Buying Calves for €5/10

farmer2018

Hi all, FRX bull calves are selling for as low as €5/10 nowadays. Would it be worth buying them at that money? Or is it a waste of time?

Kevhog1988

farmer2018 wrote: »

Hi all, FRX bull calves are selling for as low as €5/10 nowadays. Would it be worth buying them at that money? Or is it a waste of time?

Theres a potential for a margin in everything but youd need to take a look at the costs to finish before deciding if it could work for you. Its sad to see a calf sell for the price of a pint though.

farmer2018

Kevhog1988 wrote: »

Theres a potential for a margin in everything but youd need to take a look at the costs to finish before deciding if it could work for you. Its sad to see a calf sell for the price of a pint though.

How about selling them as weanlings? Yes it is sad to see.

Anto_Meath

Seen Fr calves at €20 - €35 thought they would be better value because they would have the better potential to carry heaver weights. Allow €1 a day to bring them to 30 months and kill circa 350 Kgs at today's price of €3.45 for P you would have about €300 out if it by June 2023. Where as the FRx lad would probably kill nearer to 300 Kgs leaving about €150 in June 2023. That would be to allow them grow naturally without any meal.

Kevhog1988

farmer2018 wrote: »

How about selling them as weanlings? Yes it is sad to see.

Fortune favours the brave i guess. If your thinking of it buy 3/4 and see how you get on. I looked at doing the same with pet lambs as we dont keep cattle but they are mad money at the moment.

Anto_Meath

Heard a story of a young lad who sold 6 pet lambs at @ €30 each €180, his dad gave him the pets to rear & he would have had the profit when fit. This lad then bought 20 Jex calves from the neighboring farmer for the €180, sold 19 little bulls in November @ €250 each. He worked out he had over €1700 out of it when all was done, the most he would have had out of the pets was €700.

Kevhog1988

Anto_Meath wrote: »

Heard a story of a young lad who sold 6 pet lambs at @ €30 each €180, his dad gave him the pets to rear & he would have had the profit when fit. This lad then bought 20 Jex calves from the neighboring farmer for the €180, sold 19 little bulls in November @ €250 each. He worked out he had over €1700 out of it when all was done, the most he would have had out of the pets was €700.

That fella will be a fair operator in a few years lol

Anto_Meath

Kevhog1988 wrote: »

That fella will be a fair operator in a few years lol

O ye a cute operator alright and a nice young lad to go with it, he was annoyed over the 1 that died. Now he did mind them well, kept moving the electric fence every few days so they always had fresh grass and never let them mix to much with the fathers sheep.

The man in red and black

Anto_Meath wrote: »

Heard a story of a young lad who sold 6 pet lambs at @ €30 each €180, his dad gave him the pets to rear & he would have had the profit when fit. This lad then bought 20 Jex calves from the neighboring farmer for the €180, sold 19 little bulls in November @ €250 each. He worked out he had over €1700 out of it when all was done, the most he would have had out of the pets was €700.

And he bought the land too fair play to him:D

Sheep breeder

Anto_Meath wrote: »

Heard a story of a young lad who sold 6 pet lambs at @ €30 each €180, his dad gave him the pets to rear & he would have had the profit when fit. This lad then bought 20 Jex calves from the neighboring farmer for the €180, sold 19 little bulls in November @ €250 each. He worked out he had over €1700 out of it when all was done, the most he would have had out of the pets was €700.

Did he forget the part of milk replacer and rearing them till November, a friend was in the mart two years ago and bought a fr bull calf for 40 Euro for the young lad to rear, the young chap reared the calf out his own pocket money and keep a record of all expenses and done a great job on the calf and sold at 12 months of age and had 40 Euro at sale for himself. Seen jex weanlings sold last October for 125 to 140 in the mart for 2 weeks in a row by the same woman who had bought them in the spring in the same mart.

K.G.

Farmer phil is somewhat the poster boy for these type of calves and if you are following him through the year you d see the x s are similar to any other cattle.they are not mart cattle fullstop.the system is finish as bulls at 20 to 22 months.what stands to phil he has the finish power at first cost whither thats competive or not i dont know.if you cant finish them dont buy them.the hd /aa or continental are the mart cattle that are liquid but dont leave any more money than your x un less you meet a fool in the mart

Anto_Meath

Sheep breeder wrote: »

Did he forget the part of milk replacer and rearing them till November, a friend was in the mart two years ago and bought a fr bull calf for 40 Euro for the young lad to rear, the young chap reared the calf out his own pocket money and keep a record of all expenses and done a great job on the calf and sold at 12 months of age and had 40 Euro at sale for himself. Seen jex weanlings sold last October for 125 to 140 in the mart for 2 weeks in a row by the same woman who had bought them in the spring in the same mart.

Well he had the grass, hay & straw for free off his dad so that was a good help, €50 for milk & €100 would have covered meal. He kept them moved on the grass so that kept them triving..

jd_12345

K.G. wrote: »

Farmer phil is somewhat the poster boy for these type of calves and if you are following him through the year you d see the x s are similar to any other cattle.they are not mart cattle fullstop.the system is finish as bulls at 20 to 22 months.what stands to phil he has the finish power at first cost whither thats competive or not i dont know.if you cant finish them dont buy them.the hd /aa or continental are the mart cattle that are liquid but dont leave any more money than your x un less you meet a fool in the mart

100% Agee. Forget about buying calves to sell the first winter. Very silly system that a lot of people think might turn a bit of money. Makes no sense. The best time to sell is around now when the BPS farmer is buying grass cattle. IMO dairy beef cattle need to be well done for the mart. If they’re not you won’t get rewarded end of. A lot of people talk about low cost systems but if you want any sort of weight gain on these cheap calves you’ll need to go with ration. It’ll More than pay you in the long run and you’ll have very few losses

Bass Reeves

There are 5&10 euro calves and 5&10 euro calves. If you have patience at marts especially over next few weeks you will buy a lot of value sub 50 euro. The worst of them Jex's and even narrow HO are a waste of time. However there are some fairly decent FRX cattle out there. One thing to remember is that ration will not solve problems for you. I see a lad local to me using a frond and back fence on Friesian calves. He has them out this weekend on grass with a sheet iron shelter, a special ringfeeder with hay or haulage and a meal trough. They must be still on milk as well. They look young enough I say a lot bought in last two weeks. By May they be in between the fences and a small black plastic water trough and that will be it for the summer. Now its dry fold with stone walls all around. They are near the yard and could be put into a shed if the weather came bad for a week. They survive a bad day and night easy enough.

However the next few years will be tricky. This year we will have the lowest number of cattle for slaughter fir 2-3 years. However unless we see a substantial amount of yearlings exported this year we will have 200k+ above this years figures to slaughter next year and you can add another 100k to that for 2023. I am not sure how we are going to get through the next two years

Stihl waters

Anto_Meath wrote: »

Heard a story of a young lad who sold 6 pet lambs at @ €30 each €180, his dad gave him the pets to rear & he would have had the profit when fit. This lad then bought 20 Jex calves from the neighboring farmer for the €180, sold 19 little bulls in November @ €250 each. He worked out he had over €1700 out of it when all was done, the most he would have had out of the pets was €700.

Kevhog1988 wrote: »

That fella will be a fair operator in a few years lol

He might, but he'll have overheads and bills he didnt have when he got the lambs for free, still good thinking from a young lad all the same to turn a profit like that

Kevhog1988

Stihl waters wrote: »

He might, but he'll have overheads and bills he didnt have when he got the lambs for free, still good thinking from a young lad all the same to turn a profit like that

Hes showing a bit of initiative and thinking outside the box. Definitely something that's good to see in a young lad.