BEEP (Beef Environmental Efficiency Pilot Scheme)

Never wrestle with pigs

bogman_bass wrote: »

Nope. You dont

Don't have to jab for everything?

Never wrestle with pigs

patsy_mccabe wrote: »

I know for all Limousin Premier sales you have to be in the WHPR.

Bottom line in this;
https://www.irishlimousin.com/event/2018-show-sales/

I have spoken to a few and they are not happy. Way too much hassle and work for what's in it.

It would be grand if you could weight them on your own, but bring in a complete stranger and it will like the annual herd test. Stressed out cows with young calves.....jumping walls & gates, the whole lot........

They are not forcing that rule at the moment because of the backlash it created. They probably will in the future though.

charolais0153

Never wrestle with pigs wrote: »

Don't have to jab for everything?

No. Its just weighing linear scoring etc

Willfarman

I could bore the tits off a Holstein regaling with stories of kicks, near misses, and general trouble and strife with the hoores.

I think every suckler farmer could!
But I will go for an hour on a councillers couch sometime and try get to the root of my disregard for subsidized fallacy that made a billionaire of a sociopath called Larry Goodman!

Buford T. Justice XIX

patsy_mccabe wrote: »

This new scheme seems to be about weighing only. Don't even now if they will linear score. Confused myself now will all these schemes. The Limousin Society do a 'Limo Leader Herd Health'. Don't know how this overlaps with WHPR. :mad:

Just found out there is expected to be a target weight of the calf in relation to the dam. So e.g. a 500kg cow expected to produce a 60% calf rate so a target of 300kgs for the weaning. No idea how that's going to work but weighing cow and calf looks to be part of the scheme around weaning.

Never wrestle with pigs

Buford T. Justice V wrote: »

Just found out there is expected to be a target weight of the calf in relation to the dam. So e.g. a 500kg cow expected to produce a 60% calf rate so a target of 300kgs for the weaning. No idea how that's going to work but weighing cow and calf looks to be part of the scheme around weaning.

It's actually going to dilute the whole Star system I think. Or any credibility it had left.
Take a big pedigree SIM that can drive her heifer calf into big weight quick. A big pedigree lim cow will have a much lighter calf at the same age but that calf will catch up the following year.

The more it starts to call half our stock crap and try to downgrade them the less I'm inclined to worry about it. Two of my best cows dived in stars lately. Both from well proven bloodlines. Calving intervills around the 360 days. Heavy weanlings being recorded on the mart system. Generally doing everything right. I do a genomic test, all previous data is correct, dam/sire etc on them and they dive. Well feck that for a load of crap.

The more I start to see coming through the more I'm inclined to not care about it. It'll be like ebi in dairy. Everyone was at a race to the cows with the"best" numbers. Now it's only for the diehard and everyone else breeds the type of cattle they want for their own system.

I couldn't give a rats any more about it because it's not putting money in my pocket. All this dismal of a government wants to do is crush every small family farm in sucklers and make way for the dairy expansion. Ahh Sher you can rare their calves or buy the leftover bulls and mind them for Larry for a few years.

They haven't got the balls to come out and say what they are trying to do. Crunch the numbers and call the big cow carbon unfriendly drop the stars and hopefully donkey will send her to the factory.

How much less bagged fert and meal and carbon footprint from milk collection and milking will the poor suckler cows stamp on our country compared to her dairy mini digester to milk have??

Sorry for the rant.

Bass Reeves

Never wrestle with pigs wrote: »

It's actually going to dilute the whole Star system I think. Or any credibility it had left.
Take a big pedigree SIM that can drive her heifer calf into big weight quick. A big pedigree lim cow will have a much lighter calf at the same age but that calf will catch up the following year.

The more it starts to call half our stock crap and try to downgrade them the less I'm inclined to worry about it. Two of my best cows dived in stars lately. Both from well proven bloodlines. Calving intervills around the 360 days. Heavy weanlings being recorded on the mart system. Generally doing everything right. I do a genomic test, all previous data is correct, dam/sire etc on them and they dive. Well feck that for a load of crap.

The more I start to see coming through the more I'm inclined to not care about it. It'll be like ebi in dairy. Everyone was at a race to the cows with the"best" numbers. Now it's only for the diehard and everyone else breeds the type of cattle they want for their own system.

I couldn't give a rats any more about it because it's not putting money in my pocket. All this dismal of a government wants to do is crush every small family farm in sucklers and make way for the dairy expansion. Ahh Sher you can rare their calves or buy the leftover bulls and mind them for Larry for a few years.

They haven't got the balls to come out and say what they are trying to do. Crunch the numbers and call the big cow carbon unfriendly drop the stars and hopefully donkey will send her to the factory.

How much less bagged fert and meal and carbon footprint from milk collection and milking will the poor suckler cows stamp on our country compared to her dairy mini digester to milk have??

Sorry for the rant.

The government can only deal with carbon the way it is internationally calculated. It is immaterial in reality how much a dairy cow or suckler cow really cause on a carbon footprint. It is what it is internationally calculated at. Look at it from a national economic point of view. A suckler cow produces a weanling at the end of the year that on average is worth across the sector 6-800 euro. A dairy cow produces about 2K in milk and a weanling that is worth 3-400 on average. There is about 3 time the return on the same carbon footprint.

jfh

Bass Reeves wrote: »

The government can only deal with carbon the way it is internationally calculated. It is immaterial in reality how much a dairy cow or suckler cow really cause on a carbon footprint. It is what it is internationally calculated at. Look at it from a national economic point of view. A suckler cow produces a weanling at the end of the year that on average is worth across the sector 6-800 euro. A dairy cow produces about 2K in milk and a weanling that is worth 3-400 on average. There is about 3 time the return on the same carbon footprint.

Jaysus bass that's sobering reading right there & a Conservative estimate on the worth of the dairy progeny.

whelan2

charolais0153 wrote: »

Have only been kicked twice. Full on in shin by friesian heifer and a graze on my calf by an angus cow.

I got a kick in the knee cap off a pedigree limousin heifer I was halter training. It was extremely sore. Will never forget it

bogman_bass

Never wrestle with pigs wrote: »

Don't have to jab for everything?

No. That’s not to say you shouldn’t but you aren’t obligated to under the scheme

Muckit

Bass Reeves wrote: »

Not really it the reality of some of these schemes that is supposed to put money into farmers pockets. Take the knowledge transfer program. Teagasc and advisors get 500/participant not out of our money but still. Out of our 750 euro we have to pay the vet for the herd health plan so in reality farmers get 6-650.

Your forgetting yearly subscription to ICBF, another €60.

Farmer

I don't know what all the fuss about the weanling is. He's not the finished product. The one of the milky cow may be passes out by the well bred beefy type next spring. It's like deciding the race winner half way through. It may work sometimes but often not

patsy_mccabe

Farmer wrote: »

I don't know what all the fuss about the weanling is. He's not the finished product. The one of the milky cow may be passes out by the well bred beefy type next spring. It's like deciding the race winner half way through. It may work sometimes but often not

If the cow is there all year, only having one calf, she might as well put cheap feed (milk) into him to drive on weights. Plenty of AI bulls out there with both milk and good beefiness in their breeeeding.

Farmer

Agreed, but it doesn't allow that she may have eaten the feed of two cows, especially in the winter when it's far from cheap

Buford T. Justice XIX

Mod note: I brought these posts from the Sucker Cow premium discussion into its own thread.

So we can keep all the BEEP (beep:pac:) talk in the one spot.


Buford T. Justice

Bass Reeves

Anto_Meath wrote: »

If you look at it the meat factories don't want the big 400 kgs plus carcass from the suckler cow. They are using ever opportunity to kick it, sure they are paying a premium (bonus) on AA, HE & SH these are the carcass types they want, coming in around 350 Kgs if at all possible. I am guessing there is more profit in the 5th quarter than they would have you believe therefore they are looking for these smaller weights so that they get more heads but only pay for a similar amount of beef. They don't want the live shipping of good continental weanlings either as this is providing opposition to them. One way around this is to produce a good quality AA / HE off a continental cow that will kill around the 390 kgs at 2 year old grading an R3 and if timed right could be pay around €4.20/ kg coming in at €1,638. But the quality of AA & HE bulls with the AI at the minute is very poor.

You have part of it right but not all of it. Processors have a limited market for heavy carcasses. The high value UK market demands cattle in the 280-360 kg bracket Kepack procurement manager said the ideal animay was a 330kg DW carcass.. Heavy cattle go to mainland Europe where prices are lower. For all there love of sucklers the only reason the processors want them is for winter finishing systems.The AA and He schemes stop bonus at 370kgs DW so carry the cattle you mentioned above would recieve no AA or HE bonus. Mabe there is a chance a suckler cow rearing an AA/HE calf killing bulls at sub 16 months but they would want to be Jan/Feb born to be kill in June at 16 months however 1500 euro would be in or around the max gross value of sucha product with heifers maybe killing 330 kgs at 22 months grossing 1350. would such a system be profitable for the farmer is another question

Anto_Meath

Hi Bass, along with my few suckler cows I also rear about 20 AAx / HEx calves, I kill them as bullocks under 30 months, they generally grade O's at around 350Kgs and come into circa €1,300 - €1,400. There is a good bit of work with them for the first fee weeks and you have to buy a fairly good calf at around €200. They have to be fit to be killed before the 1st August off grass. Would an extra €200 - €300 plus €120 subsidy justify keeping the suckler cow, I don't think so and that is the the problem.
The problem with buying calves now is the Jex influence has destroyed the AAx calf and HEx calf isn't much better either so an average calf now in the mart looks like a good one....

patsy_mccabe

Just had a look at this weeks Journal, page 39. You can weigh your own cattle but there might be a caveat. You will probably have to have your own scales calibrated on an annual basis. Now that ain't cheap.
One thing I learned from engineering over the years, a scales that is not calibrated is useless. This might be enough to put people off buying their own.

Say for a 20 cow herd in the west of ireland.
€60 callout for technician.
20 x 2.50 = €50

Say over 8 years (normal write-off on machinery)
Thats €880. Scales will cost more than that.

Basic scales, from O'Donovan Eng for example is €1,595
https://www.odonovaneng.ie/product/eziweigh5i-livestock-weigher-package/

patsy_mccabe

https://www.agriland.ie/farming-news/deering-confident-new-beep-scheme-will-not-be-open-to-manipulation/

blue5000

It looks to me like the Beep scheme is a 3 year programme crash course in getting rid of suckler cows that aren't capable of weaning a calf that is 60% of their own body weight so we that nationally we have a beef herd with a smaller carbon footprint.

There's a couple of flaws with this;

It's skewed in favour of smaller cows.

Labour; weighing cattle, esp calves AND cows is time consuming.

Are we going to have to weigh new born calves as well?

I honestly can't see 'getting a lend of a scales from the co-op' working out too well.

tanko

Where is this 60% thing coming from, i cant find anything about it.

Dunedin

If you’re relying on weighing weanlings to know which cows are performing best, then I’d have to question whether you should be in sucklers in the first place

Farmer

But think of all the extra jobs in data processing, weighing scales repair and recalibration, free co-op administration as well as all the carbon saved which will allow people make loads more unnecessary journeys to the co-op

I wonder am I becoming cynical:)

charolais0153

Dunedin wrote: »

If you’re relying on weighing weanlings to know which cows are performing best, then I’d have to question whether you should be in sucklers in the first place

Do u know which cows are performing worst, if so why do u still have them?
Youd swear running the cows or calves over a weighing scale is a huge job.
By right it should be done when dosing so that the correct dosage is administered.

charolais0153

blue5000 wrote: »

It looks to me like the Beep scheme is a 3 year programme crash course in getting rid of suckler cows that aren't capable of weaning a calf that is 60% of their own body weight so we that nationally we have a beef herd with a smaller carbon footprint.

There's a couple of flaws with this;

It's skewed in favour of smaller cows.

Labour; weighing cattle, esp calves AND cows is time consuming.

Are we going to have to weigh new born calves as well?

I honestly can't see 'getting a lend of a scales from the co-op' working out too well.

Nothing mentioned about weighing new born calfs, doesnt fit in with the efficiency of cow imo

grassroot1

charolais0153 wrote:

Do u know which cows are performing worst, if so why do u still have them? Youd swear running the cows or calves over a weighing scale is a huge job. By right it should be done when dosing so that the correct dosage is administered.

While I welcome the scheme (the money anyway) on our set up here weighing calves/weanlings is straight forward but cows tend to be a different matter. Invariably they keep one leg off the scales or are too wide and give a false reading on the clock. It is an extra job but probably one we should be doing anyway.

Buford T. Justice XIX

tanko wrote: »

Where is this 60% thing coming from, i cant find anything about it.

That was from a previous post of mine, I'm afraid. I just used 60% as an example of a targeted weight, there's been few enough details of the scheme as yet.

Lady Haywire

Wonder if local marts would be allowed to run 'weighing days' for a small fee?
I'm not that bowled over with it as a scheme, seems a lot of kerfuffle for a small bit extra. We'd have max 15 cows- running 13 the last couple of years. So that's 520, add in renting the blasted yoke or someone in to do it, weighing all once, or twice or whatever it is. Take away ICBF money if we have to join* that & what do I have left over?
Plus what happens if I'm next in line to use the co-op scales & Jim-Bob in front of me breaks it & it's sent away for repair. Or it's knocked out of kilter & isn't noticed until 30 more men have used it?


*I'll be rightly pissed off it we have to join it in order to input data. I signed up for one year just to see what the fuss was about, then decided not to renew. Got a few calls asking why so if they're at that craic this could be another way to sign everyone up to force the numbers actually using ICBF.

coolshannagh28

More jumping through hoops for peanuts.

Hard Knocks

Personally I think it’s a better scheme to the BDGS, just a pity the money is less.
I think dry stock should be included too & this would give a better understanding to the performance of bulls progeny.

There are lots of great bulls out there with poor stars because they haven’t the latest big thing in their breeding.

To me the 3 key times for weighing are birth, 100-150 days & 250-350 days.

I’ve a scales, I bought because of first KT program & find it useful for lambs also, the cost of weighing was €40 for first 10 calves back then.

If you had 10 calves @ €400 less €60 for ICBF & €40 for weighing, that’s €300 extra in your pocket

Just 1 more thing (maybe dreamworld) if you had weights could you sell from the field/yard & save a day at the mart, commission & stress on the animal & you