Bull Beef - Dangerous Yay or Nay

Tipp Man

reilig wrote: »

Main enterprise is suckling. Selling weinlings at 9 - 12 months.

Used to be finishing our calves for the factory at 20 months (AA Scheme) but found it unprofitable. Its best to sell the weinlings on to some other poor unfortunate and let them make the loss at the factory (that's a joke).

Have a herd of 60. 20 are Black limousin cows and use all BB on them.
The other 40 are Limousin or CHX. Have only 21 weinlings sold. They were ~ 10 months old, averaged 390kg and I got an average price of €890 for them (bulls and heifers) - all were off CH stock bull. Most bulls were bought for export to Spain - (I know the buyer). Put another 150kg on their backs and they are ready for slaughter. 150kg will add €400 to their value here or up to €700 to their value in Spain.

With margins like that, why would any finisher want to keep an animal until he's 18 or 24 months?

I think they would need to put on more than 150kg on top of 390kg to get a 400 Euro margin on your selling price. Probably 200kg or more. Yes 400 EUR is a nice margin but at what cost to get it? Your talking about what 120-150 days of intensive feeding at a high cost.

So your 400 EUR gets eatin into very rapidly and soon become 150 EUR - or less if the price falls. The costs that these high intake animals can incur are huge. Maize, wholecrop, nuts, meal - even the straw - are all gone way too expensive to make money

flatout11

blue5000 wrote: »

grass fed beef supposed to lower cholersterol levels, American research, all the beef farmers over there are complaining about expensive corn because of biofuel........Lads we really should be laughing all the way to the bank:mad:

http://www.americangrassfedbeef.com/grass-fed-natural-beef.asp

christ they pay a guy to summerise that kind of abstract nonsense...
its leaner...... well we could all do that (good reason for younger beef)
then theres the omega argurment tbh it was a passing phase which if you really were interested in it you could add fish oil to a mix and increase the ammount of omega 6 or better again sell a cod liver oil tablet with every steak- as this would be of more benifit.....
ranting on a bit here .... taking snipets of info to string a story together bothers me

flatout11

Tipp Man wrote: »

Just out of curiousity how many of you are actually bull beef finishers as opposed to selling weanlings?? (I'm not talking about finishing a couple of late calves or whatever, I mean as your main enterprise)

selling weanlings ............ to justify investing in infrastructure for bull beef id have to be finishing well over 500 per annum and am currently trying to increase cow numbers up to 150 - so its not an option at the moment although with heifer prices nor is the afore mentioned !!!

- but i am considering keeping the late bull weanlings over and selling them next july/august

a friend of mine did this fed €250 to 300 per head (reckoned about 1 ton per head) to ch bulls sold them to an average of €1560 to a feedlot who was going to feed them for another 2 months!!!! one winner there

bob charles

reilig wrote: »

A lot of them are being fed on potatoes!!!! Not Joking.

You cant make up a large percentage of the diet with potatoes, something around 10kgs is more than enough. spuds cost good money too

pakalasa

I've travelled a bit with work, a lot of it, mainland europe. Of course, one eye on the road, the other in over the fields, no hedges. What really strikes you is how little cattle there are in the fields. It's usually a field with maize growing in it and a shed in the corner filled with cattle. They are kept indoors all year round.
You can imagine what it costs to keep a suckler cow in a shed like that. A lot more than the €500 it costs annually here. We'll produce the cheap weanlings and they'll finish them intensively. It's a good system, with winners on both sides.

bob charles

flatout11 wrote: »

sold them to an average of €1560 to a feedlot who was going to feed them for another 2 months!!!! one winner there

I reckon that talk was cheap

Tipp Man

blue5000 wrote: »

Tipp Man wrote: »

Just out of curiousity how many of you are actually bull beef finishers as opposed to selling weanlings??QUOTE]

All weanlings with me, sold weaned at about 8-12 months. Was doing bull beef up until '06 from early 90's.

Do you mind me asking why you quite the bull finishing?

I have a fair idea that your going to say the costs are through the roof

bob charles

I find it hard to see how anyone can make it pay, feeding cereals at €200 to an animal, and bulls are the boys who will eat the most

gozunda

F.D wrote: »

Well back to the original question of safety, so if you are doing bull beef it has to be calf born early in spring out for summer, then finished over winter in sheds? so approx 14 months of age
but you see some that have contracts to finish them before 18 months, which means grazing them for part of the second summer, this surley has to be the most dangerous part of the operation where you are letting them back out, i know of people around that are doing it and have serious fencing done to keep them but is it worth the extra hassle to do this or is there any cost saving or extra weight gain to doing this.

bob charles wrote: »

I find it hard to see how anyone can make it pay, feeding cereals at €200 to an animal, and bulls are the boys who will eat the most

Ya what I was getting at is the higher costs versus higher returns

So if you rearing / finish them in secure sheds well and good but their will be higher costs involved - housing + concentrates etc. Returns may be good but you have to allow for rising costs of feed

Grazing bulls in fields will reduce concentrate costs but will increase associated fencing/ handling costs

Plus there are the personal / family safety issues
I have seen young bulls kill one that had been removed for veterinary treatment - they turned on it and killed it on return before anyone could intravene

I personally wouldn't take risk with children and keeping numbers of bulls on the farm + public libility issue etc where they are kept 14 - 18 months

flatout11

bob charles wrote: »

I reckon that talk was cheap

how you mean??
the price was the farmer in question recieved was right as for what the next guy was gonna do with them.... rather him than me

jeff greene

I believe it is an excellent route to go with holstein bull calves, fast cash!

blue5000

Tipp Man wrote: »

blue5000 wrote: »

Do you mind me asking why you quite the bull finishing?

I have a fair idea that your going to say the costs are through the roof

I wasn't prepared to pump meal into them to fatten them for the consumer/factory who trims off the fat anyway. I was doing mostly fr and AA. I'm not sure whether to go back at it or simply keep more Su cows, I was doing a good job on the bulls, had the best of them gaining up to 2.4kg /day.

reilig

bob charles wrote: »

You cant make up a large percentage of the diet with potatoes, something around 10kgs is more than enough. spuds cost good money too

I have a neighbour who feeds bulls on a diet of potatoes and straw. He feeds indoors 365 days per year. They certainly get a lot more than 10kgs. Spuds are a lot cheaper than meal and he claims that they are much better for feeding!

reilig

Tipp Man wrote: »

I think they would need to put on more than 150kg on top of 390kg to get a 400 Euro margin on your selling price. Probably 200kg or more. Yes 400 EUR is a nice margin but at what cost to get it? Your talking about what 120-150 days of intensive feeding at a high cost.

So your 400 EUR gets eatin into very rapidly and soon become 150 EUR - or less if the price falls. The costs that these high intake animals can incur are huge. Maize, wholecrop, nuts, meal - even the straw - are all gone way too expensive to make money

No, 150kg is sufficient. I have researched it pretty well. I've done the tours to the feedlots in Spain and Italy and been to the sales. Shippers margins have been cut a little in recent times with the rise in cattle prices here, but they are still doing ok. Most guys trying to put this weight on will be in parts of the country that grow crops and will probably grow their own feed. If you're growing your own and feeding it to your own cattle, then the costs are significantly reduced in comparison to meal bought from a grain merchant. (The grower, transport co., grain merchant and delivery man have to get their cut too) I've never met a poor grain merchant in my life .

Having your own slurry at sowing time cuts down on fertilizer costs too.

How much profit on average would you make on a bullock by buying him at 18 months and finishing him?

Say 2 years ago, what would you have been buying them for? What weights? What finish price? What average age of finishing?

Muckit

It seems to me that in the bull beef system, the finisher has to source his weanlings from an Autumn calving herd? (if buying them at + 400kg). Autumn calving is more expensive than spring calving (more sheds and better quality silage +meal needed) At least this way the weanling is going into the finishers shed at a natural time of the year.

It doesn't seem right to me to have animals in a shed during the summer, it's just my view. Sure you wouldn't need land at all!! I suppose most of these Irish 'feedlots' that have sprung up are possibly like piggeries are they? Anyone seen one?

Muckit

reilig wrote: »

No, 150kg is sufficient. I have researched it pretty well.

?

What about the cwt they loose in transport :rolleyes:

reilig

Muckit wrote: »

?

What about the cwt they loose in transport :rolleyes:

The shipper has to account for that!

reilig

Muckit wrote: »

It seems to me that in the bull beef system, the finisher has to source his weanlings from an Autumn calving herd? (if buying them at + 400kg). Autumn calving is more expensive than spring calving (more sheds and better quality silage +meal needed) At least this way the weanling is going into the finishers shed at a natural time of the year.

It doesn't seem right to me to have animals in a shed during the summer, it's just my view. Sure you wouldn't need land at all!! I suppose most of these Irish 'feedlots' that have sprung up are possibly like piggeries are they? Anyone seen one?

As I said above, there's one close to me. He finishes on potatoes + Straw. He has to have land to spread the slurry. The cattle aren't inside all the time. They are on a stand off pad and have access to the sheds - where they are fed.

Autumn calving is more expensive allright. But it ensures that you can have calves close to 400kg at 10 months - the calves will be ready for grass in spring and they will thrive very well for the whole summer. Spring born calves don't take much grass until July or August and you usually have to give them a good bit of creep if you intend having them heavy enough to sell in autumn.

Muckit

reilig wrote: »

As I said above, there's one close to me. He finishes on potatoes + Straw. He has to have land to spread the slurry. The cattle aren't inside all the time. They are on a stand off pad and have access to the sheds - where they are fed.

Autumn calving is more expensive allright. But it ensures that you can have calves close to 400kg at 10 months - the calves will be ready for grass in spring and they will thrive very well for the whole summer. Spring born calves don't take much grass until July or August and you usually have to give them a good bit of creep if you intend having them heavy enough to sell in autumn.

Swings and roundabouts is it though? Feed the cow meal to rear the calf with the autumn system or feed the a spring calf creep :rolleyes:

poor farmer

I have been bringing all my cattle to beef from a dairy and suckler herd for as long as i am farming .Finishing heifers at 15-24 mths steers at 24-30mths.the dairy cattle are British friesian and Angus ,the sucklers charolais and Simmental
I have always tried to use grazed grass as much as possible
Due to a complete lack of profit this year i only squeezed 6 out of 120 bulls
I am delighted with there performance this summer on grass only .
I kept them in groups of 30-35 .I found them easier to manage ,i have half of them sold and i am very happy with the prices
I am feeding 6kg /head/day to my last bunch of near 30 month steers on grass but its painfully slow never again.

reilig

Muckit wrote: »

Swings and roundabouts is it though? Feed the cow meal to rear the calf with the autumn system or feed the a spring calf creep :rolleyes:

Meal to cows???????? :eek:
What a waste of money. Mine have never seen meal. If they don't have enough milk on good silage then its time to replace them.
Last year (2009/2010) I fed a small bit of meal to my autumn born calves over the winter in the shed. But meal was cheap enough at the time.
This year, meal was expensive and I decided not to feed any. The only meal that they got was about 2kg per head for the 4 weeks before weining as per the SCWS.
Better grass management and forward grass feeding through a creep gate saw them weigh almost as well as last year's calves. The prices were much better. They didn't look like meal fed calves either (didn't look pumped) and I think that this might have attracted more buyers.

My spring born calves are on meal since the beginning of august. They won't be sold for another month. As i said in another post, I generally find that what they eat in meal will come back to you double in sale price - so I don't really mind feeding creep at this time of year.

However, back to the point of Autumn and spring born calves. For me, they cost much the same to bring to a weight for selling. Autumn calves need an extra dose. You have to account for the slurry that they produce. I have much less sickness and scour with autumn calves - it must be the colder weather. They take a little bit of extra work, but I have the time in Autumn. Spring time brings a crazy workload. Its really 6 of one and a half dozen of the other. I'll take a calf at any time of the year, so long as it is alive. Calves born in June are late spring calves. Calves born in July are early Autumn calves

Tipp Man

reilig wrote: »

No, 150kg is sufficient. I have researched it pretty well. I've done the tours to the feedlots in Spain and Italy and been to the sales. Shippers margins have been cut a little in recent times with the rise in cattle prices here, but they are still doing ok. Most guys trying to put this weight on will be in parts of the country that grow crops and will probably grow their own feed. If you're growing your own and feeding it to your own cattle, then the costs are significantly reduced in comparison to meal bought from a grain merchant. (The grower, transport co., grain merchant and delivery man have to get their cut too) I've never met a poor grain merchant in my life .

Having your own slurry at sowing time cuts down on fertilizer costs too.

How much profit on average would you make on a bullock by buying him at 18 months and finishing him?

Say 2 years ago, what would you have been buying them for? What weights? What finish price? What average age of finishing?

Buying 18 month old cattle and selling at (under) 30 months should leave you with €250 per bullock per annum after costs - 1 bullock to the acre

We actually gave this up a few year ago and no longer winter cattle - only summer graze now

LostCovey

Fascinating debate.

One thing that struck me was that a bull-beef system (or any highly grain-dependent system would be severely affected if anything happens the euro, and we devalue our currency vs other european (grain-growing) countries. And a grass based system would really come into its own.

I hope its not likely.

LC

flatout11

LostCovey wrote: »

Fascinating debate.

One thing that struck me was that a bull-beef system (or any highly grain-dependent system would be severely affected if anything happens the euro, and we devalue our currency vs other european (grain-growing) countries. And a grass based system would really come into its own.

I hope its not likely.

LC

your right it is price sensitive - as is all beef systems, perhaps more so given the high level of input, i still think a part of the diet could be made up from high DMD silage, thereby potientially reducing costs
there is no doubt about the extra efficiency gain by leaving them entire
from my perspective (weanling producer) it offers an additional market
large scale finishers - but as i indicated earlier its dependant on scale
will we see cheap grain again???

reilig

flatout11 wrote: »

will we see cheap grain again???

I can't see it being cheap again unless oil prices come down. So many inputs are dependant on it:

Diesel
Fertilizer
Grain Transport.

If these were low, grain would be low.

gozunda

The thread has brought up some very interesting stuff on bull beef systems versu others

However have I am still interested in posters here that have experience of the handling and safety concerns of bull beef sytems

Do you have to provide special fencing where they are on grass

Keeping young bulls in yards?

Any experiences?

blue5000

The main thing is to have

• 5 lights working on fence tester at all times
• a mains fencer
• train them to a fence before they go out in spring, if you let them straight out of a shed and they plough through fences your fcukd, basically.
• don't graze bulling heifers/cows near them
• give them fresh grass every day
• two strands of hi-tensile wire on the paddocks
• movable water trough
• have nice leafy grass in front of them
• small groups, 20 approx
• don't seperate/mix the groups try do any vet treatment without taking the lame etc. bull out of the group

In the yard

• escape stiles in crush, pens etc. or gates high enough for you to roll under
• straw bedding is better than slats
• have even smaller groups, eight worked well for me
• fresh feed daily, start off heavy meal gradually with 3x a day
• weigh them about once a month so you can catch non thrivers early

Other things to watch for is bulls digging, Limousins(simply not worth the hassle), and don't make a pet out of them when they are calves, ie. scratch off you, rub his head against you. These are the ones that are real rogues at 5-600 kg. IMO when a bull has you down/or against a wall in his own mind he is just playing with you. Oh yeah and make sure you have a factory to take them off you, biggest problem is getting enough fat on them.

Hope this helps:cool:

pakalasa

Have a look at this link;

Under Livestock and dairy, 4th video down. The farmer featured (dont want to mention names) keeps bulls.
http://www.farmersjournal.ie/farming/farming-videos/player/index.php

blue5000

pakalasa wrote: »

Have a look at this link;

Under Livestock and dairy, 4th video down. The farmer featured (dont want to mention names) keeps bulls.
http://www.farmersjournal.ie/farming/farming-videos/player/index.php

Hey Pakalasa,It's half an hour long, it'll take 4 days for my 'broadband' to let me watch it, give us a summary.....

49801

gozunda wrote: »

The thread has brought up some very interesting stuff on bull beef systems versu others

However have I am still interested in posters here that have experience of the handling and safety concerns of bull beef sytems

Do you have to provide special fencing where they are on grass

Keeping young bulls in yards?

Any experiences?

i kept 8 one summer as an experiment in a 4acre field that I divided up. trick with bulls is to keep their bellies full. they were on a 3yr reseeded field and i fed them 2.5kg in the morning and evening of a 15%CP. I didn't make any adjustments to the fencing. single strand of electric wire around the field. it was a hell of a lot of work feeding them twice a day every day of the week for 150days. an awful commitment when you want to go away for the wkend etc. The field I kept them in was a little isolated from the rest of the fields so it only rarely happened that another group of animal were in a nearby paddock.

there is a vid on the IFJ website of a guy who had bulls at grass and he was using 4day paddocks to keep the grass fresh and their bellies full. It worked for him but i struggle to understand how he could bring a couple of dry cows in after the bulls to clean up the paddocks and not have break outs with bulls close to another herd group. biggest tip this lad had was keep the groups small like <20.

with bulls I believe there to be a higher risk of injury too. was in a fellows yard a couple or years ago that had about 30bulls in the shed on adlib. but there was also a bull in an isolated house with a broken leg:(.

If I was to do it again i'd prefer to kill them out of the shed and have them on a diet of home grown grain like wholecrop wheat or a barley pea mix with a small supplement of baged ration as nessicary. Or if your already set up with the diet feeder TMR makes sence. I've only slatted pens but bulls really should be on deep straw or rubber IMO in groups of less than 20 matched for size/age/weight. There has been rumour of the factories going for a 16mth ceiling for young bulls for a while now too so maybe the bulls grazing issue will be no more.

introducing a new animal to the group should be avoided too.
I had a bull with sore feet I had to take out of the slatted pen for a couple of weeks. i managed to reintroduce him by having him in an adjacent pen for a week. I was lucky.
2yrs ago i let the weanling bulls back out to grass for a couple of weeks before selling them and made the mistake of letting them out on empty bellies so they would clean out the silage at the feed fence. what a scrap they had. i thought one lad would be killed and spent hrs keeping him separate from the others. eventually managed to get him the otherside of a temporary wire. apparently magnesium supplementation in the water can help with aggressive behaviour.

so most important thing with the handling of bulls is full bellies!!!

I hope you find this useful.

pakalasa

If you had the scale, one of those zero-grazing machines wouldn't be crazy at all. If Muhammad can't go to the mountain, maybe safer bring the mountain to Muhammad.

gozunda

blue5000 wrote: »

The main thing is to have

• 5 lights working on fence tester at all times
• a mains fencer
• train them to a fence before they go out in spring, if you let them straight out of a shed and they plough through fences your fcukd, basically.
• don't graze bulling heifers/cows near them
• give them fresh grass every day
• two strands of hi-tensile wire on the paddocks
• movable water trough
• have nice leafy grass in front of them
• small groups, 20 approx
• don't seperate/mix the groups try do any vet treatment without taking the lame etc. bull out of the group

In the yard

• escape stiles in crush, pens etc. or gates high enough for you to roll under
• straw bedding is better than slats
• have even smaller groups, eight worked well for me
• fresh feed daily, start off heavy meal gradually with 3x a day
• weigh them about once a month so you can catch non thrivers early

Other things to watch for is bulls digging, Limousins(simply not worth the hassle), and don't make a pet out of them when they are calves, ie. scratch off you, rub his head against you. These are the ones that are real rogues at 5-600 kg. IMO when a bull has you down/or against a wall in his own mind he is just playing with you. Oh yeah and make sure you have a factory to take them off you, biggest problem is getting enough fat on them.

Hope this helps:cool:

Thanks blue5000 - great answer... love this one especially!

train them to a fence before they go out in spring, if you let them straight out of a shed and they plough through fences your fcukd, basically.

JohnBoy

49801 wrote: »

with bulls I believe there to be a higher risk of injury too. was in a fellows yard a couple or years ago that had about 30bulls in the shed on adlib. but there was also a bull in an isolated house with a broken leg:(.

Had a friend who did it in a shed a few years back with friesan bulls. this was a problem alright, they'd pick on the weakest in the group and bully them, if not spotted in time they'd probably kill them eventually.

he had problems with them mounting each other and fighting and strung high tensile wire 10 feet or so above the slats, from this he hung washers on 5 feet of polywire, he'd electify it every now and then and they soon learned not to go jumping on each other.

didnt seem like much fun to me.

Muckit

JohnBoy wrote: »

Had a friend who did it in a shed a few years back with friesan bulls.

Really? :eek:

gozunda

Muckit wrote: »

Really? :eek:

Now now Muckit! disgraceful - as father Dougal once said "down with that kind of thing"...

Muckit

'careful now...'