Dairy Calves 2024

You'd wonder alright. In fairness he goes into detail on YouTube thread. A big variation in calves on his farm though. A bad FR is still a bad calf. Good FR type probably doesn't get respect that it deserves.

Fella I know is a newish entrant to dairy. Was finishing a lot of coloured bulls. When he started he said he was going to finish his beef calves. Lasted one year. He just said it took the same amount of feed to finish the continental in less time. Never got into the finances of it.

Is calving later with ye this year? The calf agent is calling tomorrow to clean out what I have, and usually they wouldn’t touch them from mid Jan to mid May.

Calf trade has been very strong up to now…Nice charolais making €350+.

Was listening to the journal podcast two weeks ago, and jk mentioned it to Aidan re the above scheme and delays he rolled out the response, it will be a non-issue and dairy farmers need to be keeping their calves for longer anyways so what harm of delays, the department/icbf seem to be gone really bad at all aspects of their remit, rolling out schemes like the above and acres with not a notion of how they'll manage them our get through the paperwork, set-up properly systems, its a sh*tshow

9000kg holsteins he's milking.

I never finish anything here so no expert.

All legs so. It would take a while to get them going.

Hi looking to purchase 10 to 15 dairy calves to rear in the next few months. I am thinking its best to go with bull calves. I just wondering weather to go with angus or whiteheads what are lads opinions?

angus are cheaper to purchase and have a 20cent bonus at slaughter and they will come in fast hopefully kill them at 20-24months at 550-600kg live weight.

Herefords would be more expensive to purchase but only a 10cent bonus. but pros are they would grow better and carry more weight for killing.

What have lads found works best ? I think its probably better to stick to one breed instead of buying a bit of both? opinions ? pointers?

Yeah some of them bulls for the dairy heifers really do struggle but will try to get some growthy ones with some width. But it is hard to get them all right as just try to pick them as best as possible in the mart. i reared some BB dairy calves the last few years and tbh that can be a nightmare to get to grow but some nice growthy ones in the mart and then as weanlings there small butty ones. What prices are dairy calves running this year?

1 ferry operating. 6 trucks 3 times a week. This is probably ⅓ of normal capacity. Throw in a high sea here and there and we'll have a mess on this side.

The unsold calves at marts are going to be sent home this year...

Maybe get onto Ryanair?

Letting a problem build up is never good. The initial losses can appear formidable but when the problem compounds the initial losses can look quite attractive iykwim.