heifers to sucklers

1chippy

Before saying it i know a lot of you will say breed your own but theres only so many heifers out of a batch of calves suitable for breeding.
I,m trying to work out which way is the most cost effective way of getting sucklers. Maybe im overthinking it but whats other peoples thoughts on this.
option a: buying small weanlings in or around 600-650 mark and keeping them for the following year for bulling (so say bulling at 18-20 months)
Have to keep for 2year till first calf
option b: buying earlier weanlings say previous autumn to late autumn calves at say 800-1000 mark and bulling at 15 months
keep for 1year
option c: buying option a,s (18-20months)at 1100-1300 and bulling them
keep for 10 months to1 year
option d: buying springing heifers at 1600-2000
calving outta the trailer
option e: buying springing cows or cows with calves at foot (various prices)
job done

Grecco

You should be able to buy plenty march/april born Whitehead heifer Weanlens sub €500. Feed them well over the winter then wait till next July then introduce a bull to them that way they will be calving at 2 year olds the following April.
The WhiteHeads make a decent cow too, plenty of milk and good to calf and its about the cheapest way of getting into a suckling herd.

Best of Luck

Muckit

Grecco wrote: »

You should be able to buy plenty march/april born Whitehead heifer Weanlens sub €500. Feed them well over the winter then wait till next July then introduce a bull to them that way they will be calving at 2 year olds the following April.
The WhiteHeads make a decent cow too, plenty of milk and good to calf and its about the cheapest way of getting into a suckling herd.

Best of Luck

I don't think there's many heifer weanlings selling under €500 at the mo. Definitely not ones with breeding potential for next summer. Now you could be right about WH's, but they're non existent in the marts around here.

snowman707

Muckit wrote: »

I don't think there's many heifer weanlings selling under €500 at the mo. Definitely not ones with breeding potential for next summer. Now you could be right about WH's, but they're non existent in the marts around here.

+1 My brother in law recently killed a batch of heifers under the hereford prime, netted about €1250 a ,mixed load but there were some very young heifers in it.

Grecco

Seen plenty of them in Ennis mart every tuesday, not just WHs but angus as well. Both off Dairy herds so they`d have plenty of milk for a calf. A lot of farmers are buying more muscle heifers for breeding and often this often leads to cows with no milk.
Ive seen small WH cows with bags of milk to make a super job of there calves

Muckit

WH's would no doubt make a good cow. We haven't had WH's around the place with years. Slow to grow in comparsion to the continental. It'd be worth taking a chance on them at that money perhaps. I still doubt very much that you'd get this year's WH weanlings ready for the bull next summer.

I bought in a batch of cont weanling heifers the last few weeks 260-300kg for €600-680. I wouldn't consider any of them bar one or two suitable for bulling next summer. I didn't buy them for bulling though;).

The few right good heifers that did come into the ring had about 10 lads waving their hands for them, opening at €700. Many went on to make €850-900. Madness IMO.

A lad would need to start thinking outside the box. Doing what every other lad is doing ain't going to net results.

Grecco

Agree wholly there, anything would be better than forking out €800+ for a breeding heifer that you might not see a return from. On top of which I reckon you`ll buy the same Heifers in spring for the same money after feeding them for the winter.

Hard to know any other angle on farming grassland though The only options are
Sucklers
Stores/Weanlens to Beef
Dairying
Dairy replacments
Sheep
finally
Coillte

What else could you do with grassland farms ?

pakalasa

It's hard to know isn't it. Things can change a lot from year to year. You'd read in the journal of some guy making great money from his system, but a lot of the time it's down to favourable conditions for that year. You really have to take the average over a number of years.
I'd be slow to get into white heads, unless you're outwintering and/or have very marginal land. 80% of our beef is exported and that market only wants lean beef.
The best returns do seem to be producing growthy, muscley weanlings for the export trade. The downside to that, as we all know, is the cow needed for this system isn't always the most milky and fertile. Added to that calving problems and the costs can really add up.

1chippy

we have one whitehead by pure chance was a heifer out of a springer we bought. she was a real case of immaculate conception, in a pen with all heifers last winter and calved down a couple of weeks ago to a black calf that i cant really work out what the cross is. right i agree they are great mothers quiet as lambs but dont suit what im aiming for.

Tipp Man

pakalasa wrote: »

80% of our beef is exported and that market only wants lean beef.

So how come there is a factory premium for Hereford cattle and a very large premium for Angus cattle?? These 2 must be the least "lean" cattle out there - yet they are the ones commanding the premium?? That goes against what you have said above. There is huge demand for Angus beef in the UK which is our biggest export market

No doubt some of our markets want continentals - the question is have we checked what the markets actually want or produced what the lads in the journal thought best and then tried to market it. For instance the German market wants Angus and Hereford cattle yet we have made very little attempt to make a significant impression in that market. don't forget that most of the Argentinian beef is either an Angus cross or a Hereford cross.

If i was setting up a suckler herd in the morning i would give serious consideration to a Angus herd with Lim bull or a Hereford herd with a Sim bull. Just my opinion

bbam

Tipp Man wrote: »

So how come there is a factory premium for Hereford cattle and a very large premium for Angus cattle?? These 2 must be the least "lean" cattle out there - yet they are the ones commanding the premium?? That goes against what you have said above. There is huge demand for Angus beef in the UK which is our biggest export market

In our local mart the buyers want nothing but Charlois :rolleyes:
We have a bit of a mixed bag from time to time but even good Heraford/Angus weanlings just don't get the volume of bidders...

redzerologhlen

bbam wrote: »

In our local mart the buyers want nothing but Charlois :rolleyes:
We have a bit of a mixed bag from time to time but even good Heraford/Angus weanlings just don't get the volume of bidders...

Thats true but I dont think that is what he was getting at. Anyone that goes out to buy a steak will buy an angus steak before a charolais steak if you get me. The markets are there for them I would say but they are not being used at the moment. To see the real benifits of the angus or hereford schemes I would imagine you would have to bringing them to beef yourself.

pakalasa

Tipp Man wrote: »

......

I've eaten plenty of AA and Hereford steaks to know they're good quality. But it's not all abouty quality. As a very successful guy I once worked for kept telling us, Toyota sell far more cars than Mercedes.

Tipp Man

bbam wrote: »

In our local mart the buyers want nothing but Charlois :rolleyes:
We have a bit of a mixed bag from time to time but even good Heraford/Angus weanlings just don't get the volume of bidders...

You are applying your current system (i'm making an assumption here, forgive me if i'm wrong) of having lots of cows and selling high priced weanlings

how about less cows and finish the AA or herefords at 18 months to get the factory premiums??

I agree that AA or hereford aren't best suited if you want to get big money for weanlings - but there are plenty of other ways to skin a cat

redzerologhlen

pakalasa wrote: »

I've eaten plenty of AA and Hereford steaks to know they're good quality. But it's not all abouty quality. As a very successful guy I once worked for kept telling us, Toyota sell far more cars than Mercedes.

It obviously is about quality. If you go down to your local butcher and get a steak a lion wouldnt chew you wont go back to him for another one. If there is a market there that wants angus and willing to pay a premium why not produce instead of everyone giving their cow a blue and hoping they will have a wonder calf that will go to italy with no domestic market for the ones that dont make the grade. Im not saying we should all give our cows an angus next year but im sure they can be just a profitable if managed correctly. Take them on their merits, Early maturing lower weight but will finish off grass easily. Smaller cows wont take as much to feed them. Higher fertility cows with few difficult calvings. Toyota may sell more cars but if your selling weanlings and just breaking even then maybe its time to shake things up a bit. Always keep an open mind when it comes to these things, The premium for them might not be enough to make up the difference at the moment but in a few years time it could be the other way around and I wouldnt be one bit surprised.

Bizzum

Tipp Man wrote: »

If i was setting up a suckler herd in the morning i would give serious consideration to a Angus herd with Lim bull or a Hereford herd with a Sim bull. Just my opinion

You're opinion is as valid as the next man,s.
We have cont cows and the market we satisify is the weanling export trade. The vast majority of the bulls meet this requirement. Any that dont are still in demand for the home trade. Good cont heifers are always in demand. We finish ours at 18mths to 24mths.
The Hereford Prime and AA scheme are good schemes, but you want be into it completely. Anyone I know in them (Not very many I might add!) has good Cont cows and run a HE or AA bull with them. HE/AA must be on the calves cards so the example above wouldn't work as you'd be producing Limx and Simx cattle if my understanding of the schemes is correct.
I suppose everyone can't be at the same racket, and when you take land type and other factors into account, it's easy enough to see that there is room for a HE type cow is certain set-ups!