Spring 2020..... 1.5m Dairy calves.... discuss.

Sheep breeder · 17-10-2019 12:08am

Say my name wrote: »

I wonder how many beef plan members went in on this?

https://www.thatsfarming.com/news/jack-jan-2019

Will I still be getting my €130 head for freisian bulls?

This veal was tried a few year ago with Slaney and was not a runner due to finish price, a few guys in the south east were at it and were very good fatteners and couldn’t make it pay.

Sheep breeder · 17-10-2019 12:13am

Base price wrote: »

IMO it will be no different than any other year. It's not like it's a feckin new situation :rolleyes:

Quality dairy bull calves will ship and go for onward feeding for veal in mainland Europe. The rest will be reared by farmers or culled in DAFM approved facilitates.

Can’t see a cull in DAFM factories or subsidies paid for these calves, would be the death nail for beef and the green sell image would be lost. The dairy men may step up and feed these calves properly. The amount of young calves that are poorly fed from day one is a lot of the problem with thrive.

Bass Reeves · 17-10-2019 12:20am

I do not have any hangup's about Veal what i have a huge issue with is the expectation that these systems can change Irish beef production. All Veal production would be is another high cost production system. Will lads promoting this system guarantee a beef price for veal 7-8 months in advance. The simple answer is no. it would be similar to U16 months friesian bull beef high cost labour intensive system with the farmer taking all the risk for what would be a low profit system. Sorry No thanks.

I think there is a number of misconceptions regarding calves. The first is that as ling as a dairy farmers gets a calf to 10-14 days the losses stop there. There seems to be a theory that there will always be a get out of jail market in the form of Kebabs or export.

By the end of the year we will have exported about 200K calves and kebabed another 14K. The Irish farmer still hovered up 1.3 million of them. For how much longer will we be able to export calves at that rate is questionable but if Irish farmers demand drops can exporters and Mr Kebab make up the difference and what effect will this have on prices. We saw last year that Fr calves fell to 20-50 euro for a while and Jex calves were unsalable.

The farmers that is sure he has an outlet for Jex calves at no cost is deluded, If MR Kebab gets an over supply either this farmer will have to pay for to get his calves taken or some one else will and therefore take his place in the que. Its the same with export. While the issue's of calf price was isolated mostly to the Cork region last year who to say it will not be more widespread next year.

I killed an R grade AA bullock this week. Bought him last year at 335kgs in September he hung 330 kgs DW and after deductions he left 1226 euro he was bang on 30 months. He was a suckler bred one. He did 0.8kg LW gain/day. He had eaten about 250kgs of ration. Friesian's hung in early August did 0.86/kgs LW/day from November to August they had only eaten 80kgs of ration. IMO a ;ot of AA calves are no better than Friesians just lads have not copped it yet.

What is the max number of calves that can go into kebabs or can be shipped. Can Mr Kebab take 20K+ next year, can we export 250-300K calves because that seems to be the way it may be going. And if we can what effect will this have on domestic and export prices prices. will the 14 day old Friesian be free, will the AA and He bull calf drop 50-80/head, will MR Kebab be wantinga 20 euro note with every calf coming in the door

Sheep breeder · 17-10-2019 12:32am

Bass Reeves wrote: »

I do not have any hangup's about Veal what i have a huge issue with is the expectation that these systems can change Irish beef production. All Veal production would be is another high cost production system. Will lads promoting this system guarantee a beef price for veal 7-8 months in advance. The simple answer is no. it would be similar to U16 months friesian bull beef high cost labour intensive system with the farmer taking all the risk for what would be a low profit system. Sorry No thanks.

I think there is a number of misconceptions regarding calves. The first is that as ling as a dairy farmers gets a calf to 10-14 days the losses stop there. There seems to be a theory that there will always be a get out of jail market in the form of Kebabs or export.

By the end of the year we will have exported about 200K calves and kebabed another 14K. The Irish farmer still hovered up 1.3 million of them. For how much longer will we be able to export calves at that rate is questionable but if Irish farmers demand drops can exporters and Mr Kebab make up the difference and what effect will this have on prices. We saw last year that Fr calves fell to 20-50 euro for a while and Jex calves were unsalable.

The farmers that is sure he has an outlet for Jex calves at no cost is deluded, If MR Kebab gets an over supply either this farmer will have to pay for to get his calves taken or some one else will and therefore take his place in the que. Its the same with export. While the issue's of calf price was isolated mostly to the Cork region last year who to say it will not be more widespread next year.

I killed an R grade AA bullock this week. Bought him last year at 335kgs in September he hung 330 kgs DW and after deductions he left 1226 euro he was bang on 30 months. He was a suckler bred one. He did 0.8kg LW gain/day. He had eaten about 250kgs of ration. Friesian's hung in early August did 0.86/kgs LW/day from November to August they had only eaten 80kgs of ration. IMO a ;ot of AA calves are no better than Friesians just lads have not copped it yet.

What is the max number of calves that can go into kebabs or can be shipped. Can Mr Kebab take 20K+ next year, can we export 250-300K calves because that seems to be the way it may be going. And if we can what effect will this have on domestic and export prices prices. will the 14 day old Friesian be free, will the AA and He bull calf drop 50-80/head, will MR Kebab be wantinga 20 euro note with every calf coming in the door

Very good post, export will only take what is required. As for the AA agree totally with the breed going down the road of easy calving and black to colour the xbred and totally forgot about being a beef breed.

Say my name · 17-10-2019 12:52am

Sheep breeder wrote: »

This veal was tried a few year ago with Slaney and was not a runner due to finish price, a few guys in the south east were at it and were very good fatteners and couldn’t make it pay.

I know.
But there's talks of bringing in Dutch farmers to do it here in this country or some of the natives having a go at it again.
The irish factories must be rubbing their hands again.
The merry go round is starting all over.

There seriously is no other way other than approved euthanasia in approved premises for the poorest of the poor quality.
There can be talk of bord bia regulations and green image and whatnot but if they are all reared it'll flood the home market and beef price will plumet more and no one will be winners bar the factory man.
And regulation means nothing one injection to a cow scanned with a bull calf and you've a cow calving weeks before her time with a dead calf. There'll always be ways around them.
The powers that be would be best advised just to make the best of a bad lot.

jaymla627 · 17-10-2019 7:46am

Bass Reeves wrote: »

I do not have any hangup's about Veal what i have a huge issue with is the expectation that these systems can change Irish beef production. All Veal production would be is another high cost production system. Will lads promoting this system guarantee a beef price for veal 7-8 months in advance. The simple answer is no. it would be similar to U16 months friesian bull beef high cost labour intensive system with the farmer taking all the risk for what would be a low profit system. Sorry No thanks.

I think there is a number of misconceptions regarding calves. The first is that as ling as a dairy farmers gets a calf to 10-14 days the losses stop there. There seems to be a theory that there will always be a get out of jail market in the form of Kebabs or export.

By the end of the year we will have exported about 200K calves and kebabed another 14K. The Irish farmer still hovered up 1.3 million of them. For how much longer will we be able to export calves at that rate is questionable but if Irish farmers demand drops can exporters and Mr Kebab make up the difference and what effect will this have on prices. We saw last year that Fr calves fell to 20-50 euro for a while and Jex calves were unsalable.

The farmers that is sure he has an outlet for Jex calves at no cost is deluded, If MR Kebab gets an over supply either this farmer will have to pay for to get his calves taken or some one else will and therefore take his place in the que. Its the same with export. While the issue's of calf price was isolated mostly to the Cork region last year who to say it will not be more widespread next year.

I killed an R grade AA bullock this week. Bought him last year at 335kgs in September he hung 330 kgs DW and after deductions he left 1226 euro he was bang on 30 months. He was a suckler bred one. He did 0.8kg LW gain/day. He had eaten about 250kgs of ration. Friesian's hung in early August did 0.86/kgs LW/day from November to August they had only eaten 80kgs of ration. IMO a ;ot of AA calves are no better than Friesians just lads have not copped it yet.

What is the max number of calves that can go into kebabs or can be shipped. Can Mr Kebab take 20K+ next year, can we export 250-300K calves because that seems to be the way it may be going. And if we can what effect will this have on domestic and export prices prices. will the 14 day old Friesian be free, will the AA and He bull calf drop 50-80/head, will MR Kebab be wantinga 20 euro note with every calf coming in the door

20 euros to get knackery man to euthanize and dispose of calf, all fr bulls where exported here last year and had a 100 odd euro of milk drank before going, they averaged 30 euro a head the knackery option would of saved us thousands....
exporters took the piss price wise last year they have alienated farmers who spent the money rearing a suitable calf to then turn around and pay basically nothing, then when badly done calves are turned out at martd they will be releasing press releases saying lads need to feed their calves better

Siamsa Sessions · 17-10-2019 8:51am

Two simple points:

(1) Animal-welfare protests could end up stopping live exports - it's part of the wider environment/climate/green movement

(2) Veal processing in Ireland was tried previously as far as I know, but seasonal supply makes it uneconomical for processors

Glanbia's dairy-beef programme shows they are at least aware of the issue, but there's bigger schemes or plans needed at Government/Teagasc level. You can't let farmers carry the sole responsibility on this as one bad apple getting videoed shooting and dumping calves will impact the whole dairy industry and Ireland's fairytale image.

_Brian · 17-10-2019 9:06am

If we get to treating a million animals a year as a byproduct and don’t care what happens them we are loosing our farming ethos to factory farming and I’d rather see the country planted end to end.

K.G. · 17-10-2019 9:07am

You do know that if calf prices fall and ration price s remain close to where they are its the suckler cow that is totally uneconomic.

Bass Reeves · 17-10-2019 9:29am

jaymla627 wrote: »

20 euros to get knackery man to euthanize and dispose of calf, all fr bulls where exported here last year and had a 100 odd euro of milk drank before going, they averaged 30 euro a head the knackery option would of saved us thousands....
exporters took the piss price wise last year they have alienated farmers who spent the money rearing a suitable calf to then turn around and pay basically nothing, then when badly done calves are turned out at martd they will be releasing press releases saying lads need to feed their calves better

There are two problems first we are not set up to handle a explosive jump in either calf exports or in calf slaughtering. As I posted any system will react by to a jump in product by either dropping price or increasing cost.

The real problem is that calf/store men are at the whip end of the present beef price debacle. The real issue is how much has there confident been effected and how many will exit the production system. 2020 could be a very tricky spring for dairy farmers as in there rush over the last 2-3 years to get calves out younger and younger has resulted in a glut of calves that take more labour to rear.

The market will not tolerate a booby calf system so a solution will have to be found. Most of the problem is the present beef price we need a minimum base of 3.9/kg and maybe dairy farmers should be pressurizing IFA and ICMSA in this direction. However in itself this is not the total answer Dairy farmers themselves have to look at there system and make sure a commercial calf is produce. A bullock grading O- at 330kgs will not make 1100 euro at present, at O= and a base of 3.95 he hits 1300 euro. That is where the answer lies.

Siamsa Sessions wrote: »

Two simple points:

(1) Animal-welfare protests could end up stopping live exports - it's part of the wider environment/climate/green movement

(2) Veal processing in Ireland was tried previously as far as I know, but seasonal supply makes it uneconomical for processors

Glanbia's dairy-beef programme shows they are at least aware of the issue, but there's bigger schemes or plans needed at Government/Teagasc level. You can't let farmers carry the sole responsibility on this as one bad apple getting videoed shooting and dumping calves will impact the whole dairy industry and Ireland's fairytale image.

Glanbia Dairy beef scheme is rubbish, it wants no P grading cattle so taht exclued all JEx's and poorer quality Friesians. As well you must buy your inputs from Glanbia and movements are restricted to just a single transfer. Another brainfart.

K.G. wrote: »

You do know that if calf prices fall and ration price s remain close to where they are its the suckler cow that is totally uneconomic.

The suckler cows is an anomoly producing 0.8 weaned calves/cow cannot be a profitable system

Muckit · 17-10-2019 9:46am

K.G. wrote: »

You do know that if calf prices fall and ration price s remain close to where they are its the suckler cow that is totally uneconomic.

According to research carried out by Teagasc on video l posted, rearing dairy bred stock to beef at current beef prices does not provide a return.... EVEN if a FREISAIN bull calf is got for FREE.

This is why l started this thread. It fairly serious IMO. Lads are talking about jerseys and that if u have anything other than Jersey calves it's not an issue for you. Well it will and it is.

Dairy farmers would want to educate themselves on the grid and see how these cattle are treated and the heavy penalties they face.

Panch18 · 17-10-2019 10:26am

Base price wrote: »

IMO it will be no different than any other year. It's not like it's a feckin new situation :rolleyes:

Quality dairy bull calves will ship and go for onward feeding for veal in mainland Europe. The rest will be reared by farmers or culled in DAFM approved facilitates.

Shur it’s ireland, we love talking ourselves into a mess!!

Not sure what the drama is about to be honest. We managed last year and that’s with boats being cancelled because of weather

Say my name · 17-10-2019 10:36am

Panch18 wrote: »

Shur it’s ireland, we love talking ourselves into a mess!!

Not sure what the drama is about to be honest. We managed last year and that’s with boats being cancelled because of weather

I blame Darragh McCullough. That fella just likes to hear himself.

I think most people missed the beer money talk of calves on here over the last six years.

davidk1394 · 17-10-2019 10:40am

Muckit wrote: »

Dairy farmers would want to educate themselves on the grid and see how these cattle are treated and the heavy penalties they face.

Dairy farmers dont care about the grid or how beef farmers are doing. Once the calf is gone for next spring there okay for another year.

If they fed the bull calf right from birth with the right amount of colostrum and milk for the first two weeks it means a lot to the person buying them. Speaking from experience, I bought calves off a farmer for €100/ calf they were AA. I bought other calves same breed for € 120/calf. The difference was for an extra 20 these calves were fed right, this meant fewer sick calves, better thrive and finished sooner with less meal. Year after I didn't go back to the first farmer.

Siamsa Sessions · 17-10-2019 10:48am

Bass Reeves wrote: »

Glanbia Dairy beef scheme is rubbish, it wants no P grading cattle so taht exclued all JEx's and poorer quality Friesians. As well you must buy your inputs from Glanbia and movements are restricted to just a single transfer. Another brainfart.

Just to clarify: I think Glanbia's scheme is rubbish too and I'd leave the animals go hungry before I'd buy anything from them.

My only point is that they are aware of the calf/byproduct issue. I'm sure they don't care about the farmer or the calf but it's their "green" image they fear will be affected.

Same goes for Government who benefit from all the exports - their first concern is with the marketing image and that's the real starting point.

Muckit · 17-10-2019 11:02am

davidk1394 wrote: »

If they fed the bull calf right from birth with the right amount of colostrum and milk for the first two weeks it means a lot to the person buying them.

I was driving through my own parish at the weekend when the car and van ahead of pulled up abruptly. After a few choice words to myself l realised why they had stopped, there were goats on the side of the road. Goats? Who/how/where did they come out of?

As l hopped to turn them into the field with the other motorists, l realised that they were in fact calves.... just about. They were bad ones. And very bad ones. Their bellies were the biggest part of them, but the rest of them were skin and bone. Even big patches of skin gone. And one lad had his tongue out the side of its head from the little exertion of the few yards to the field.

They weren't belong to a dairy farmer but had been bought m would imagine to fatten. God help us.

whelan2 · 17-10-2019 11:08am

davidk1394 wrote: »

Dairy farmers dont care about the grid or how beef farmers are doing. Once the calf I'd gone for next spring there okay for another year.

If they fed the bull calf right from birth with the right amount of colostrum and milk for the first two weeks it means a lot to the person buying them. Speaking from experience, I bought calves off a farmer for €100/ calf they were AA. I bought other calves same breed for € 120/calf. The difference was for an extra 20 these calves were fed right, this meant fewer sick calves, better thrive and finished sooner with less meal. Year after I didn't go back to the first farmer.

There will be no market for crap calves and rightly so.

Gawddawggonnit · 17-10-2019 12:20pm

I’ve followed this thread because I think it’s an important issue.

There’s the posters that agree there shouldn’t be slaughtering of newborns...

There’s the posters that say... ‘be grand’.

Either way, slaughtering new born calves, or as one poster suggested, slaughter in utero, will not wash with consumers.

How long before the animal welfare cadre do an exposé on the thousands of newborns going for ‘kebabs’...? Or an auld ‘Prime Time Investigates’...?
FR2 tv would absolutely love to dig the dirt on newborns being slaughtered. They’d fatten making such an exposé!

IFA/Creed etc do not need to be explaining or even trying to justify such practices. The biggest threat, imo, is if the ‘be grand’ brigade get their way and the industry blindly continues down the track...too late to change when the damage is done.

Gawddawggonnit · 17-10-2019 12:23pm

K.G. wrote: »

You do know that if calf prices fall and ration price s remain close to where they are its the suckler cow that is totally uneconomic.

What exactly has the suckler cow/calf got to do with slaughtering newborn calves KG?

Panch18 · 17-10-2019 12:34pm

Gawddawggonnit wrote: »

I’ve followed this thread because I think it’s an important issue.

There’s the posters that agree there shouldn’t be slaughtering of newborns...

There’s the posters that say... ‘be grand’.

Either way, slaughtering new born calves, or as one poster suggested, slaughter in utero, will not wash with consumers.

How long before the animal welfare cadre do an exposé on the thousands of newborns going for ‘kebabs’...? Or an auld ‘Prime Time Investigates’...?
FR2 tv would absolutely love to dig the dirt on newborns being slaughtered. They’d fatten making such an exposé!

IFA/Creed etc do not need to be explaining or even trying to justify such practices. The biggest threat, imo, is if the ‘be grand’ brigade get their way and the industry blindly continues down the track...too late to change when the damage is done.

Out of curiosity what do ye do with the bull calves in France? You seem to be using a fairly high output Holstein cows so your bull calves must be nothing to write home about from a grading point of view. What do you and similar to you do with yer bulls??

yosemitesam1 · 17-10-2019 12:41pm

K.G. wrote: »

You do know that if calf prices fall and ration price s remain close to where they are its the suckler cow that is totally uneconomic.

At what point do sucklers make more sense though. If you have the land, outwinter and put the bare minimum into them. At least you're not spending as much cash to not generate a return on land/labour anyway

Gawddawggonnit · 17-10-2019 12:41pm

Panch18 wrote: »

Out of curiosity what do ye do with the bull calves in France? You seem to be using a fairly high output Holstein cows so your bull calves must be nothing to write home about from a grading point of view. What do you and similar to you do with yer bulls??

Veal for pure Holstein.
Beef when the cows are crossed with proper beef bulls.

Btw I’ve no problem whatsoever in getting those calves to 400+kg hanging at under 16mts.
Profitability of producing such beef is questionable however...

Panch18 · 17-10-2019 1:23pm

Gawddawggonnit wrote: »

Veal for pure Holstein.
Beef when the cows are crossed with proper beef bulls.

Btw I’ve no problem whatsoever in getting those calves to 400+kg hanging at under 16mts.
Profitability of producing such beef is questionable however...

Ok so similar to Ireland

Only real difference is that we are exporting ours for veal

Say my name · 17-10-2019 1:30pm

Gawddawggonnit wrote: »

I’ve followed this thread because I think it’s an important issue.

There’s the posters that agree there shouldn’t be slaughtering of newborns...

There’s the posters that say... ‘be grand’.

Either way, slaughtering new born calves, or as one poster suggested, slaughter in utero, will not wash with consumers.

How long before the animal welfare cadre do an exposé on the thousands of newborns going for ‘kebabs’...? Or an auld ‘Prime Time Investigates’...?
FR2 tv would absolutely love to dig the dirt on newborns being slaughtered. They’d fatten making such an exposé!

IFA/Creed etc do not need to be explaining or even trying to justify such practices. The biggest threat, imo, is if the ‘be grand’ brigade get their way and the industry blindly continues down the track...too late to change when the damage is done.

I wouldn't put much mass on a Prime Time investigates program being aired.

All the talk was of a similar program about the thoroughbred industry to that greyhound one already made and ready to be aired. Only the high powers that be in this country got it quashed before it could be aired.
The sponsors who abandoned the greyhound industry would surely be wondering what to do if that one aired.
It's all talk of course.

You might get a foreign news crew or social media warriors but not our own crew.

If you have animals no matter the circumstance you'll always find some dirt or situation to bend to an activists favour.
There's not a rosy picture for any animal activity in the future if you want to pander and please the activists.
Everything is included in that from fishing and hunting, to horse racing and animal farming. It's a slippery slope to hell.

That's not to say there shouldn't be improvements if improvements are needed but equally so we all know our businesses and rash decisions shouldn't be made by us or ones above us.

Mooooo · 17-10-2019 1:32pm

Muckit wrote: »

According to research carried out by Teagasc on video l posted, rearing dairy bred stock to beef at current beef prices does not provide a return.... EVEN if a FREISAIN bull calf is got for FREE.

This is why l started this thread. It fairly serious IMO. Lads are talking about jerseys and that if u have anything other than Jersey calves it's not an issue for you. Well it will and it is.

Dairy farmers would want to educate themselves on the grid and see how these cattle are treated and the heavy penalties they face.

The same can be said for all parts of the beef industry , how much did the suckler demo herds lose? With regard to beef it's simply the number of cattle in the country has the factories doing what they want, and throwing brexit in as an excuse to hammer it down as well. Live exports are the only alternative to Larry be that 400kg bulls or calves. If the talk is dairy calves are flooding the market causing the price to drop what have the apparent 66% of suckler herds that make losses every year been doing? The exact same thing, but instead of milking cow's supplementing it it's the off farm job.
'Re euthanising at birth on farm that won't happen and won't be allowed to happen. If mortality rates are out of whack the department will be down on top of it hard. Prices are likely to be depressed as they were last year. As herds have started to reach peak numbers there will also be more beef crosses on the market. The jersey x is still an issue, overplayed imo as all the media would be showing crossbred herds on the paper but je straws are still below 8% of straws used in ai, but an issue all the same.

Mooooo · 17-10-2019 1:33pm

Panch18 wrote: »

Ok so similar to Ireland

Only real difference is that we are exporting ours for veal

Access to cheaper grain on the continent tho

Panch18 · 17-10-2019 1:39pm

Mooooo wrote: »

Access to cheaper grain on the continent tho

That’s true, I’m not advocating we go down the 16 month bull beef route, just that we have calves that go on to full beef and we have calves that go to veal, albeit the veal is abroad

Gawddawggonnit · 17-10-2019 1:51pm

Panch18 wrote: »

Ok so similar to Ireland

Only real difference is that we are exporting ours for veal

No not the same.
A purebred hol male calf can be successfully produced for veal.
The xbred can’t.

I bred a few hols to Jersey. I won’t be ever doing that again. Nobody would take them even if I attached a €50 note to their ear tag. I finished up trying to produce them for veal...no sale, so ran them on. They turned out to be cranky fcukers so we castrated them. They, not all, ended going for dog food. One is happily keeping a large garden grazed on the outskirts of the village...

Panch18 · 17-10-2019 2:56pm

Gawddawggonnit wrote: »

No not the same.
A purebred hol male calf can be successfully produced for veal.
The xbred can’t.

I bred a few hols to Jersey. I won’t be ever doing that again. Nobody would take them even if I attached a €50 note to their ear tag. I finished up trying to produce them for veal...no sale, so ran them on. They turned out to be cranky fcukers so we castrated them. They, not all, ended going for dog food. One is happily keeping a large garden grazed on the outskirts of the village...

The vast majority of cows in Ireland have no jersey in them

It’s not like we have an epidemic of jersey or something, there are certainly some jersey that need a plan for them but there’s no need for people (not saying you) to make a mountain out of a molehill.

What’s ironic is that beef from a jersey is delicious and often wins tasting contests, it’s certainly far better than beef from a blue or a charlois. But that’s a different story

Gawddawggonnit · 17-10-2019 3:03pm

Spring 2020..... 1.5m Dairy calves.... discuss.

Comments