Dairy Chitchat 4, an udder new thread.

Pinsnbushings

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121932227#Comment_121932227

If you have good cows smn people local will know...surely somebody you know locally is buying calves..I bet they would be delighted to be getting yours. We only started selling the calves about 5 years ago. I rang a man locally that rears calves and asked would he be interested in ours. He was delighted and has worked out really well. I have never been to the mart with a calf.

Say my name

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121932296#Comment_121932296

I had one before when I was breeding Belgian Blues but they were getting too cheeky nearly. They were going loading up calves when I or we never talked before if they were getting the calf or not. It was getting too familiar. Then I had a dealer who when purchased would leave the calves on farm for quite a spell before collecting. it's about getting the right person who won't mess you either way.

Pinsnbushings

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121932346#Comment_121932346

Well I suppose that's the key, I'm lucky the person is very straight man. I drop them down to him when they are ready. Fair enough he wants them as old as possible and I want them gone as near to 2 weeks as possible. We compromise and he gives me a good price for them.It works both ways. I have a friesan bull here I won't give him because I'm not happy with his thrive.

daiymann 5

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121932370#Comment_121932370

Theres alot to be said for mart.Farmers arent stupid and will only pay less than mart price theres always hassle getting paid but the main problem is time wasted these buyers to sfa all day and have loads of time on there hands

Birdnuts

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121932275#Comment_121932275

Thats a risk alright (though not for me;)) - 2013 was a good summer after that desperate spring, 2006 would be another example, I will never forget the heat from that one here in North Mayo all threw May, June and July. Belmullet broke its all time high on the 19 July that year😎

PS: 2018 would be another example after that epic snow in March - the drought though was severe threw that summer and probably the worst the country saw since 95'

older by the day

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121932227#Comment_121932227

I'm the same with the x from the montbelliarde. All my dams are frx even though they are crossed back to Friesian several times. So there are some only 1/8 Monti blood but its still frx. Do you ever get back to Fr?

whelan2

When you're in the box selling do you not say to the auctioneer, no je breeeding?

Kerry2021

I meant to ask. What’s the oldest cow any of ye have in the herd? Ours is 14, I reckon she’s produced not far off 100,000 litres of milk. Never been lame or had mastitis. Obviously an exceptional animal all round

cute geoge

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121933033#Comment_121933033

What about her daughters ,more often then not a let down .Local Fr breeder here best ever cow came off the back of a jobbers lorry ,he just loved the look of the animal as a calf and he rarely if ever bought an animal as he ran a closed herd !!

Gillespy

Ours is 2010 as well. Over a thousand differences between her tag number and that her calf got this year. In a herd of 80 odd cows that's not bad going. Has five daughters that look like lasting a long time too. She's the last of the cows from the last fr stock bull we had on the farm. Been totally AI since. A Croagh bull from Frawleys in Limerick, a great bull he was for us.

Pinsnbushings

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121933033#Comment_121933033

We had a 14 year old calved down this year unfortunately she got peritonitis and we lost her. She had 3 daughters, 2 have been culled as poor milkers. Had another cow the same year that we culled last year I have several daughters and granddaughters but none as good as the original either

older by the day

I have a 07 MOX. Bombproof, but was getting stiff getting up from the cubicles so I injected her last August and she is off to the farm in the sky this week.

One of those cows you never even know you have. Until you see the blue card and figure out how old she is.

I have daughters and granddaughters off her.

Kerry2021

To tell ye the truth I don’t know about her daughters. We don’t do any AI but back then we used buy all our bulls off a cousin of mine who’d of had the very best of breeding. She’s in the 1730’s and the calves being born at the minute are over 4100 so she’s seen a lot of changes! The next oldest cow we have on the farm is in the 2450’s so there’s 720 of a difference between our oldest and 2nd oldest cow

K.G.

3 2010s here,one calved 2 days ago and she pulled through as she was shook enough coming up to it but all 3 will go this year

K.G.

Just for the fun of it rank the margin of the milk off various feeds from biggest to smallest

Grazed owned land

Grazed leased land

Good pit silage off owned land

Maize/ off owned land

Ration in the parlour

Zero grazing off rented ground

High qaulity bales off owned ground

Silage/maize/beet off rented land

High quality bales off rented ground

Feel free to add or contradict

morphy87

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121932227#Comment_121932227

I bought some fresian bullocks last autumn, they had frx on the card, usually I wouldn’t buy them if they had this but they looked a good type of a bullock, but anyway when I got the cards I knew the man that bred them, they were out of mountbillard cows and crossed with fresian, hence the x, they are great cattle I’d definitely buy them again, you should try and sell those Calfs at home and explain the situation and maybe show the cows, you should have no problems selling them

Castlekeeper

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121932227#Comment_121932227

Yeah its bullshoot, same here with Mo and Nr x cows, I sell a lot at home though. Funny the way the Ho was conveniently merged in with the trad Fr, and the NZ Fr slipped in under the radar too, the CBV should factor in all that but...

morphy87

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121933707#Comment_121933707

What would the nrx cows be like?

daiymann 5

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121932732#Comment_121932732

Youd thinķ our farm orgs would sort it out

jaymla627

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121929919#Comment_121929919

Journal next week will be advising lads to get their orders in for lorry loads of pk/soya hulls, and maybe put the cows on a 20% plus nut if your silage is poor s**te....

It's survival mode on alot of farms now for the next two weeks at least important thing is to keep cows fed properly even if you have to up the meal to 8 plus kgs maybe go with a mid-day feed

K.G.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121930117#Comment_121930117

That way of thinking about calves is gone.we are.very much in a time when we are competing with other dairy farmers to make our calves more saleble and and consequently sold than our neighbours.i think the days of selling calves before weaning might disappear very soon.

straight

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121934912#Comment_121934912

I'd say derogation will be gone before that - 2029 I believe. That'll sort alot of problems.

Jack98

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121935113#Comment_121935113

I’d agree with you derogation is a ticking time bomb now the way things have gone over the next few years be guaranteed to be gone. What’s going to happen then I wonder when cows and the few heifers will be the only thing kept on most dairy farms, the arse will fall out of calves completely, surely price diary farmers receive for calves will only get worse when more calves flood into the market.

K.G.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121935113#Comment_121935113

2029!!!!.we ll be gone by then if things keep going the way they are

Birdnuts

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121935457#Comment_121935457

Probably doesn't help that the failure rate last year for Nitrate Inspections was up at 30% as reported by the IFJ last week

green daries

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121935533#Comment_121935533

Probably doesn't help that if I don't have ten yards of a waterway fence completed or broken that is considered a non compliance. But a non derogation farmer can have none of the same waterway fenced off and the banks destroyed. same for dirt on a roadway (very much open to interpretation.) Especially with the very very poor weather last year.

Birdnuts

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121935628#Comment_121935628

All true and there has been issues from day one concerning DAFM ignoring the E in GAEC - was reading recently that DAFM actually carry out less inspections generally on such things then they did 20 years ago, which is mad when you think about it and is likely a big factor in the current mess concerning water quality and the derogation coming under pressure from the EU.

older by the day

They will have to bring back a jex or frx slaughter scheme for calves. It's the same thing to die in June as July, they won't be running around hills of fresh grass over in the veil units I expect.

Do John and Mary rushing out to work tomorrow morning give a shiiiit where the milk for their rice Krispies come from. We are told we are on global prices.

And if the CO-OPs are so worried about calf welfare, farmers should drop their calves off and let the coop look after them for a month and let them keep the fiver.

green daries

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121935790#Comment_121935790

Course it is its not derogation farmers are the issue even the bloody inspectors admit that 🙄 passed a derogation inspection neither neighbour has enough storage on (beef one dairy farmer) another has feeders on a slope beside a river

K.G.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121935533#Comment_121935533

It has been mentioned in the past the concept of not filling out sfp bu5 there is another strategy. The way costs have gone for compliance and the fact alot of peoples payments become relatively small there is another way, its making less and less sense to be part of the scheme.another way is to continue to fill it out and submit suitable paperwork and see how far you can get without inspection. On inspection you take your penalty and the next year you sell your entitlement s.you could get a good few years out of it and the only risk is the potential difference in entitlement value.you are only being penalised on money you wouldn't have got anyway if you sold your entitlement s at the start.people have become e so institutionalised they can't see outside it a bit like long term inmates in a jail