I made that sound more complicated than it actually is :rolleyes:

if people have to be worrying about cash flow it shows that there isn't much profit in the business

Siamsa Sessions

Thinking of getting a few cattle here to see if mixed grazing helps with main sheep enterprise so I’m interested in how the beef industry is going in general.

Maybe a point that’s being missed is the impact of climate change, green house gases, etc. Irish beef production is being hammered in the non-ag media for its contribution to the country’s emissions. There’s pressure coming from Brussels and the Irish Gov. can’t avoid the issue for ever.

No point saying this isn’t going to have an impact one way or the other. Might lead to a direct payment or similar (optimism) or consumer tax on steak meaning reduced demand and lower farm gate prices.

Muckit

Grueller wrote: »

A butcher local to me kills lambs for my freezer and he says that in the olden times when he could kill them on farm the meat was far better due to lack of stress moving and loading etc.

Hear one about the butcher back in the day fasting an old ewe the night before and giving them an egg cup of vinegar. Was supposed to tenderise the meat and you'd never know the difference between lamb and mutton.

Mooooo

Siamsa Sessions wrote: »

Thinking of getting a few cattle here to see if mixed grazing helps with main sheep enterprise so I’m interested in how the beef industry is going in general.

Maybe a point that’s being missed is the impact of climate change, green house gases, etc. Irish beef production is being hammered in the non-ag media for its contribution to the country’s emissions. There’s pressure coming from Brussels and the Irish Gov. can’t avoid the issue for ever.

No point saying this isn’t going to have an impact one way or the other. Might lead to a direct payment or similar (optimism) or consumer tax on steak meaning reduced demand and lower farm gate prices.

It's unlikely tax would be added to food, it'll be out on processors or us either way we will end up paying it.

yewtree

Bass Reeves wrote: »

And what you have posted there all points to traditional and dairy breed cattle comming out on top for taste and tenderness as they are less flighty cattle. Because of this they will react less to stressful situtations compared to sucker bred and especially continental bred cattle



At present less and less dairy bred calves and weanlings going through marts. Most suckler bred cattle go through marts. If you want to see how the propagand system and vested interest works and has worked you only have to look at what happened to Oliver McDonnal. He was a dairy/beef farmer who wrote for the FI until ablut 4-5 years ago. He was a regular contributor to the dairy section and to beef as well. About 4-5 years ago he wrote an article critical about AI and especially regarding sexed semen.

He wrote that on there farm that the sexed semen was not preforming, that the heifer/bull ratio was very poor and that repeats were a huge issue as well as the cost involved. There was an outcry in part led by the IFJ who carried the propaganda from the AI compained the next Thursday. The following Tuesday the FI apologised and retracted the story and Oliver never again wrote in the FI. Fast forward 3 years and everything he stated was proved right and Teagasc advisded it clients to not use or limit there use of sexed semen as it was unproven technology.

You have that story mixed up, he wasnt talking about sexed semen he was talking about using AI in general.
the gist of what he said was that ai gives far poorer results than natural service and this was down to poor ai straws and the actually method not working.
i always remember the article because i couldnt believe a serious newspaper would publish such nonesense. They did the right thing retracting the article.

patsy_mccabe

Well I clearly remember articles he wrote about poor results from sexed semen.

yewtree

patsy_mccabe wrote: »

Well I clearly remember articles he wrote about poor results from sexed semen.

The article that got him in trouble was about conventional ai. In fairness writing about poor results with sexed semen wouldnt be a firable offence sure the ai companies will tell you the results are very mixed.

coolshannagh28

O Donnell was a contrarian ,always expressing forthright views which had a lot of logic behind them . John Heney occupies a similar position in the farming independent ,Pudsey is a big fan .

patsy_mccabe

coolshannagh28 wrote: »

O Donnell was a contrarian ,always expressing forthright views which had a lot of logic behind them . John Heney occupies a similar position in the farming independent ,Pudsey is a big fan .

Farmer Pudsey eh ???? A great man for the figures.

oneten

yewtree wrote: »

The article that got him in trouble was about conventional ai. In fairness writing about poor results with sexed semen wouldnt be a firable offence sure the ai companies will tell you the results are very mixed.

I'm fairly sure the article was about sexed semen and his complaint was about the amount of bull calves he ended up with which i think was more than 50% which would be normal from conventional semen but without the added cost, and he named progressive genetics in the article which rocked the boat enough to knock himself overboard
Even though he was right.

Ai companys will tell the truth about it now , but back then ?????

Base price

Here is a link to what was written in the Indo
https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=64835493&postcount=32
and this link to the thread on F&F at the time
https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055839202