Deepsouthwest wrote: » Cross breds making €1400, have had 3 lads in the few wks trying to source them. But finding it v hard to get them. Apparently most of the sellers, myself included, are holding them and all plan on milking more cows nxt yr. Maybe I should be taking the €1400
frazzledhome wrote: » Unbelievable demand for xbreds. Guys finally catching on. Was offered €1500 for the pick and €1400 for the whole lot as a group. EBI not even mentioned. All >200 so won't consider selling. We are culling from the bottom of the herd
mahoney_j wrote: » Thank god I've none of that Craic to worry about .one mob of cows ,one maidens one heifer calves and a few Bulls .go hell for leather calving in Feb March and breeding in late April to mid June ,keep grass right for year ,bale as much quality silage as possible and feed costs around or below 5 cent for year .5?weeks out of parlour in Dec Jan and start again
trixi2011 wrote: » few lots of incalf spring calving xbreed/fr heifers sold in leek market in the south of England for 500 yet all still a lot of lads bringing in lorry loads from Ireland at 1500 a pop
Milked out wrote: » An Atg bb heifer landed this morning 2 days over, cow calved fine herself big but nice soft calf. And a phc heifer landed 4 days early. 10 heifers now 4 of which out of phc. 2 more blues left to land no doubt they'll be heifers now. Still if I could get 20 heifers in spring id be happy enough, 30 from spring would be comfortable. Hopefully by the time they'll be calving down I'll be only looking to carry 25% replacements. What do ye see yourselves carrying replacement wise with quotas gone? If ground could be got carrying extra would allow extra to be sold and then held if anything extra was required or opportunity came knocking but that can be costly enough for first two years I guess
pedigree 6 wrote: » Would the difference be maybe the English heifers were from a TB area, vaccination status unknown, not A.I bred, bad herd milk records, bad herd fertility records,etc. I don't know just speculating.
whelan2 wrote: » what bulls are ye planning on using for winter ai?
trixi2011 wrote: » they were from a top herd full line of heifers all ai breed and on target weight due to moving to autumn calving because of pressure from milk company. the mart doesn't seem to be the right place to sell grass based stock over here.
Milked out wrote: » Haven't really looked yet. Won't start ai till new year. Munster catalogue came in post last week alright. Will get on to LIC and see what they have too all tho the only bull I want off them they dunno if they can get him. If they won't I won't bother with them. When u breeding whelan?
Milked out wrote: » Did u pick up any of em yourself?
pedigree 6 wrote: » Yea they were probably in a Holstein area. Plus a lot of farmers don't have time to go to marts anymore. It's a lot easier to look at stock on the internet.:D The farmer could of been stuck for money and nobody there to bid on them.
Deepsouthwest wrote: » I thought everyone culled from the bottom of the herd?!!
mahoney_j wrote: » 11/1200 but more for wuality with good ebi ,breeding etc
Greengrass1 wrote: » What's your criteria for culling? Exc feet empty etc
frazzledhome wrote: » Trixi, there's no comparison between a UK xbred and an Irish one. The UK ones are too light and just don't have the engine for the job. I've sourced loads for the UK and have seen lots of UK bred herds and have to say ours are far superior. The problem is that they stay crossing with Je which in my opinion is not the right road. Hybrid vigour is massive in first cross and guys believe it'll continue with further crosses resulting in tiny cows that just won't milk enough
mf240 wrote: » 25% jersey and 75 holstien are a nice type of animal. .
degetme wrote: » we will see how we get on tomorrow. selling the worst ones. don't have shed space to keep them all
mahoney_j wrote: » So your ideal cross then frazzled would be a kiwi x off a hol??.would that kiwi cross Hfr then go back hol ??.i know a of a guy x like this and tbf super stock with excellent solids and a bit more milk than I would of imagined
frazzledhome wrote: » I think the cow you start with should be the deciding factor. My ideal cow to cross from would be a large milky Hol. Have some here crossed with Je and doing 600 kg ms on 800 kg of meal. I'd be crossing them with kiwi cross that's more Je that fr. We also have more traditional BF cows that we first crossed with Hol and then back to Kiwi with a larger proportion of Fr again crossed with kiwi with Je propertion. We're at it a long while and by Jaysus have we phucked up at times. The real disaster is a heifer crossed with Je and the offspring crossed with Je again. The depth of the cow is very important imv. I've seen too many cows that are just too small. What I think is too many people don't actually understand what x breeding actually is and should oils achieve. It takes a real understanding of your herd to decide what you want to achieve. One thing I'd say is that the Danish Jersey is only a Holstein of a different colour. They'll work on a few cows and will milk like hell but their fertility is average. There aren't enough Je Bulls being used nationally to give enough of a choice for xbreeding. At this stage we're not using any Je but Kiwi.
whelan2 wrote: » Had 4 in heat today so will probably start in 3 weeks . Ai for 3 weeks and bull in for 3 weeks then. Not sure if I will use a fr bull or aa bull yet
