Spring 2020..... 1.5m Dairy calves.... discuss.

wrangler

Bass Reeves wrote: »

There was 2.4 million calves approximately registered last year. About 800K Suckler bred calves, 1.5 million dairy bred calves and 100k pedigree registration's. There was only 180 k calves and weanlings exported. Calves slaughtered were about 50k. Assuming mortality at 5% it leaves over 2 million cattle for Larry and co or a possible factory slaughter heading for 40k/week from late this year on.

Aren't you lucky to have ''Larry and co''.

RaggyDays

Im not buying any calve this year, the quality of them has just gone off the side if a cliff. I've 40 Whitehead yearlings from last year and I'd say they are the poorest I've ever had

Base price

Bass Reeves wrote: »

There was 2.4 million calves approximately registered last year. About 800K Suckler bred calves, 1.5 million dairy bred calves and 100k pedigree registration's. There was only 180 k calves and weanlings exported. Calves slaughtered were about 50k. Assuming mortality at 5% it leaves over 2 million cattle for Larry and co or a possible factory slaughter heading for 40k/week from late this year on.

According to DAFM there were a total of 1,798,682 bovines slaughter to week 53 - 28/12/20 of which 26,938 were veal V (young calves) and 1688 were veal Z (under 1 year old) so there are another 20,000 odd calves more that you reckon.
https://www.gov.ie/en/collection/605aa-beef-kill-figures-weekly-reports-2020/

richie123

RaggyDays wrote: »

Im not buying any calve this year, the quality of them has just gone off the side if a cliff. I've 40 Whitehead yearlings from last year and I'd say they are the poorest I've ever had

This is definitely true over last 5 years quality is worse than it ever has been.even Angus Hereford cross go e very poor

jaymla627

richie123 wrote: »

This is definitely true over last 5 years quality is worse than it ever has been.even Angus Hereford cross go e very poor

Look at the bulls been pushed on the dairy beef index, and ease of calving is the number one priority combine this with ebi pushing for a smaller framed lighter cow that low maintenance and you end up with a calf that’s piss poor

Castlekeeper

jaymla627 wrote: »

Look at the bulls been pushed on the dairy beef index, and ease of calving is the number one priority combine this with ebi pushing for a smaller framed lighter cow that low maintenance and you end up with a calf that’s piss poor

There's a lot of very good bulls on the DBI, but that would really be only coming into play from this year and to what extent?
I would think it's more the cow type and poor quality stick bulls.

jd_12345

The DBI is in many ways similar to EBI. Calving ease is the equivalent of fertility in EBI. There will have to be a ceiling value put on it cause it's a joke some of the animals at the top of the list.
A lot of dairy farmers are too tight to pay 2-2.5 grand for a good beef bull (thats coming from a dairy farmer!)
This Angus Hereford bashing destroys the market for everyone. We keep most of our cattle to a year and a half and our Angus make as much if not more than our Herefords and Continentals in the ring. In the calf ring the difference between an Angus and Friesian is about €70/80 whereas at 18 months its closer to €180
I don't care what lads say about Speckle Park or Aubrac,etc. if you want good quality calves you have to be willing to take a chance calving ease wise. Otherwise don't complain about the price or quality of calves that are being born on your dairy farm.

Base price

I saw this article pop up on Facebook and it reminded me of this thread. It's from the IFJ and is not marked as "subscription only" so I presume it is available for all to read.

https://www.farmersjournal.ie/calf-slaughtering-up-16-on-dairy-farms-in-2022-698020

straight

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119072746#Comment_119072746

Any farmer slaughtering calves should be ashamed of themselves.

JustJoe7240

Would be talking to a lot of different dairy farmers and have literally never heard of this practice

Pinsnbushings

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119072746#Comment_119072746

Stand out stat in that article Is that 100 farms are responsible for 53% of slaughtering or an average if 156 per farm..wtf..also I wonder how many of the dead at births were actually dead..

Grueller

It's a practice that should absolutely be stopped. If you need to do that to make ends meet the industry is broken.

Siamsa Sessions

I can't imagine the co-ops those farmers supply care about the calves, but surely it's a PR disaster waiting to happen for the whole dairy industry?

I'd imagine the anti-livestock brigade on Twitter and Facebook are already all over this.

And I'd second the sentiments from other posters above - it's a sad day for humanity when farms exist that depend on this practise to get the business operating.

Easten

A good share of the dairy calves bred now are rubbish and of zero economical value. They do this because Milk is the profit maker, everything else is an obstacle. But yeah it's a creepy act they've engaged in

smallbeef

Those Vegan billboards are bad enough without them getting wind of this. Livestock farming is up against it in the coming years, veganism getting major funding and their marketing is everywhere now. This sort of carry on will be a major win for them. The 'farms' involved should be dealt with by the dept or the co-ops

GNWoodd

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119073000#Comment_119073000

Will the farmers involved be identified and asked why they engaged in this ? It will be a PR disaster for the co-ops if animal welfare groups can claim that they were taking in milk from farms where this was going on .

Easten

Are some of the marts facilitating it this too? I heard the rumour that a lot of the unsold calves at the marts don't go back to the farms but are "taken care of" for a fee

Pinsnbushings

Giving the red tape that surrounds farming ATM, are there not rules around something as fundamental as this? As said above a pr disaster waiting to happen.

Everybody knows the economics of the situation but where do you draw the line.

GNWoodd

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119073083#Comment_119073083

These calves should not be bred . That is where the line should be drawn . There are plenty bulls that give a easily calved reasonable quality calf . It is not as if there isn’t a good income out of dairying at the moment .

alps

I'm confused by the article, and wondering if the author is too?

Does this refer to calves slaughtered on farm? If so, why does the article also refer to deaths? How could they differentiate?

Danzy

I'm relief milking for a fellow, I'm well paid for the time and I give 110%. If he threw in the last dozen calves he had as a bonus I'd have to walk.

There are serious Jersey bred calves out there that are educational in how awful some calves can be

Base price

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119073164#Comment_119073164

The IFJ quoted calf slaughter figures doesn't quite tally with the official DAFM figures including w/c 2/5/22 but their not that far off.

https://www.gov.ie/en/collection/605aa-beef-kill-figures-weekly-reports-2020/

Bass Reeves

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119072834#Comment_119072834

Just to put that in context assuming that they slaughter 153 bull calves it fair to say that these dairy herds have 300+ cows.

How many large herds ate there with these numbers. Are these are farm that are continuously expanding and using all dairy semen/bulls. It was only from March on that FR bull calves really dropped in price.

This begs a few questions are these farms making a conscious decision to slaughter calves rather than make any attempt at selling these calves. Ate the Co-ops that deal with these farmers aware of what is happening. Ate these farms making any attempt to produce a viable beef animal.

Is a JE bulls used for mopping up after AI and all progeny slaughtered.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119073164#Comment_119073164

Mortality rates have declined according to the article by 15% but slaughter numbers have increased. I wonder was it regularised where some farms had high mortality rates and that these farms were forced to used calf slaughter as opposed to mortality to change the situation.

It appears we may have had a few making business decisions to keep costs down

Pinsnbushings

You'd have to assume with those numbers that those farms have made a conscious decision go all the way down the new Zealand route for economic reasons. Maybe there Is more to it I don't know.

jaymla627

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119073570#Comment_119073570

200 booby calves of at 10 days olds, 50 liters of milk drank if that and holed up in a rundown "bull calf shed" has a,net cost of circa 40 euro a calf....

Option B calves are held for 4 weeks and then given away, our money with them works out at circa 200 plus euro a calf by the time housing/milk/labour/straw is taken into account

150 euro net gain x200 calves is 30k a year saved that can be put towards the repayments on the merry go rounds, it's not everyone's cup of tea and the optics are terrible but they aren't breaking any rules once calves are slaughtered of farm at the required age limits but that's a very grey area I'd say re age on card and actual age

GNWoodd

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119073757#Comment_119073757

Why would anyone breed 200 calves that nobody wants ? If there are farmers at that the animal welfare people will have a field day and rightly so .

mahoney_j

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119073934#Comment_119073934

It’s not that they don’t want them it’s a case of the x bred males and severre male hols that buyers don’t want then u have the messing with the little small narrow black jex registered as aax ….tegasc led lads up that path and fair play to pat dillon he was only one that admitted that calves were forgotten about during tegasc big push on kiwi style dairying here

The slaughter of calves in approved facilities is all above board …..in no way makes it right and I’m certainly not for it ….not exactly an image I like associated with Irish dairying

Base price

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119074048#Comment_119074048

https://www.agriland.ie/farming-news/believe-it-or-not-we-never-considered-the-outcome-of-the-dairy-calves-teagasc/

Pinsnbushings

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119073757#Comment_119073757

When you add up the figures at scale it s big money..add in the lower maintaining cost in feeding 450-500kg cow for the year..no labour in dealing with calf buyers coming to the yard, the risk of sick calves etc. I can see the appeal for those farms.

Still don't agree with it rules broken or not, for the good of all dairy farmers in the country I think there should be a stop put to it.

Siamsa Sessions

The cow is the problem as much as the bull. Teagasc's magic beans of sexed semen and dairy-beef index are more of a hindrance than a help. They give political cover while things get worse on the ground.

And where are DAFM in all this? Do they shrug their shoulders and say, sure it's only a few calves on the grand scale of things? They're probably more in the firing line than the co-ops for facilitating this. It wouldn't be too much of a leap for an anti-livestock rep to claim DAFM are actually encouraging farmers to kill new-born calves