Can’t BF and Hol cows have high EBI too?
Genuine question.
Could well be true. The lads with high EBI stock in place probably wouldn't need to be buying cows in mid Tipp mart in February.
Spending silly money on 'good cows with milk' in a mart says more about the buyer than the stock.
I'm killing beef breed cross steers off crossbred cows at 20-22 months myself for a couple of years now, bought direct from farm. No problem getting to 300kg carcass and fattened on the smell of grass. They're great wee beef animal and the fact that lads dont value them as calves makes it all the better. They leave a few more pound after them than the SimLim sucklers that were here before.
Pride and opinion are two very bad profit killers in the beef game.
They can and now do also but it used to be by accident really. Some of the best cows here had minimal numbers some in the single digits
Great that's working for you be all the better if it worked for the rest also (it would solve a hell of an issue )but its cow size I'm wondering about
They were but they were high ebi with milk and type
€3,125 for top red hol heifer in new ross today
Our co op news letter this month has a section about shortening the working day, starting milking at 7am and then 3pm again, with no effect on SCC and kgs of solids.
Do many do this.
I'm a 12/12 between milking, more bad habits than anything. its a fair gap 16hrs at peak milk
Start milking around 6.15 am and around 3.15 pm. Finished up after checking outfarm definitely before 5pm. Milking doesn't take long now in new parlour.
Atm milking here could be any time depending on how the afternoon as gone
but I definitely see no issue with the longer time between evening milking and the following morning
Depends on the cow yield but you can definitely go less than the 12 hour split 9/10 would be my limit
So the two are not mutually exclusive then you say
Absolutely no offence on this but milking times are just habits nothing wrong with 7 am 3/4 pm milking time and been finished out of yard by 6 bar some days at busiest time of year .milking is first and last job of day ……working off farm thought me valuable lesson of what a defined working day is
Anyone remember how the high the milk price was in 07-08?
I know 09 went to 17 cent. But from vague memory I think milk was 45 cent ish. Now if its below 45 cent I'm under pressure anyway.
Also I remember when quota went lads used to annoy me saying anything over 20 and I'm making money. You don't hear that talk any more.
Bit of a rant
The cumulation of all inputs rising the past 3 years has lead to break-even prices heading into the 40's, even taking something like dairy chemicals present day, with chlorine been banned and what it's costing just for the above combined with the requirements for hot water to keep parlours right is insane....
For a herd sending a million litres, back in 2017/2018 combined parlour running costs for electricity and dairy chemicals etc where probably averaging under a cent a litre, present day going of 2023 costings its at circa 2.5 cent a litre here , having to use the likes of serpent at 100 euro for 20l litres and descaler everyday for the morning wash at 500 euro for a 200 litre barrel, plus a doubling/tripling of electricity prices really squeezes things
Vetinary costs with vaccinations/callouts etc is another area where what's was a 6-8k bill annually now is up at 13-15k, had to buy a double shot of salmonella vaccince last week for the herd and was charged 2400 euro for 360 doses, few bottles of antibiotics and parfour and their was 3100 euro spent that morning, unless milk stays above 40c of a average going forward the profitability/long term prospects aren't good
A red fr cow /calf is always the best to sell
Definitely not sure you can have 300 ebi plus cows doing 900kg ms
Diversify as much as you can. Only a certain amount of time left before the 200 cow man will be the norm.
It was once seems to be meeting in the middle at the moment few of my heifers have taken a huge jump in ebi mothers doing 9/10k per year
Of course you can if you feed her and manage her accordingly
200 cows man unless he has family help, in partnership with a son/daughter etc is probably the worst of both worlds, realistically you need 2 full-time labour units to run the place but in a year like 2023, the money wasn't their in alot of cases to be able to spend 40k on a outside labour unit
Your not going to grass walks soo
I'd say a lot of lads are holding on by the seat of there pants praying for the milk cheques in Apr and may
Are you achieving that yourself straight 🤔
Add calf tags and sample testing and the fact the calf crop no longer generates any return.
Yeah but my point is that so many cows that are sold for small money will never milk well no matter what you feed them
they have to have the potential
heres a cow who is 315 ebi with a milk index of 126 and she did 759 kg ms as a second calver and gained a month
a lot of these high ebi cows are only high on fertility and very low on milk index
life is about balance
Have off farm income. Partnership down the line possibly. Or see if these big rents stay normal for the foreseeable.
I was only thinking about it today myself. A 200 cow man between stock, buildings, machinery, land etc etc has probably got €2 to €3 million invested when you take into account the value of the land. For an asset worth we’ll say €2.5 million it’s a sad state of affairs that he can’t even take minimum wage out of it himself and it’s only touch and go if he can hire an employee just to get the basic work done. To have to work 7 days a week and put in all those man hours and to have all that money invested the farm would want to be making 20 cent per litre in profit every year. I know it won’t happen but it’s turning into a bit of a mugs game
No diet feeder, feeding about a ton, milking 305 days max. Prob average of 280 or 285. Best ones prob milking about 700
That sounds correct at first glance.
But then when you think how he got to have a net worth of 3 million you would need to have a rethink. What person working for a wage can ever expect to have a net worth of 3 million.
Ya, lads need to know how to read the EBI. I often see high EBI cows but half of that figure could be fertility with a milk index of under 100 and a maintenance figure of 30. Then that cow is going to be small and not be a great milker. I ignore the fertility index to a certain degree myself
