Calf price chitchat

Never wrestle with pigs wrote: »

Really don't understand why any dairy farmers would keep these types of cattle to start with. Most of the time ye are busy enough keeping the dairy side going and growing grass. Not getting at anyone.

Run a nice easy calving lim bull and get €350/400 as a suck calf all day long. No further work required. The few extra days in the oven not only gives the cows an extra weeks brake but the price more than compensates the milk lost for a week or two and no milking.

I'd even say that an easy calved lim is far easier to calve than most he bulls. More time and grass to put into the main enterprise too.

€350-€400? I sold 5 week old BB bulls this spring, big calves fed loads of milk and struggled to get over €300 for them. One calf made €350 and there was only one bid for him. It didn't stop the mart advertising prices of 450 for 3 week old BB's though.

Bass Reeves wrote: »

taht means good autumn managment

Which is a given with the guy asking the question.

freedominacup wrote: »

Which is a given with the guy asking the question.

It is slighty different to heifers. Ideally at this stage such bull would want to be on 1-2 kgs of ration. Every kg gained at grass is cheaper than a kg inside in the house. However if you are short of silage and or grass in reality every kg will be gain using ration in reality. I have seen more lads get burnt at finishing bulls especially friesian or JEx bulls than any other lark.

Usually you are feeding numbers. In the usual system (U16 month)these bulls eat 1.5-2.2T. If silage is short you will be at the higher rate. So to feed 30 of them you are looking at 60-70 ton of ration. This year I budget that at 300/ton that is 18-21K. The big problem is I expect that millers will want there money in stages and will be unwilling to wait for slaughter for the majority. Already hearing stories of lads being told to make a payment before any more nuts going out.

Talking to my factory agent today the processors are expecting a glut of cattle from now to Mid February. After that lads will be well burnt from meal bills. I expect that there may be a market for them during May and June after that it will depend on the spring an early one will see cattle coming off grass in late June and processors pulling beef prices. And I have not even mentioned Brexit.

Lots of fulltime beef lads are exiting winter finishing the dairy men are more than welcome to take it on.

patsy_mccabe wrote: »

The difference in gestation between a Herdford and a Limousin is only 2.2 days (3.82-1.61). Hard data from ICBF. Limousins are that bit hardier too, so less mortality. 0.1%......:D

Exactly, and more than making up the lost milk with the calf price and you don't have to milk to get it !

Went to local mart with a couple of calves today. Fr bull €70 ten days old. Only fr in sale. Aa heifer on lame cow since May €270. Was about 15 calves in the sale. One farmer r had 8 aa calves in it top price €100. Poor enough calves tbh. A sim bull unsold at 180. 4 smashers of red simx heifers a few months old 200 to 320

Bigger question is what price will they be in Feb’19

charolais0153 wrote: »

Good to see the price of calves coming in to line with their value

In fairness the 8 angus calves weren't great.

Pidae.m wrote: »

There was narrow aa heifers in macroom Saturday 220kg made 150. Spring 18

You could still do good enough off them, if they were even kept till this time next year.

If things went well enough with an early spring, they could be a good buy.

_Brian wrote: »

Export markets are a problem and likely to become more and more of an issue.
Europe wide beef consumption is trailing off while our beef production seems to be going up.

Western nations have reached peak beef consumption but developong nations are increasing consumotion dramatically....china and india need to import to survive and with austarlias volatility in weather extremes,ireland could become a viiable source of beef for china

Bass Reeves wrote: »

Too high cost with no use of our natural advantage of grass. Veal is a totally milk and grain based production system. It was tried and it failed in Ireland a few times. Mainly processors will not commit to a price in advance to what is a high cost system. You need stringent production methods to insure right meat colour. Rose veal was tried as well and it failed.

To develop markets you need to guarantee all year round production and in a grass based milk system raw material (calves) is not a given. For farmers to invest in housing and setup they would need a 3-4 year price commitment mainly in a form similar to chicken production, where farmers are responsible maybe for calf sourcing and fixed cost with processors responsible for feed costs and a final price commitment.

Expecting producers to take all the risk in a high cost system is not viable. You only have to look at the U16 months bull system to see how processors load all the risk to producers. It is hard to see any such project get off the ground just to give dairy farmers another market for there byproduct.

I agree with above except in time it will not be about giving dairy farmers another market for their byproduct. It will be about appeasing the cohort that believe live shipping is an animal welfare issue even though we Irish have and apply the most stringent animal welfare regulations.

Bass Reeves wrote: »

There is an easy solution disposal at birth oops that animal welfare cohort are not happy with that either. Mind you they are not fans of the veal industry either. Cannot see veal being a viable option. Best solution is that dairy Farmers have to rear calves to say 3 months of age at least with targets for percentage bought to this stage and link BPS to these targets.

Not too many dairy farmers with a BPS to target.

Bass Reeves wrote: »

There is an easy solution disposal at birth oops that animal welfare cohort are not happy with that either. Mind you they are not fans of the veal industry either. Cannot see veal being a viable option. Best solution is that dairy Farmers have to rear calves to say 3 months of age at least with targets for percentage bought to this stage and link BPS to these targets.

So lets get this straight ,you want to penalised all ready overstocked dairy farmers if they do not have time to rear calves

cute geoge wrote: »

So lets get this straight ,you want to penalised all ready overstocked dairy farmers if they do not have time to rear calves

I an being a bit scarcastic TBH. There are a lot of brain farts at times to what often amounts to thing that will skew the market. It was interesting that a project traditional style suckler farm was incapable of making a profit before labour costs and land rent. We have IFA , Teagasc and the FJ campaigning for a suckler cow subsidy backed by processors. Already we have costs added onto Farmers and Farmers schemes to benefit organisations such as ICBF, vets, consultants, Teagasc etc. Look at levy on tags for ICBF and new digital tags for lambs.

Now we have a suggestion that we should set up a veal industry to keep floor under calf prices. That is little different in context to my suggestion except one penalizes calf sellers the other calf buyers.

Bass Reeves wrote: »

I an being a bit scarcastic TBH. There are a lot of brain farts at times to what often amounts to thing that will skew the market. It was interesting that a project traditional style suckler farm was incapable of making a profit before labour costs and land rent. We have IFA , Teagasc and the FJ campaigning for a suckler cow subsidy backed by processors. Already we have costs added onto Farmers and Farmers schemes to benefit organisations such as ICBF, vets, consultants, Teagasc etc. Look at levy on tags for ICBF and new digital tags for lambs.

Now we have a suggestion that we should set up a veal industry to keep floor under calf prices. That is little different in context to my suggestion except one penalizes calf sellers the other calf buyers.

I hear loads of complaints about the quality now of dairy calves....what's the future for those that don't want to milk cows, they can't all go at sheep.
While not all dairy calves are poor, the majority defintely are,the angus's are worse than the friesians from what I hear. However if farmers keep paying too much for them the place will be littered with them.

wrangler wrote: »

I hear loads of complaints about the quality now of dairy calves....what's the future for those that don't want to milk cows, they can't all go at sheep.
While not all dairy calves are poor, the majority defintely are,the angus's are worse than the friesians from what I hear. However if farmers keep paying too much for them the place will be littered with them.

most of it is down to calf price. Lots of lads buying calves will not walk away when they are too expensive. Look at present market. You can but a 400kg Fr store for 450-500 euro, what price is a 200-250 kg FR weanling and what price is a 3 week old autumn born FR calf. Is the price of dairy bred coloured weanling reflecting the store trade. In most cases I do not think so.

Most stock will leave a margin if bought at the right price but lads need to realize taht calves are a byproduct of the dairy industry. If calves are too expensive buy less and wait for autumn, if weanlings too expensive leave until spring it usually only takes 6 months for the market to swing

You are saying calves are a byproduct of the dairy industry ,maybe jersey calves are a byproduct .It would not be worth a dairy man bother putting a cow incalf to good quality hereford/angus unless the calf is worth €100 dropped.I reared all my herefords calves to 9/10 weeks and there average price this year was €250 ,after roughly drinking €100 of milk so i was left with €150 to cover dropped calf ,straw,labour and mortality .Any less surely i may as well have a jersey calf ,no bother to calf cow ,cow will have more milk and flog the calf after 10 days!!!

whelan2 wrote: »

As with everything if you do your homework you'll get good quality angus calves. I think kya has destroyed the angus calf trade

You are 'dissing ICBF there. KYA is a 5 star replacement bull.:D Just shows how bizarre the whole stars thing can be at times.

I think it's time for the likes of ICBF, Teagasc etc to take a serious look at the quality of beef calves coming from the Dairy herd. ICBF were talking about a Dairy Beef Index before but that never happened. Just as beef animals in the Beef Data Genomics Scheme come into the ring with their star ratings showing on the board, there is no reason why the same cannot be done for dairy beef calves.
All dairy guys care about is short gestation and calving ease. Once you have these right, it should be possible to improve on the beef genetics.

White Clover wrote: »

If people buying calves were looking at the board with stars on it instead of looking at the calf in the ring, God help them. A lot of farmers nowadays ask about stars before even seeing the animal.....

How can you tell how a calf will turn out in 2 years time? Plenty of rats born here that grew away into great weanlings after. The breeding is gone that way now. All easy calving strains produce small calfs.

Sold 5 fr bulls all 10 to 12 days old
3 @ 100
1 @ 70
1twin at 45 euro