Angus Bull for Suckler Herd

The reality with suckling is even with say 10 cows you need to use two types of bull. The Angus out of a Continental cow is a fine calf & very saleable at any stage. But once you start approaching 75% Angus the quality is well back and so too are your returns. Similar with a well bred continental cow, she can be lacking in milk. The ideal is to use an Angus bull on continental cow & a continental bull on Angus cows. This is possible with AI but not so simple with stock bulls. There is a lad beside me at it with a Hereford bull on Charolais cows & buying in replacement Charolais heifers. He is killing supper stock & getting the Hereford bonus on them all & is bull must be over 10 years old now as he keeps none of his daughters for breding.

I know a couple of men 3 off the top of my head that work hereford and charolais bulls. I took an odd walk through their cattle at times (with them, I’m not the owner of the one wellie from yon other thread!) and I was surprised how well the hereford cattle were doing. Very impressive. I thought the charolais end of it wouldn’t have enough milk to keep the calf but there you go. The lim bull is hard to beat for an all rounder. Would love something similar to the last fella we had but I wouldn’t be convinced that his heifers are good breeders. Only one round of them so far so next summer will tell a lot.

In fairness squinn I have seen a few photos you have put up of your cattle on here and they are first class stock.

Thanks Anto you’re very decent to say that. Like everyone else good, bad and in the middle.

Separating cows for ai is hassle and time consuming. This lad also works. His system is less complicated the way it is. Using the HE bull gives him the bonus in the factory. Crossing the other way would have similar quality cattle without the bonus.

I use ai a small bit, most cows repeat at least once from it. It's a much higher repeat rate than with my bulls. Is this the norm?

I have recently changed from selling forward heifirs and cows in the mart to killing them myself. I used to have the same opinion as you on the factories. However after selling forward types and having them make less per kg because they were too fleshy for a number of years. I've started keeping them a little longer and killing them. So far I'm happy enough. A lot of the time there are only a few buyers in the mart for forward types and those lads like to get their margin.

However this year, they are going well everywhere, so it mightn't make much difference.

I killed 2 cows on wed, they both graded r and killed 54%. One was 13 yo and looked an o to me. They got 10lb of nuts since 1st November, which is not a lot imo. But I think if the feeding is in them, you're better off in the factory

All I know is any time we’ve been closed up with tb had forced to go with factory we’ve not got the value of our animals. The marts here that’s what the buyers are looking for, a farmer couldnt get a look in except for smaller cattle. Maybe it’s different where you are but from what I know I’d have to disagree with you. Dealers are getting 20-30p plus for factory and so they can give 10-15p plus in mart.

I’d often hear the older lads talking about some man ‘he always kept great cattle and then he went and he bought an angus bull and that put him away to hell.’

HA!! Very good, we’ll all have to stop commenting now. I think if you have good quality you can do ok at it but each to their own if you’ve found a better system to suit you then fair play.

😂😂😂 Unfortunately the options on marginal land are limited. Dairy beef is even worse, especially when meal is so expensive.

As one fella said forestry is the way forward, but I don't want to be living in darkness

So where do you go from here?

No that’s no use. If you’re going for the weanlin market then in my opinion you need a heavier early calf. 250kgs is no use even if they sell well. Without even looking at costs €640 or even £640 wouldn’t look at keeping a cow and giving you anything back. I can’t mind who but someone was on here last year arguing the merit of calving in December so that he would have that strong weanling, I thought it too early but I don’t sell weanlings it doesnt suit me. Unless a really flashy one straight off the cow would make as much as a weanling as he would nearly 6 months later. Weanlings in our local mart were making £1050 to £1150 for quality ones 350-400 kgs, that would be meeting you. That’s top end though tbf

Me and my da will need to really sit down and figure out numbers for autumn compared to spring calving and see what makes more sense. For our ground vs shed capacity we’re maxed though so that’s why it’s likely to remain spring autumn split and it means animals to sell for cash flow for larger portions of the year which is an advantage too.

Possibly you’re right about that. There might be an issue where the cows would eat out the ground for you where calves wouldn’t so that cuts out endless topping. Wed have 2 groups of cows/calves, bulling heifers, 2 weanling groups, 1-2 forward store type groups and dry cows. We’re spread over 3 main farms & outfarms so there’d be groups anyhow. I’m a teacher so I be off during the summer anyway and I love going round the stock. When I do go round the stock I don’t really wanna be looking at a load of fresians and I enjoy producing the type of cattle we have. FRom year to year calf to beef might work out better for a specialist for us it might not. I’ve friends who dabbled in it and are back out of it now after outbreaks of all sorts of diseases and games of cat and mouse with tb. Nothing is plain sailing as I say if youre finding calf to beef to be more beneficial to you then good on you, keep at it. I’m not making little of any of your points but I remain unconvinced that it would be better for us. I like to try new things out so I might buy a group of them and see how they go… then again, that would mean another group about the place!!

Sounds like a good plan. Is the best thing to be ruthless right away or could you pull back calving in stages over 2 years? In the Month of May I have exams so an odd tough day at school but mostly it’s fairly light and a great big long evening. The idea of trying to take cows in for ai or run them with the bull wouldn’t bother me. We even calve a few in May. People be horrified at that when I say it but those ones eat the butt of silage, calve outside and no issue with bedding. A problem is then that when you’re weaning they are smaller calves but if you have a few of them then theres a pen. I haven’t really giving it the right study but I’m not in a panic to cut them out either. The glut of calving in Feb/March is more anguish!

Yea I’ve a neighbour who does the same. All usually seems to be going to plan but he got the sh1te polled out of him on weanlings this year. He be’s grumblin about cattle being dear but there needs to be something for the creatur who did all those aforementioned dastardly tasks!!