What to buy??

irishguy19772

I have a shed, herd number and a few acres. First year properly farming and have some disposable cash. Father has suckler system going separately.
Have access to surplus silage and housing and a few acres.

Would I make anything buying a few calves and selling them as runners close to the 6 months?
Trying to make a bit of a return on a couple of grand.

AckwelFoley

irishguy19772 wrote: »

I have a shed, herd number and a few acres. First year properly farming and have some disposable cash. Father has suckler system going separately.
Have access to surplus silage and housing and a few acres.

Would I make anything buying a few calves and selling them as runners close to the 6 months?
Trying to make a bit of a return on a couple of grand.

Id probably keep them longer. We sell most of ours as heavy stores. When are you planning to buy? For summer grazing or housing over next winter?

What ever you do the main thing to do is, buy right sell right. By a good quality animal. A poor animal eats as much as a Good one but there can be a big difference when they're graded at the factory. Any buyer is looking at that ultimately

irishguy19772

Thanks. Will look into buying good quality so. Was tempted by Angus calves. Ideally so keep them for the summer/winter and sell again late in year before Xmas.

CloughCasey1

irishguy19772 wrote: »

Thanks. Will look into buying good quality so. Was tempted by Angus calves. Ideally so keep them for the summer/winter and sell again late in year before Xmas.

You would be far better off buying yearling heifers/bull/bullocks. You would be looking to buy 300kg aax for a bit less than €1.90 per kg. If you had a good grazing system there would be no reason why you wouldn't have them at 550kg by the end of the year and sell them on then at €950/1000 with very little overhead costs. It will cost you as much to rear a calf from now until Nov as it would to buy a yearling today.

Tommyturf

CloughCasey1 wrote: »

You would be far better off buying yearling heifers/bull/bullocks. You would be looking to buy 300kg aax for a bit less than €1.90 per kg. If you had a good grazing system there would be no reason why you wouldn't have them at 550kg by the end of the year and sell them on then at €950/1000 with very little overhead costs. It will cost you as much to rear a calf from now until Nov as it would to buy a yearling today.

be doing well to acquire 300kg aax for a bit less than €1.90 / kg these times! but the idea is right

orm0nd

Tommyturf wrote: »

be doing well to acquire 300kg aax for a bit less than €1.90 / kg these times! but the idea is right

+1

Any aax worth looking twice at is well north of 2e/kg last couple of weeks.

The problem with buying dairy offspring calves is a lot of farmers are using the cheapest easy calving bull they can find and while the calves may look ok they can be very disappointing later on.

White Clover

orm0nd wrote: »

+1

Any aax worth looking twice at is well north of 2e/kg last couple of weeks.

The problem with buying dairy offspring calves is a lot of farmers are using the cheapest easy calving bull they can find and while the calves may look ok they can be very disappointing later on.

+1
The majority of Angus yearlings are way over priced.
The general run of them are poor thrivers with very poor DLG.

irishguy19772

Thanks for the info about the Angus weanling. We have some Charalois cows alright but I find they calve well but are a bit wild.
Might stick with limousines.

mythos110

irishguy19772 wrote: »

Thanks for the info about the Angus weanling. We have some Charalois cows alright but I find they calve well but are a bit wild.
Might stick with limousines.

Thats a bit against the grain of the general run of things I'd imagine. We have nearly all LM and CH sucklers here and the CH are all much quieter animals than the limousines

CloughCasey1

Tommyturf wrote: »

be doing well to acquire 300kg aax for a bit less than €1.90 / kg these times! but the idea is right

That's a fact Tommy. If they can't be got at that money leave them to the next man.

Albert Johnson

I'd stay away from rearing sucks unless you're going to hold onto them for atleast 12 month's, selling as runner's wouldn't be a winner imo. You'll often see reared calves not making much more than suck calves despite having a bag or 2 of milk replacer consumed and all the hard work over them.

What is your land quality like as this will dictate a lot of your options or lack of? Good ground and you can turn your hand to most things where as bad ground suits nothing but we try to make it work. It's hard to make much of a twist at summer grazing in my experience. Your competing with too many lad's with cash on hip and who only want the grass ate and draw the sub without being overly bothered about turning a pound.

My advice would be start small and simple, by this I mean a few handy bullocks would probably be the least hassle and you'd get accustomed to the job. If you've the time to spare then sourcing them yourself would be a learning experience or otherwise get someone honest to do the job for you. A few middle of the road hungry stores would suit you best imo. Try and stay away from the tops of cattle because the front field contingent will blow you out of the water and very plain quality stock are harder handled than anything else. If you got a few straight raggy stores onto a good place for the summer and kept then dosed and full of grass then they should leave something in the backend provided there bought and minded right.

Albert Johnson

CloughCasey1 wrote: »

You would be far better off buying yearling heifers/bull/bullocks. You would be looking to buy 300kg aax for a bit less than €1.90 per kg. If you had a good grazing system there would be no reason why you wouldn't have them at 550kg by the end of the year and sell them on then at €950/1000 with very little overhead costs. It will cost you as much to rear a calf from now until Nov as it would to buy a yearling today.

I agree that the OP would be better off staying away from calves and buying some handy store cattle. Less labour, less risk, less time invested and he could ease into the ranching lifestyle. However I highly doubt locally anyway that you could source any half decent growthy AA bull or heifer for circa €570 at 300kg, they'd be nearer another €100 dearer imo. Anything bought at that money would be more likely a black Friesian as opposed to AA, not that there's anything wrong with the Friesian but there a different ballgame.

I never saw the attraction of AA tbh especially seeing as you seem to pay the AA bonus on the purchase price from day one. You could have a fair black LM calf and a poorer AA but the one with AA on the card will usually win out.