Beef sires for whole dairy herd!!

Icelandicseige

Hi folks,
I am a long time away from boards and said I'd do a small return ha
I'm looking for ideas on bull options for dairy cows in order to keep gestation length short, have a healthy cow and calf after calving but at same time getting best quality calf for sale before 10 days old. We are putting the whole herd to beef bull as we are not keeping any replacements and are not sure what breed to choose at the minute. Cheers guys.

Lady Haywire

Seen a good pic on Twitter about this a while back (click show this thread to see the other two tweets).

https://twitter.com/Cow785/status/1233501250035027968

Base price

Icelandicseige wrote: »

Hi folks,
I am a long time away from boards and said I'd do a small return ha
I'm looking for ideas on bull options for dairy cows in order to keep gestation length short, have a healthy cow and calf after calving but at same time getting best quality calf for sale before 10 days old. We are putting the whole herd to beef bull as we are not keeping any replacements and are not sure what breed to choose at the minute. Cheers guys.

As someone who buys a few calves ex farm what cow type have you. For us, that is the most important fact. You can play around with easy calving strains of most breeds but imo the cow breed is equally important.

Mooooo

Icelandicseige wrote: »

Hi folks,
I am a long time away from boards and said I'd do a small return ha
I'm looking for ideas on bull options for dairy cows in order to keep gestation length short, have a healthy cow and calf after calving but at same time getting best quality calf for sale before 10 days old. We are putting the whole herd to beef bull as we are not keeping any replacements and are not sure what breed to choose at the minute. Cheers guys.

Is it ai or bull you're using? If ai BB on 3rd lactation plus. A and, HE on 1st and 2nd then. If buying a bull I don't think a bb would do the walking of a dairy herd. You would also need more than 1 bull for a herd of cows. 1 per 30 I think? Would be worried on gestation length of a Iim bull. Not brave enough to use CH here. I find it's if they go over time that's when the calf does the extra growing and cow's having hard calvings then

Buford T. Justice XIX

Icelandicseige wrote: »

Hi folks,
I am a long time away from boards and said I'd do a small return ha
I'm looking for ideas on bull options for dairy cows in order to keep gestation length short, have a healthy cow and calf after calving but at same time getting best quality calf for sale before 10 days old. We are putting the whole herd to beef bull as we are not keeping any replacements and are not sure what breed to choose at the minute. Cheers guys.

Calves have to be over 10 days old before sale and there's talk of that going to 14 days so something to be aware of.

Gillespy

Our three year old teaser bull started herding the cows to one corner of the field last summer so that cut AI short. Barely three weeks. Left out our six year old whitehead and he did a great job. You hear horror stories of stock bull being lazy or infertile but can't beat a good one. No big calves but that isn't a guarantee with herefords anymore. Very quiet, probably the safest breed. As Moooo says and I agree, too many compromises with the other beef breeds when used as a stockbull across the whole herd.

Base price

Buford T. Justice VI wrote: »

Calves have to be over 10 days old before sale and there's talk of that going to 14 days so something to be aware of.

Rightly so and if I had my way I would push it out to 21 days.

Calf exporters have always applied a 14 day old minimum rule.

Timmaay

I'm considering a flying Herd here also, however when you boil down the fact that a br fr bull is a good bit cheaper than a beef bull, but you should still get the likes of 300e for a fr heifer and 50/100 for the bull calf I don't really see the point in going to the hassle of a beef bull, especially with the short gestation of an fr, so the extra milk will more than compensate for the lower calf price.

Mooooo

Timmaay wrote: »

I'm considering a flying Herd here also, however when you boil down the fact that a br fr bull is a good bit cheaper than a beef bull, but you should still get the likes of 300e for a fr heifer and 50/100 for the bull calf I don't really see the point in going to the hassle of a beef bull, especially with the short gestation of an fr, so the extra milk will more than compensate for the lower calf price.

TB would complicate that plan

Say my name

A good Angus calf out of a square cow will make €280/290 bull and €140 heifer.
That's my experience of beef breeds this year. Ha.
Belgian blues then command the top prices at the sales. I've seen one make €500 and the run from €300 up.
I've also seen cheeky feckers selling speckle park calves as Belgian blue in the marts for the 300.

Whatever you use it should be one that you never see calving.

Mooooo

Timmaay wrote: »

I'm considering a flying Herd here also, however when you boil down the fact that a br fr bull is a good bit cheaper than a beef bull, but you should still get the likes of 300e for a fr heifer and 50/100 for the bull calf I don't really see the point in going to the hassle of a beef bull, especially with the short gestation of an fr, so the extra milk will more than compensate for the lower calf price.

TB would complicate that plan

Mooooo

Timmaay wrote: »

I'm considering a flying Herd here also, however when you boil down the fact that a br fr bull is a good bit cheaper than a beef bull, but you should still get the likes of 300e for a fr heifer and 50/100 for the bull calf I don't really see the point in going to the hassle of a beef bull, especially with the short gestation of an fr, so the extra milk will more than compensate for the lower calf price.

TB would complicate that plan

Icelandicseige

Be going all Ai.. that's something to keep in my mind Buford thanks. Some BF Cows and some Crossbred.

Castlekeeper

Icelandicseige wrote: »

Be going all Ai.. that's something to keep in my mind Buford thanks. Some BF Cows and some Crossbred.

I said this already in a beef post, by far the best balance in a stockbull across the breeds between calving ease and calf quality is the Aubrac. The one bull will do heifers and cows, normal gestation and good temperament.
All AI is a different baby, you can pick and choose. Progressive and Munster have excellent Herefords.
Selling calves under 10 says old is illegal and a bit of joke.

Manorpark man

Icelandicseige wrote: »

Be going all Ai.. that's something to keep in my mind Buford thanks. Some BF Cows and some Crossbred.

Prob Hereford,bb and ch would be my thoughts maybe a couple of lm early in play

Panch18

Castlekeeper wrote: »

I said this already in a beef post, by far the best balance in a stockbull across the breeds between calving ease and calf quality is the Aubrac. The one bull will do heifers and cows, normal gestation and good temperament.
All AI is a different baby, you can pick and choose. Progressive and Munster have excellent Herefords.
Selling calves under 10 says old is illegal and a bit of joke.

Have used Aubrac Ai on cows and I second everything you said

K.G.

Castlekeeper wrote: »

I said this already in a beef post, by far the best balance in a stockbull across the breeds between calving ease and calf quality is the Aubrac. The one bull will do heifers and cows, normal gestation and good temperament.
All AI is a different baby, you can pick and choose. Progressive and Munster have excellent Herefords.
Selling calves under 10 says old is illegal and a bit of joke.

Had 2 aubracs and wouldn't recommend them for a dairy herd as they cost too much milk.1no matter what breeders say they take time-bulls could be 2 weeks.2you have.to keep them to give the chance to show the flesh otherwise fellas are.afraid they.are jex

mahoney_j

Mooooo wrote: »

Is it ai or bull you're using? If ai BB on 3rd lactation plus. A and, HE on 1st and 2nd then. If buying a bull I don't think a bb would do the walking of a dairy herd. You would also need more than 1 bull for a herd of cows. 1 per 30 I think? Would be worried on gestation length of a Iim bull. Not brave enough to use CH here. I find it's if they go over time that's when the calf does the extra growing and cow's having hard calvings then

No problem using ch on 2/3 lactation plus cows moo as long as there used on jan/feb calvers .have some lovely fsz and lhz calves no bother calving and serious lumps of calves

Dakota Dan

Say my name wrote: »

A good Angus calf out of a square cow will make €280/290 bull and €140 heifer.
That's my experience of beef breeds this year. Ha.
Belgian blues then command the top prices at the sales. I've seen one make €500 and the run from €300 up.
I've also seen cheeky feckers selling speckle park calves as Belgian blue in the marts for the 300.

Whatever you use it should be one that you never see calving.

I doubt you’d trick any buyer trying to pass off another breed as a BB. I put a few of my big cows incalf to BB for 2018 and sold them at 5 weeks, they were well fed and plenty growth. All they made was 275 apart from one that had one bid at 300. They also wreck even the biggest cow as the cow could go down with the weight of the calf even though they had no problem calving.

older by the day

Remember the choice you make now will decide how easy or hard spring 2021 will be for you. Firstly if your selling calves at ten days it won't be worth breeding big calves. They don't usually make big money unless you put a lot of milk in them. A vets call at night is 100euro. A operation 3+. Hassle of cows down, hassle of cows not going back in calf. Handling cows mean dirty cows. Add the milk lost by taking extra time

Castlekeeper

K.G. wrote: »

Had 2 aubracs and wouldn't recommend them for a dairy herd as they cost too much milk.1no matter what breeders say they take time-bulls could be 2 weeks.2you have.to keep them to give the chance to show the flesh otherwise fellas are.afraid they.are jex

Maybe Im lucky with my 2 so but, have used a few AI bulls as well and the go is always 280 -283 days.
On calf growth, the first bulls calves needed time but the young bull I have now is throwing solid black or red calves and they're ready for road by 3 weeks, I've a lot of NrX in the cows.
I think milk into good beef calves pays well, but where you've big numbers without a lot of facilities things can back up alright.