Suckler expansion 2012 and beyond

Dozer1

Seeing as there are a few threads already about dairy farms expanding what are the suckler guys plans for 2012 and beyond.

In my area its alot of Dairy so I think its going to be difficult to take more land so I'll probably stick with the numbers I have.

From the few marts I've seen suckler heifers/cows are expensive so is everyone goin out to expand on the back of the current good prices or are are any of you just keeping to current stocking and just trying to breed better calves.

I don't see the point of buying more average quality cows that'll have to be culled for one reason or another in a year or two but always interested to hear what other people think.

Kerry man

Dozer1 wrote: »

Seeing as there are a few threads already about dairy farms expanding what are the suckler guys plans for 2012 and beyond.

In my area its alot of Dairy so I think its going to be difficult to take more land so I'll probably stick with the numbers I have.

From the few marts I've seen suckler heifers/cows are expensive so is everyone goin out to expand on the back of the current good prices or are are any of you just keeping to current stocking and just trying to breed better calves.

I don't see the point of buying more average quality cows that'll have to be culled for one reason or another in a year or two but always interested to hear what other people think.

I think breeding your own replacements from your best cows with a maternal sire is a better idea than buying as you know their history. Also a big thing I noticed in the journal better farm program is cutting down on your feed, fertiliser etc. costs. Doing your sums is necessary as your farm is a business at the end of the day. All the dairy farmers do this and there's no reason that suckler farmers shouldn't You should be improving grassland, your herd health and your herd in general. If you check out the better farm program in the journal there are some brilliant ways of improving your farm.

blue5000

Dozer1 wrote: »

Seeing as there are a few threads already about dairy farms expanding what are the suckler guys plans for 2012 and beyond.

In my area its alot of Dairy so I think its going to be difficult to take more land so I'll probably stick with the numbers I have.

From the few marts I've seen suckler heifers/cows are expensive so is everyone goin out to expand on the back of the current good prices or are are any of you just keeping to current stocking and just trying to breed better calves.

I don't see the point of buying more average quality cows that'll have to be culled for one reason or another in a year or two but always interested to hear what other people think.

Its sort of catch 22 isn't it? If you expand su cow numbers you'll need extra concrete for housing/slurry storage. I think with better cash flow on dairy farms its probably a lot easier to pay for extra facilities. In theory on good land you can carry two livestock units per ha.

Maybe instead of selling weanlings there is scope to finish some of the cattle as bulls at a young age.

1chippy

started this year. increasing nos already done from last september. went with bought in replacements. had to scour marts, farmers and done deal but got what we wanted. Hoping to pick them up a bit lighter and earlier (cheaper) this year and have them ready for bulling come november next year. culled a few of the older cows or problem cows at fairly good prices so one with the other wasnt too bad. have to put a new shed (small open sided) to carry the extra stock for next winter, leaving it multi purpose but primarily for sucklers with calves. New drinking troughs and a paddock based set up is next when the ground dries out a bit. Using 70% ai this year too and a tighter calving setup. anything scanned not in calf after june will be hung up. Roads are something we have been contemplating but they will be pretty basic and more likely next year. A lot more grassland management and the basics that we should have been doing all along are being implemented.
we found that by just straightening up what we have already gave us a serious incentive to keep pushing quality and hopefully profits.

blue5000

What breed (s) did you buy in as replacements chippy?

1chippy

blue5000 wrote: »

What breed (s) did you buy in as replacements chippy?

Sim x lim most of them 1 simx char 1 sh x lim and 2 lim, one of the limos are exceptionally wide though, reckon there has to be something else in her but cant work it out.

gerico

I'v have being building up cow numbers over the last 3 years keeping about 4 of the best heifers each year for breeding and culling anything below par. up to 20 limx & simx cows now. Having the numbers up helps justify keeping a bull for such a small held but I'm not around enough to catch heats for AI. I'm glad I kept on the heifers as opposed to buying in as prices are so high at the moment.

I'm also going down the road of a small 3 maybe 4 bay tank & shed. The outwintering was hard going this year since it never stopped pi**ing rain here. So hopefully i'll get the shed done this summer on budget and have em in next winter.

all that needed now is sustained prices to keep things some bit profitable !!

1chippy

blue5000 wrote: »

What breed (s) did you buy in as replacements chippy?

Sim x lim most of them 1 simx char 1 sh x lim and 2 lim, one of the limos are exceptionally wide though, reckon there has to be something else in her but cant work it out.

Dozer1

Best of luck with the replacements 1chippy, that's one of the biggest issues i would have, working full time its difficult to get to enough marts to find the few replacements I'd like. I've thought about donedeal but some prices lads have in their head are over my budget and fair play to them if the get the prices they ask.

I'd be like you gerico in that I'm trying to keep the best 3 to 4 heifers but even this year 2 of them didn't hold incalf which delays any expansion. the way I'm looking at it is I'm not willing to invest all spare cash from the farm or my job and put it into extra numbers just for the sake of it. one scare in cattle prices and it all goes to pot.

I know some lads are investing heavily and fair play to them, it just doesn't appeal to me at the moment.

reilig

I think that if you want to try to increase profits in the future, increasing your suckler herd numbers alone will not be enough. You should have a 3 fold approach.

1. Increasing profit per animal
2. Reducing cost per animal.
and only if its profitable
3. Increasing the number of animals.

There are so many things that you can do reduce cost and increase profit without taking on the extra work of an increased herd size. Simple things like improving herd fertility and calving intervals can be gained without a huge investment and they can give great financial rewards.

Look at other things like making better use of slurry and using less fertilizer, reducing veterinary bills, making better use of grass and reducing the amount of meal that you feed!

Look at weeding out the cows that consistently, year on year produce the lowest price calves for you and replace them with heifers bred from the cows that year on year have the highest priced calves. (ICBF Reports are useful for this)

If investing heavily doesn't appeal to you, look at these ways to increase the amount of money that you can earn from what you have. There's a silly idea floating around that the bigger their farm gets, the more money they can make. Efficiency is as important as size!!!

Dozer1 wrote: »

Best of luck with the replacements 1chippy, that's one of the biggest issues i would have, working full time its difficult to get to enough marts to find the few replacements I'd like. I've thought about donedeal but some prices lads have in their head are over my budget and fair play to them if the get the prices they ask.

I'd be like you gerico in that I'm trying to keep the best 3 to 4 heifers but even this year 2 of them didn't hold incalf which delays any expansion. the way I'm looking at it is I'm not willing to invest all spare cash from the farm or my job and put it into extra numbers just for the sake of it. one scare in cattle prices and it all goes to pot.

I know some lads are investing heavily and fair play to them, it just doesn't appeal to me at the moment.

Juniorhurler

reilig wrote: »

I think that if you want to try to increase profits in the future, increasing your suckler herd numbers alone will not be enough. You should have a 3 fold approach.

1. Increasing profit per animal
2. Reducing cost per animal.
and only if its profitable
3. Increasing the number of animals.

There are so many things that you can do reduce cost and increase profit without taking on the extra work of an increased herd size. Simple things like improving herd fertility and calving intervals can be gained without a huge investment and they can give great financial rewards.

Look at other things like making better use of slurry and using less fertilizer, reducing veterinary bills, making better use of grass and reducing the amount of meal that you feed!

Look at weeding out the cows that consistently, year on year produce the lowest price calves for you and replace them with heifers bred from the cows that year on year have the highest priced calves. (ICBF Reports are useful for this)

If investing heavily doesn't appeal to you, look at these ways to increase the amount of money that you can earn from what you have. There's a silly idea floating around that the bigger their farm gets, the more money they can make. Efficiency is as important as size!!!

A very sensible post. Two of these have been looked at in detail at home with a lot of our own heifers kept in recent years and costs being well driven down. We are trying to work on calving interval. We are taking the calves from the cows now and letting the calves out of the creep area to the cows twice a day until the cow comes bulling. We find that the cow comes back on heat a lot quicker cos of this but it is extra work.

Dozer1

Good advice as usual Reilig,
the main points I'd be working on are reducing the costs per animal like the calving interval and culling non-performers.

Ideally I'd like to be spreading the slurry myself but time is already stretched so its easier to get a contractor to do it but I know its not giving me the most return grass growth wise.

I could easily carry a higher stocking density but alot of the cows I'm culling are physically not he biggest so the difference between the cull price and a replacement heifer is a factor aswell.

Just interested to hear what other guys and ladies are at when it comes to expanding.

bogman_bass

I'll be incresing numbers mainly because we've been under stocked since we got out of milk and with the exception of a few calves we havent bought in stock. I need a higher stocking density to make grass land management easier

1chippy

The calving interval is the major issue with us at the moment. We have a lot of cows just basically calving too late. most are going to get culled with anything we find really good held from the bull and bulled as an autumn calver. If i had money to throw around id be heading to that clearance auction inLaois. But then again wheres the fun in that.
we have more or less ruled out any profits for the end of year as all is being thrown back at it for the next few years.
any suggestion's on getting the cows back in calf early.
We have already done minerals, pre and post calving
small bit of meal to early calvers
synchronised heifers to calve a few weeks earlier than main herd (estrumate) 70% result.rest will be scanned next week to see if any probs.
putting prids in as soon as possible after calving to see if we can pull a few back a bit.
any other suggestions?

Bizzum

1chippy wrote: »

any suggestion's on getting the cows back in calf early?

Lock the calves in the creep area and let them suck 2/3 times a day.

blue5000

It seems to be a common problem.
By taking the calves off them for a few hours I wonder is it the stress that helps bring cows in heat? If it is, another bit of stress is to continuously change the groups around, by that I mean have two groups of cows and keep moving cows from one group to another.

Perhaps have the bull in a paddock beside the cows for three weeks before running the bull with the cows? Maybe we are keeping cows on too a poor a diet when they are bulling? Should we be feeding them better when they're bulling. One year I kept first calvers away from the main bunch, but fertility wasn't any better. They were daughters of the bull with the main herd.

Bizzum

blue5000 wrote: »

It seems to be a common problem.
By taking the calves off them for a few hours I wonder is it the stress that helps bring cows in heat? If it is, another bit of stress is to continuously change the groups around, by that I mean have two groups of cows and keep moving cows from one group to another.

I would have little doubt that stress is counterproductive in reproductive performance.
The only stress involved is when you do it first. Both cows and calves settle into the routine very quickly.
I would think the reason it's a help reproductively is on a nutritive/hormonal level.
From my way of seeing things the single biggest factor in poor performance is nutrition. That is not to say that other factors are not key players, but all things equal, I would rate nutrition top.

pakalasa

It's supposed to be due to the absence of the calf. This triggers the hormonal change that brings about heat. They say it brings the first heat forward by 2 weeks. Doesn't seem like much but, say over 3 years, this could mean the difference in culling or keeping a cow.

flatout11

Bizzum wrote: »

I would have little doubt that stress is counterproductive in reproductive performance.
The only stress involved is when you do it first. Both cows and calves settle into the routine very quickly.
I would think the reason it's a help reproductively is on a nutritive/hormonal level.
From my way of seeing things the single biggest factor in poor performance is nutrition. That is not to say that other factors are not key players, but all things equal, I would rate nutrition top.

it has nothing to do with stress, the reason it works by giving calves acess to cows twice a day it reduces the stimulus of the suckling reflex elicits on hormonal activity ~(it has a negitive infulence on cetain key hormones), this alteration from normal activity (ie multiple sucliing per day) allows for a earlier resumption of the necessary hormonal changes to commence cyclicity so thats why they start earlier only 2 to 3 weeks is necessarry to do this.
again good nutrition is vital TBH i dont afgree with starving cows pre calving as some guys have taken this a bit too literally, cows in poor bcs eg 2 or less will have delayed reproductive function and will be more prone to other metabolic conmplaints.

Bizzum

flatout11 wrote: »

it has nothing to do with stress.

Just to clarify,I never said it did.
I said stress is counterproductive to reproductive performance.

1chippy

have a pen of cows and calves on their own so removed calves this morning. bloody nightmare trying to split 2 month old calves from overprotective cows but got it done anyway. Put the bull in with the cows and giving all around 1kg of meal with minerals each on good silage ad lib. going to do this for 3 weeks and i'll let you know how i get on. I reckon i'll be f**king a lot of these suggestions first thing in the morning before i go to work but sure its worth a try.

centre 13

why expand in something thats non profitable ? Granted if if you have a fragmented farm no choice but for a reasonable block 40 ha plus dairying is the only game in town.

Bizzum

1chippy wrote: »

have a pen of cows and calves on their own so removed calves this morning. bloody nightmare trying to split 2 month old calves from overprotective cows but got it done anyway. Put the bull in with the cows and giving all around 1kg of meal with minerals each on good silage ad lib. going to do this for 3 weeks and i'll let you know how i get on. I reckon i'll be f**king a lot of these suggestions first thing in the morning before i go to work but sure its worth a try.

The calves will run in and out for you no problem after a few days and there won't be a bother with the cows.
I'd be interested to hear how it goes for you!

leg wax

1chippy wrote: »

have a pen of cows and calves on their own so removed calves this morning. bloody nightmare trying to split 2 month old calves from overprotective cows but got it done anyway. Put the bull in with the cows and giving all around 1kg of meal with minerals each on good silage ad lib. going to do this for 3 weeks and i'll let you know how i get on. I reckon i'll be f**king a lot of these suggestions first thing in the morning before i go to work but sure its worth a try.

give the cows their meal first and when they are all eating the calves will be on their own standing behind the cows and very simple to get them out then.

1chippy

said id let you know how the pen of cows that i was splitting the calves from went.
Ended up changing tactic, with the good weather and a fair covering of grass we decided we'd put the cows with calves outside altogether. currently at two bulled one coming this evening and no sign of the other two yet.
It was around time they should be coming around, but reckon it was down to being put out on fresh grass that brought them round in the end.

Bizzum

1chippy wrote: »

It was around time they should be coming around, but reckon it was down to being put out on fresh grass that brought them round in the end.

Very tempting with the current weather if there is any cover of grass at all.

Not so sure abouit your theory as to them coming bulling at the prospect of going to grass though:D