Suckling with dairy-cross cows

Siamsa Sessions

Apologies if this debate has taken place before on here.

I bought 17 AA-x heifer calves over the past few weeks from a local dairy farmer. The plan is to out-winter them for one winter and try finish before Xmas the following year.

But I'm not tied to any system so was half-thinking of putting a few in calf to an Angus bull and adding "suckler farmer" to my CV

Anyone on here use such dairy-cross cows? Could you put two calves under them or would it be worth the hassle?

Our local butcher kills heifers and he likes them around the 250kg mark, so that could be an outlet for them.

blue5000

They'd be perfect, that's how most people start in suckling. Some of the lads in my DG could not believe how good my weanlings were off aaxfr cows compared to their own weanlings off 3/4 continental cows. Don't bother double suckling.

Try looking them up on ICBF to see what they are like for maternal, the bull's tag number if you can get it, will help as well.

Siamsa Sessions

blue5000 wrote: »

They'd be perfect, that's how most people start in suckling. Some of the lads in my DG could not believe how good my weanlings were off aaxfr cows compared to their own weanlings off 3/4 continental cows. Don't bother double suckling.

Try looking them up on ICBF to see what they are like for maternal, the bull's tag number if you can get it, will help as well.

Thanks for that. I'll have a look on the ICBF website this evening.

Do you sell calves as weanlings or finish them?

K.G.

Siamsa Sessions wrote: »

Apologies if this debate has taken place before on here.

I bought 17 AA-x heifer calves over the past few weeks from a local dairy farmer. The plan is to out-winter them for one winter and try finish before Xmas the following year.

But I'm not tied to any system so was half-thinking of putting a few in calf to an Angus bull and adding "suckler farmer" to my CV

Anyone on here use such dairy-cross cows? Could you put two calves under them or would it be worth the hassle?

Our local butcher kills heifers and he likes them around the 250kg mark, so that could be an outlet for them.

Have you done any sums on this

farming93

I've an Angus Cross fr cow she has as much milk as a top yielding friesian and at a year old her calfs average 500kg. Savage cow that'll calf anything. I had more Angus heifers I bucket reared and got a calf each out of them. I ended up selling them after one calving as the original plan was to get limo calves to breed from. They ended up breeding savage calves but I had sold the Angus cows before I realised their offspring were as good as they were.

_Brian

K.G. wrote: »

Have you done any sums on this

It’s suckler farming.
Nobody is making money and most lads loosing.

The bar has been set very low regarding the sums.

carrollsno1

blue5000 wrote: »

They'd be perfect, that's how most people start in suckling. Some of the lads in my DG could not believe how good my weanlings were off aaxfr cows compared to their own weanlings off 3/4 continental cows. Don't bother double suckling.

Try looking them up on ICBF to see what they are like for maternal, the bull's tag number if you can get it, will help as well.

Have a SI×JE cow here calf weighed about the 350kg mark at post weaning and the cow weighed 480kg i think but something similar to those two numbers. Not bad for a 2nd calver aul lad praised her up over the phone to me thats when i dropped the JEX bombshell and thats when tbe disagreements started....

Who2

I’ll go against the grain here.
Don’t do it!
I’m trying to breed out the dairy of my herd, you’ll get reasonable r grading stock for finishing but you won’t get paid for their weanlings. If your going suckling you need minimum costs and maximum profit, just to clear a few quid. That takes an orange charolais, a limo or ba x blue. Nearly everything else will need to hang around for at least an extra winter to come into the same price as a 7 or8 month old weanling.

Siamsa Sessions

Thanks for the replies folks.

The great thing about farming and working with nature is that nothing happens fast, so I can't jump straight into anything!

It'll be 12 months before a decision has to be made on leaving them to the bull (AI) or not. I'm just trying to figure out the options at the moment.

This is how we started lambing sheep. We bought store lambs in August 2015 and to try add a bit of value to them, got a loan of a ram from a cousin. They lambed in April 2016 and that was the start of it!

tractorporn

Who2 wrote: »

I’ll go against the grain here.
Don’t do it!
I’m trying to breed out the dairy of my herd, you’ll get reasonable r grading stock for finishing but you won’t get paid for their weanlings. If your going suckling you need minimum costs and maximum profit, just to clear a few quid. That takes an orange charolais, a limo or ba x blue. Nearly everything else will need to hang around for at least an extra winter to come into the same price as a 7 or8 month old weanling.

Just to add a bit of balance we have gone against what you are doing and have gotten rid of most of our three quarter bred Charolais and gone Angus and limousine out of friesian. The kicker is that we reduced cow numbers and are now finishing everything but would agree with Who2 you wont get the same money for your weanlings. We started weighing our weanlings and the stock we had from the dairy cross cow was 40/50kgs heavier at weaning than the white Charolais even though the white guy looked better, we were going finishing everything anyway so have gotten out of the continental cows.

Hard Knocks

tractorporn wrote: »

Just to add a bit of balance we have gone against what you are doing and have gotten rid of most of our three quarter bred Charolais and gone Angus and limousine out of friesian. The kicker is that we reduced cow numbers and are now finishing everything but would agree with Who2 you wont get the same money for your weanlings. We started weighing our weanlings and the stock we had from the dairy cross cow was 40/50kgs heavier at weaning than the white Charolais even though the white guy looked better, we were going finishing everything anyway so have gotten out of the continental cows.

Know a guy who done this when going organic
The AAxCH was always the best, the AAxAAxCH lost in carcass and too much fat

whelan2

Have one farmer has been buying aax heifer calves off me for 16 years. He must be making money at it as he doesn't complain. Some of them go for breeding a d he fattens the rest

Buford T. Justice XIX

Siamsa Sessions wrote: »

Apologies if this debate has taken place before on here.

I bought 17 AA-x heifer calves over the past few weeks from a local dairy farmer. The plan is to out-winter them for one winter and try finish before Xmas the following year.

But I'm not tied to any system so was half-thinking of putting a few in calf to an Angus bull and adding "suckler farmer" to my CV

Anyone on here use such dairy-cross cows? Could you put two calves under them or would it be worth the hassle?

Our local butcher kills heifers and he likes them around the 250kg mark, so that could be an outlet for them.

Started out farming at that craic, potentially very good results from it if you can get a reliable low disease risk source of calves for the second calf.

What we found was keeping the calves away from the cows and limiting suckling to twice a day for 6 weeks or so before leaving the calves off with the cows was helping to bring the cows into heat much quicker.

You'd be more or less running a dairy system without milking, cows in twice a day and making sure the cows were letting the calves suck. It's relatively easy when you're dealing with calves being handled twice a day but not so simple when using suckled calves to breed as double sucked cows.

But you do have potential to increase output for relatively low cost.

Anto_Meath

Keeping dairy cross heifers is fine, you should have nice quite cows capable of breeding good R grade cattle. One problem I found is these cows is scours (I don't calf until the end of March and into April if calving Jan / Feb it may not be an issue) these cows have lots of milk and young calves aren't always able for it.
But what I do find is the second generation make brilliant cows, usually still fairly quite, plenty of milk and well capable of breeding U grade cattle. I have found recently that some of the AA's are very small (KYA) and I don't think are suitable for breeding at all.
As a side note, I know a farmer that has fine big CH cows and runs a HE bull with them. Breeding nice HEx calves that he is fattening and killing at 20 -24 months just under 380 Kgs, grading "R" and qualifying for the HE bonus. He feeds little or no meal either. Cows are calving in August, when he weans them in April and puts them to grass they really thrive. He is very happy with it and I have to say he is farming some lovely cattle.

blue5000

Siamsa Sessions wrote: »

Thanks for that. I'll have a look on the ICBF website this evening.

Do you sell calves as weanlings or finish them?

Finishing them, taking mousey coloured ch x AA weanlings to the mart is a waste of time, you'd be fair pissed off when you see the kill weights and grades afterwards too.

Lady Haywire

blue5000 wrote: »

Finishing them, taking mousey coloured ch x AA weanlings to the mart is a waste of time, you'd be fair pissed off when you see the kill weights and grades afterwards too.

There are finishers who buy a lot of these purely for their ring value! Personally not a fan of first cross dairy stock as they don't suit our system, but can see how they are of value if you finish your own.
2nd cross (as in LM/brfr, x with LM again) now that's what I like! Though blue crosses off the dairy herd seem to breed very well too, though you'd need to be careful with bull choices.

Young95

How do people fined Hereford x fresian cows ? How do they cross with a ch bull ? Are there weanlings /stores saleable live ?

Cavanjack

whelan2 wrote: »

Have one farmer has been buying aax heifer calves off me for 16 years. He must be making money at it as he doesn't complain. Some of them go for breeding a d he fattens the rest

He’s not much of a farmer if he doesn’t complain

Who2

I’ve still a few he x running with the ch. calves will have super weight but can lack a bit in style. I put the same cows in calf to lm this year to get replacements and got 2 nice red heifers with white faces. They wouldn’t sell exceptionally well but should make good breeders.
Tractor porn I wouldn’t keep a white Charolais cow either.
Lm x si cows and you can run any breed of bull and get good calves.

Hard Knocks

Lady Haywire wrote: »

There are finishers who buy a lot of these purely for their ring value! Personally not a fan of first cross dairy stock as they don't suit our system, but can see how they are of value if you finish your own.
2nd cross (as in LM/brfr, x with LM again) now that's what I like! Though blue crosses off the dairy herd seem to breed very well too, though you'd need to be careful with bull choices.

BBxBrFR is a mighty cow, produce top class LM or CH calves
Anyone ever keep & breed SHxFR?

Who2

Hard Knocks wrote: »

BBxBrFR is a mighty cow, produce top class LM or CH calves
Anyone ever keep & breed SHxFR?

I bought two as calves years ago, one came a bluey colour and the other was a red roan which was unusal enough. i had them for years and they ran with my fathers limo bull. They bred good cattle but i was only a child and may have had blinkered vision.