Dairy Chit Chat- Please read Mod note in post #1

frazzledhome · 01-11-2015 04:22PM

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

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

Greengrass1 · 01-11-2015 05:09PM

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

What's your criteria for culling?
Exc feet empty etc

Timmaay · 01-11-2015 05:21PM

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

Messing around between running them seperate and extra feed etc prb taking up an hr a day, for the sake of a row of cows! I'd say one last year of carrying over the may calvers next year to Sept, and that will be it for good for autumn calving for me.

Milked out · 01-11-2015 07:26PM

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

trixi2011 · 01-11-2015 07:38PM

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

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

whelan2 · 01-11-2015 07:42PM

what bulls are ye planning on using for winter ai?

pedigree 6 · 01-11-2015 07:51PM

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

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.

Greengrass1 · 01-11-2015 07:52PM

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

I'm hoping fir nearly 50 heifers between autumn and the springs. Well need them all because we've put off culling ciws last few yrs. A yr will come with a massive replacement rate

C0N0R · 01-11-2015 07:54PM

Have had 14 heifers so far from 16 cows, another seven in calf to sexed. Traditionally kept 15 heifers, kept 20 last year and I'll try keep as many if not more this year.

Timmaay · 01-11-2015 08:01PM

No extra ground other than the milking block, bought in 15acres silage from a neighbour and managed to graze heifers on it this back end, but it's unlikely to last moving forward as he is building up sheep numbers. I'd sort of expected more land to show up but nothing within reasonable distance. I'm on the lookout for about 15heifers to buy at the second, and would consider only breeding 10/15 replacements off the best of my cows and buying in the rest moving forward if nothing else shows up. Will happily push the overall SR up past 3,and buy in silage most yrs as the market tends to be very limited for it locally. Only thing I'll avoid is lucky bags ha, anything I've bought in so far I've seen the standing crop.

Deepsouthwest · 01-11-2015 08:03PM

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

I thought everyone culled from the bottom of the herd?!!

trixi2011 · 01-11-2015 08:44PM

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.

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 · 01-11-2015 08:52PM

whelan2 wrote: »

what bulls are ye planning on using for winter ai?

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 · 01-11-2015 08:55PM

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.

Did u pick up any of em yourself?

pedigree 6 · 01-11-2015 08:55PM

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.

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.

whelan2 · 01-11-2015 09:28PM

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?

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

trixi2011 · 01-11-2015 09:41PM

Milked out wrote: »

Did u pick up any of em yourself?

No didnt even hear they were for sale untill after they were sold picked up a nice batch of ai breed maidins in sep. was hoping to buy some more out of iteland but they were costing me twice the price.

trixi2011 · 01-11-2015 09:43PM

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.

Were in a holstien area alrite

frazzledhome · 01-11-2015 09:49PM

Deepsouthwest wrote: »

I thought everyone culled from the bottom of the herd?!!

That's what you'd expect, isn't it. I see guys with Cashflow issues selling from the top.

My post was in relation to selling all our heifers as I'd consider these to be the tops of the herd second only to last spring calves iykwim

degetme · 01-11-2015 09:57PM

mahoney_j wrote: »

11/1200 but more for wuality with good ebi ,breeding etc

we will see how we get on tomorrow. selling the worst ones. don't have shed space to keep them all

frazzledhome · 01-11-2015 10:01PM

Greengrass1 wrote: »

What's your criteria for culling?
Exc feet empty etc

Feet and fertility, simple as that

frazzledhome · 01-11-2015 10:07PM

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

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

mahoney_j · 01-11-2015 10:13PM

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

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

mf240 · 01-11-2015 10:16PM

25% jersey and 75 holstien are a nice type of animal.

.

degetme · 01-11-2015 10:18PM

mf240 wrote: »

25% jersey and 75 holstien are a nice type of animal.

.

used npy in maidens this year. he is something like the above

leg wax · 01-11-2015 10:38PM

degetme wrote: »

we will see how we get on tomorrow. selling the worst ones. don't have shed space to keep them all

where are you selling

trixi2011 · 01-11-2015 10:58PM

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

Yes your right there is alot of lads going to far down that road with tiny cows that would be better placed in the north island of nz. If you can find the right herd to buy surplus stock from over here there is value for money to be had. Your basicaly buying irish genitecs without having to get the boat.

frazzledhome · 01-11-2015 11:41PM

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

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.

Deepsouthwest · 02-11-2015 09:15AM

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.

I think we're all following a similar route, and we're all trying to keep that bit of size in our cows. Started heavy with je, but then backed off a little, and only used kiwi cross for a few yrs, sorry now I didn't stick with the pure je a little longer, as u said first crosses are best and u only get one chance to get a big lift with hybrid vigour. For now I'm using 1/3 je, 1/3 xbred and 1/3 fr/ho.
Just out of curiosity Frazz, would u name of few the bulls u were using last yr? And is it all kiwi cross, or do u use any of the Irish xbreds?

Greengrass1 · 02-11-2015 09:41AM

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

What are you starting so early? No point in calving anything till the bonus kicks in

Dairy Chit Chat- Please read Mod note in post #1

Comments