Dairy Calves 2024

whelan2

I'm a liquid milk farmer calving interval was 370 days a year or 2 ago.. I am now going to let this slip and sell calves a bit later. Have plenty of repeat customers but no harm in letting cows milk on a bit. Hate that week or 2 in February when there's a glut of calves and weather is shite

straight

Plenty calves in cork, Kerry, Limerick were left in the marts this spring. Calves that would make 200 euro at least in the current market. Peak calving, boats stopped, market flooded. Angus and Hereford couldn't even find a home. Most of my calves were a month old this year when I sold them. Got 60 ish for fr bulls, then the whole thing collapsed and got 10 euro the next day out, most were getting a fiver or no bid. Angus heifers were making 20 euro. The poorer calves were getting less or no bid. They are the facts of the situation and people can talk all the BS that suits them but they just don't seem to know the reality. Half of the cows in the country are in cork and the market gets flooded so the buyers can have a field day.

I kept about 20 of mine this year and they are flying it. Gifted them to my wife and children. They will leave a nice few bob after them. Sold fr heifer calves for 500 euro so there is more of an uplift in prices in keeping the beef calves.

I overfed my youngest 5 calves with milk and got paid 350 for them in may. Never saw a nut or hay and subsequently had poorly developed rumens. My Feb/march calves were superior calves to my mind but sure what would I know.

They will make their value in Feb/march in the mart. Will cover the skiing holiday.

Sheep breeder

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120797138#Comment_120797138

Well then it’s keep the calves and drive on, no worries of the mart,or shipper’s, weather, etc no costs and lots of holidays fair play to you.

Good loser

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120790160#Comment_120790160

I reared 56, bought over 8 days, and thought it a lot. 10 didn't need milk.

Did you buy in marts? Was the buying spread out much? Have you a sizable purpose built shed? Feeders?

Bass Reeves

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120796713#Comment_120796713

As I pointed out in another thread I am Alway the highest bidder on the cattle I buy. Young lad bought two suckler heifers( limo's)last week 340&350 kgs for 650&700 euro as well as a 370 kg FR rig for 550 euro.

Looking at calf prices who won or lostm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120797071#Comment_120797071

You asked the question and gave your answer it's a business decision.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120797138#Comment_120797138

Your first paragraph is describing a market. That market is what decides the value. Regulations decide how you supply that market. Market optimisation/ pessimism decides the price.

Maybe you should not get the cows Incalf if that is not a option you can keep all progeny until you slaughter them. That way nobody else has a farthing out of them.

Me I decide my costs and margin, I try not to buy cattle below this benchmark. If the market decides my benchmark is incorrect I cannot buy.

I have never had that issue. That is called market forces. I do not decide the market.

If you go to buy a few dairy cows or heifers, a mop up bull, machinery at auction.....if you buy at value do you add extra onto to your payment.

I will be honest I do not. However I bought yearlings of a lad ( private sale ) and he gave a tenner luck per head and I send the young lad in to give half of it back

straight

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120797686#Comment_120797686

Good night out I'd say bass was it

whelan2

Had a lad ring a few weeks ago looking for a pedigree Angus bull for cows for €1500. He'll be looking for a good while....

Bass Reeves

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120797849#Comment_120797849

No was not out at all.

I give you an example. Both pig slurry and digeste from plants have economic values. Both are byproducts. Getting rid of them is a net cost to the producers of them. Tillage is the only system that can take them without any real impediment on production within there system.

Exporting slurry on dairy farms is becoming a similar issue where the upper nitrate limit is reached. Why are calves any different

straight

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120798717#Comment_120798717

You've lost me again I'm afraid. I don't need to have the market, supply/demand, price or value explained to me. I'm well versed in all.

Look at the price of everything now. We can't do much about it but that doesn't mean we can't whinge about the unfairness of it.

Tonynewholland

Personal I think people who refer to calves as waste or byproducts are just sticking the boot in when it suits. Helping the anti farming lobby while calling themselves farmers. There are very few farmers sending their calves to the likes of Limerick and those that do should have been stopped years ago.

Anto_Meath

The unfortunate thing is the dairy calf in the dairy industry has become the summer wool of the sheep industry. They are going to cost the producer to move and sell & many dairy farmers don't realise this.

Base price

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120800179#Comment_120800179

It seems to be heading more and more that way. I wonder with the new voluntary reduction regulations regarding land use for male beef cattle affect the price of dairy x beef heifer calves in the future. I would have thought that if a farmer takes the voluntary reduction and quits dairy (or sucklers if it comes in) that they should be able to rear & finish bulls/bullocks as well as heifers i.e once those heifers are not used for breeding - otherwise it's going to create a anomaly.

Bass Reeves

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120798950#Comment_120798950

Well if you understand market supply/demand you should understand that calves made there value during the spring.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120800171#Comment_120800171

Lots of byproduct has value and the same byproduct can have different values in different places.

Soya hulls are a by product of the soya bean oil and meal production, the same with rapeseed meal and citrus pulp

Take a look at distillers grains another byproduct, here in Ireland you will pay for them in part of the UK you will get them often delivered for free and definitely for collection.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120800179#Comment_120800179

Up until the abolishing of the milk quota dairy farmers controlled the supply of calves to the beef industry. 30-50% of calves were reared by dairy farmers themselves or exported to the continent. As Teagas said the forgot about the calf.

Some dairy farmers cannot understand that if you over supply a market prices will drop. The conquences are that dairy beef has become more profitable for those involved. Long may it last.

older by the day

A bit of a round about conversation. I sell calves and keep calves. And we can argue all night but the problem is that at 1600-1700 euro for a 30 MTH old finished fresian bullock there is no money for calf rearer or finisher. And I know bass will disagree but those bastard's will eat all around them

Base price

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120797227#Comment_120797227

About half were bought directed ex farm from the same few farmers that we buy from over the years. The rest were bought in marts. The first batch of 23 were bought at the end of Feb and they were all Jan born calves. We bought the last batch of 8 mid May and they were April born - the youngest calf we bought this year was 19 days old and the average age was 25 days.

We have no fancy set up but use the infrastructure that is already in place. We have an old slatted unit with a wood chip stand off pad beside it and we bed the slatted pens with straw. We have hanging extensions that clip onto the feed barrier on which you put the teat feeders. The tank was already emptied before we brought calves in and the shed powerhosed and disinfected. As the calves get used to the teat feeders we batch them into pens of 20 and when they come off milk they are moved to the stand off pad but have access to another dry bedded shed with meal troughs, hay, straw and water. We also use the old round roofed six bay hay shed, divide it into pens with 8x4x4 bales of wheaten straw 2 deep and 2 high with gates to the front of each pen with 10 calves per pen and an access passage down the right hand side. Hay and straw is left in front of the gates and hanging meal feeders. The North and South facing ends are partially open bar for sheeted gates so we build up a wall of 8x4x4 bales of wheaten straw to protect calves from the wind/draughts. The downside to this shed is that there are no permanent drinkers in place so we use round tub feeders placed in lorry tyres for water - the lorry tyres stop them knocking over the tubs. It's more labour intensive but works if your prepared to do it.

We have a simple Wydale 110l cmr electric mixer on wheels. We draw most of the hot water from the house as the range heats the cylinder. OH put in a outdoor hot water tap years ago and we have a larger copper cylinder in the house. Again it's labour intensive as we have to draw the water from the house in blue barrels in a transport box to the yard. We use compartmental teat feeders and watch each batch of calves as they suck. All calves are vaccinated intranasally with either Rispoval RS+PI3 or Bovillis RSP on arrival or the next day. We only give them a feed of homemade electrolytes when we get them home and watered down cmr for two or three feeds until they adjust.

Hygiene is very important - we wash the teat feeders after each feed with hot water and detergent, draw it through the teats and leave it sit until the next feed. Every night we make a solution of bleach, draw it through the teats and let it sit overnight. If we notice any calf off it's immediately removed, put into a single pen in the old cubicle shed and hand fed. It's the first year that we never lost a calf and I reckon it was due to better weather we had.

The six bay hayshed is now full of round bales of hay and the 5 eye dry bedded shed beside the stand off pad is going to be cleaned out next week ready for barley straw.

green daries

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120800171#Comment_120800171

I'd really have to agree with that statement. it's an Irish thing. it's called begrudgeary. The calves being slaughtered will stop bar the hardship cases tb etc. Teagasc and farmers have a case to answer with the Jersey and crossbreed routes but the ai companies have made out like bandits when it comes to the poor aa bulls and really poor ebi bulls.

Anto_Meath

Big Frs eat a lot but at least they will carry weight.. if you let them at it right up to they are touching 30 months on good grass you ll get them to 360 -380 kgs dw. The little feck of a yoke with JE breeding or bad AA breeding that kills less than 300kgs that break you. I have blues out of JE almost fit to kill and I am happy enough with them. They are about 650 kgs live weigh, expect them to kill out around 350 kgs as the are good square cattle should grade R, were bought at less that €200 in April 2021.. far better value than a lot of the AAX

Tonynewholland

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120800891#Comment_120800891

People who continue to refer to calves and livestock as waste and byproducts in this way know well what their doing and the damage it can cause. Just like RTE know what their doing by airing the show soon on the dairy industry probably just to take the heat off themselves.

mr.stonewall

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120802150#Comment_120802150

I'm a suckler farmer with calf to beef. My by products annually are cull cows and a small amount of fodder sales. You can dress it up what ever way you wish, but calf sales on the majority of dairy farms are a by product. If the dairy farm is focused on milk and getting the calves of the farm as quick as possible, they completely view the calf as a cheap by product. Dairy farmers who keep a them to beef, will view the calves very differently. Since quotas has left, calf quality has dropped hugely, as Buff Egan would say "that's a fact of life"

whelan2

Calf sales are very important here. Money comes in handy at a tight time of year, so it's in my best interest to have good quality calves to sell. At the end of the day a life is a life and euthanising healthy calves is very very wrong in my mind

Bass Reeves

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120802150#Comment_120802150

Nobody said they were waste. Waste and a by-product are two totally different things.

The issue is that dairy farmers are not accepting that now they have to accept some part if the calf rearing cost. Either do they accept that they may not recover all the costs that they put into a calf.

On the other hand I see reared Friesian calves 5 months old making 2-300 euro. The ones above 250 have probably more than covered costs. However there impact on nitrates has to be allowed for.

A lot of this where calves would reduce in value was pointed out on this forum 3-5+ years ago

J.O. Farmer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120800891#Comment_120800891

Are farmers not partly to blame for the AI bulls also.

There was always a range of bulls but if the most popular were the shortest gestation easiest calving bulls then naturally the AI companies selected on that basis. No point in them choosing big black limo types if it wasn't what the customer wanted.

If farmers thought calf quality was important and deteriorating they should select different bulls, perhaps even a different breed.

Problem was a lot of dairy farmers were happy once the calf wasn't costing them money. They weren't bothered by quality.

Green&Red

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120801409#Comment_120801409

https://twitter.com/TaeSavesLives/status/1676123024561524737?s=20

Like you say there are some good calves out of JEX

green daries

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120802580#Comment_120802580

Yes this is partially true but ai companies did breed and push these type of animals some of the progeny from aa and black white head straws were terrible pointy small and pissarro poor killouts

charolais0153

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120802908#Comment_120802908

Why’d he have to go to Europe to see them

Green&Red

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120803398#Comment_120803398

Europe?

charolais0153

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120803581#Comment_120803581

That picture isn’t from Ireland is it ??

Castlekeeper

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120803626#Comment_120803626

Would seem to be from Denmark by the building and narrative, from a herd with 100% Jersey cows. He's probably on a trip/study tour/ junket, and took a few photos, which is not unusual.

mahoney_j

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120802908#Comment_120802908

The thing I see with calves unless out of absolute screws of cows ….pumped with whole milk lots of straw etc they look great as calves it’s comming out of following spring into summer proably earlier there thru quality or lack of it comes out

Dunedin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120803817#Comment_120803817

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