That is the minimum calves will have to stay on the farm for with in 1-2 years. A good few want that a calf has to six weeks before he is considered weaned. That would mean they could not be moved more than two hours away about 100 miles
Some great discussions on a few threads here.
I’ll be buying calves for at least another 2 years but I can see the attraction in buying weanlings instead.
For me, calves are a bit more work but lower risk and less cash intense overall. They give me a chance to build livestock capital and allow the initial investment to compound a bit over time
The sooner the sire of all calves is verified via DNA at registering the better. This will weed out a lot of the poor stock bulls that are producing crap especially in the AA camp, bulls with a negative carcase weight, coupled with a reduction of 7-10 days in calving interval and then throw the reduction of cow weight due to EBI. This is where 60% of our beef comes from and growing. The pedigree societies supplying these bulls to the dairy sector needs to have a good look at what they are letting into their herdbooks.
Next year could be interesting with the price of milk powder. This spring supply was made with cheap gas and milk at 35c/l. What will next year's supply look like with milk at 55c/l and gas off the Richter scale. This would be enough to turn many off rearing or cutting back numbers. This wouldn't take long to soften calf price, along with a cancelled sailings and then the cheques to come out to take calves off farms in mid to late march.
That is true. Shippers could have shipped some of the stronger calves over the years but if they did the Dutch would not pay much more. They be happy out taking stronger calves
The arrival of selling cal es at 12-16 days was a teagasc/IFJ thinking. With there promotion of dairy expansion , farmers wife's working off farm and maybe having to pay labour as well as milk used cost bought in the thinking of a calf as a byproduct.
This lead to poorer breeding so as to have easy calving. The results of this were never analysed
The dairy-beef industry, and I’m part of it, is as much for the dairy farmer as the beef farmer
25 cent for AA's in Dawn this coming week..have a few heifers going in the morning
What where you getting last week 20 cents? What base price are you getting?
As a buyer of dairy calves I am perfectly happy with the ages they are sold at currently. Calves are well able to thrive even when moved at 7 days in my experience. The ages and weight of calves is now shown in the sales - the price penalties for light and young calves ensures the market self regulates.
495 base,AA bonus running from 15-25c Depending on factory
What was the base price last week for your heifers?
Where do you buy 7 day old calves from?
Any quotes for this week? Steers back a shilling or holding steady?
Same as last week I believe
Like to buy at 3/4 weeks. But have had the odd one at 7 days over he years.
Is there more than 4.80 going for bullocks next week?
is it even available next week?
I got the impression they were up 5c ......
Could be wrong.
My agent was leaning towards €4.85 for steers next week but the beef plan messages suggest a pull. Waiting on agent to come back to me
Very hard to put flesh on cattle atm... I'd normally have a load this time every year. I put them through the crush and all I can get is 6.
My cattle are weighing diabolical. I think we really got the worst of the drought. Trying to move as many as I can here the last 2 weeks.
Cattle never died as well here as they did this year or with as little feeding.
the heavier land pays off in a year like this
Grass gone here the past 10 day,AA finishing bullocks and heifers getting silage from paddock that were baled in May in feed rings in paddocks along with 4kg of nuts,was thinking of putting them on slats but don't want to knock them back
Are you feeding your cattle?
I’d keep them in a sacrifice paddock on the meal and bales. Put them inside and you’ll have extra slurry to deal with and probably have to feed more meal.
I’m feeding bales outside to bulls. Will keep them where they are until the rain does come. I’d expect grass will fly if a good weeks rain does come.
It's crazy for such a small country how diverse the climate is. Never had such a great year for grass here with regular rain all summer.
I was talking to a guy from West Cork last week who said they are feeding silage as the place is burnt.
Weight gain usually falls off a good bit in the second half of summer anyway as compensatory growth is burnt up. Harder to put on condition in these later months.
Heard today of a cattle farmer feeding cattle @ €1000 per day which includes 10 bales silage at €50 per bale.
Can that pay? 10 bales is probably about 150-170 head. About €6 per day per head. Weight gain of 1.2-1.5 live weight is probably €4-€6. Break even at very best but could be losing up to €2 per day per head on a very rough estimate. That level of feeding can pay for a dairy farmer selling €12 of milk per cow per day, not for beef.
I've upped them to 4kgs per day now..they r thriving but not as fast as I'd like.
Without knowing how many cattle are being fed no one would be able to say if that’s dear or cheap!
Grueller is estimating 150–170 head, I’d imagine it must be a lot more than that. At €500 for silage the remaining €500 must be ration. So he would be feeding 1.1-1.2 ton of ration a day. At 150 cattle that would be over 7kgs per head per day.
If he’s feeding 500 cattle it’s not a lot of money, €2 per head per day. If feeding 150 it’s crazy money, €6.66 per head per day.
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