Dairy bull calves v beef sires

briangriffin

Just wondering about opinions on using beef bulls on dairy cows? What type do lads use from ai and what type of stock bull ye use to mop up?
The price of the fr bull has fairly crashed around here 80 to 110 quid for 4- 6 week olds. Seems like an awful waste of milk but they are hard sold before the 4 weeks. The fr bull is it seems an unwanted by product of the dairy industry.
My options given the past 2 years of poor prices for bull calves are
1. to use beef ai on selected easy calvers and used sexed semen on the cows I want replacements out of with a hereford or angus to mop up. I'm wondering if anyone has experience of selling dairy cross continental calves at 4 weeks or hereford and what price tonight expect?
2. To use all sexed fr ai on cows and let hereford or angus bull in early and sell excess fr heifers as replacements at 4 weeks old. Again what price would 4 week old heifers replacements make?

Would there be more of a market for the beef breed than replacements with the suspected down turn in milk price this year? Any Thoughts welcome thanks.

Mooooo

With regards to bulls, I find DBZ a Belgian blue good for cows, depends on the day at the mart but I don't think I've sold one for less than 250 anyway. Other than that kya is easy calving angus, short gestation so land small but if your keeping for 4 weeks they do fill out. They're the only beef ai I use regularly. Use an AA stock bulk to clean up then. I find with Hereford you can sometimes get bulls that throw calves with big heads that can have more issues calving.
I would be wary of sexed semen, conception rates can be very variable from year to year if using it do it on the heifers as well as more they may be more likely to hold. Depending on your replacement requirements perhaps use standard straws on all cows and let in the bulls early.
Fr heifer calves with records would sell for 350 plus one would hope.
With regard to fr bulls, perhaps best bet is just take the hit, let em off at 2 weeks for whatever and reduce the workload.

White Clover

Is this just the calf price correcting itself? Being honest, calves were way over priced over the last few years compared to what they come into as finished animals.
After all, they are just a by product of the dairy cow, so anyone selling them should not bank on making a killing on them.
Also, finally, have beef farmers figured out how to drive a calculator and work back from the finished price to see what they can afford to pay for calves?

charolais0153

White Clover wrote: »

Is this just the calf price correcting itself? Being honest, calves were way over priced over the last few years compared to what they come into as finished animals.
After all, they are just a by product of the dairy cow, so anyone selling them should not bank on making a killing on them.
Also, finally, have beef farmers figured out how to drive a calculator and work back from the finished price to see what they can afford to pay for calves?

Friesian calves coulsnt be given away 10 years ago and your saying 100e is bad money. A by product of sheep is wool and it costs more to sgear than its worth. Yoyr doing well with what is a by product

bogman_bass

Are you expanding?
If not I'm always of the opinion that you want your replacements born early in the season.
An April heifer calf is a pain to try and get fit enough fast enough to bull the next spring.

White Clover

charolais0153 wrote: »

Friesian calves coulsnt be given away 10 years ago and your saying 100e is bad money. A by product of sheep is wool and it costs more to sgear than its worth. Yoyr doing well with what is a by product

You have completely misread my post!

Bass Reeves

There are a number of factors that are influencing calf prices. First we now are dropping 200k more calves as than 5 years ago. More dairy farmers have got rid of there Beef operations so this is a double whammy adding to available calf numbers. Dairy farmers are offloading calves earlier at 10-14 days rather than at 3 + weeks during the milk quota period.

All this has changed the economics as well as lots of easy calving bulls with poor growth records influencing what drystpck will give for cattle which is starting to come back down to calf price.

charolais0153

White Clover wrote: »

You have completely misread my post!

I replied to wrong person... I agree with your sentiment

squinn2912

The fr bulls is one thing. What about continental x heifers Off the fr cows; what should they cost? I know I’m going to break boards going on about my wee sim heifers but I’m obsessed!

briangriffin

Mooooo wrote: »

With regards to bulls, I find DBZ a Belgian blue good for cows, depends on the day at the mart but I don't think I've sold one for less than 250 anyway. Other than that kya is easy calving angus, short gestation so land small but if your keeping for 4 weeks they do fill out. They're the only beef ai I use regularly. Use an AA stock bulk to clean up then. I find with Hereford you can sometimes get bulls that throw calves with big heads that can have more issues calving.
I would be wary of sexed semen, conception rates can be very variable from year to year if using it do it on the heifers as well as more they may be more likely to hold. Depending on your replacement requirements perhaps use standard straws on all cows and let in the bulls early.
Fr heifer calves with records would sell for 350 plus one would hope.
With regard to fr bulls, perhaps best bet is just take the hit, let em off at 2 weeks for whatever and reduce the workload.

I'd imagine you only use dbz on mature cows with no history of calving difficulty? At over 8 % calving difficulty I wonder how many of those would actually calve themselves? Was thinking of using blues and charlaois using high terminal ai as low a calving difficulty as possible. I might keep calves for 9 months and sell as weanlings, im not expanding so would only need about 15 replacements each year. I've used sexed semen with good results for a few years so hoping to let bulls in early aswell.

briangriffin

charolais0153 wrote: »

Friesian calves coulsnt be given away 10 years ago and your saying 100e is bad money. A by product of sheep is wool and it costs more to sgear than its worth. Yoyr doing well with what is a by product

I suppose my point would be that the Labour involved in shearing sheep finishes in minutes. raising calves to six weeks is a little more labour intensive and for 100 euro seems cheap given the calves are drinking 5-6 litres of milk a day which works out north of 70 quid in milk alone if raising a different breed would be more profitable and would leas to greater growth e.g. belgian blue then I think changing breed might be the way forward or as Moo said above offloading fr bull calves at 2 weeks for whatever you can.

Mooooo

briangriffin wrote: »

I'd imagine you only use dbz on mature cows with no history of calving difficulty? At over 8 % calving difficulty I wonder how many of those would actually calve themselves? Was thinking of using blues and charlaois using high terminal ai as low a calving difficulty as possible. I might keep calves for 9 months and sell as weanlings, im not expanding so would only need about 15 replacements each year. I've used sexed semen with good results for a few years so hoping to let bulls in early aswell.

I haven't jacked any of them but I would only have 5 to 10 blues in any given year. I find he doesnt go over time. Blues on fr/ hol seem to do ok as the muscle doesn't come till later whereas with a suckler the muscle could start packing on before they come out at all. I wouldn't put on small cows or first calvers. Whatever you decide I would stay with proven beef sires. Gestation is the one to watch I think, simental limo etc can all carryover time which is what you don't want from both a milk loss and calving point of view

simx

briangriffin wrote: »

I'd imagine you only use dbz on mature cows with no history of calving difficulty? At over 8 % calving difficulty I wonder how many of those would actually calve themselves? Was thinking of using blues and charlaois using high terminal ai as low a calving difficulty as possible. I might keep calves for 9 months and sell as weanlings, im not expanding so would only need about 15 replacements each year. I've used sexed semen with good results for a few years so hoping to let bulls in early aswell.

Dfd is easiest calving blue Ai blue as far as I know 6.3% cd