Future suckler or dry stock

Bass Reeves

One or two would want to raed my post. i said that he made over 300 bales and sold 200 of them. Last winter was particularly short. The cattle were in a yard with 3 ring feeders. He used to feed 3 bales at the time. The bales used to last over 3 days I think. As he is paddocked he rotated them and closed from mid October but had cattle out until DFecember. There is fair eating in 40 acres. The whole farm was grazed this spring. he has 7-8 acres of traditional neadow this was grazed last in the spring. I think April 15th is closing date. It got imported slurry after closing this spring.

So far he has about 150 bales made. The Trad meadown will bring in either hay or silage. If he can he will get hay as it is easier sold but if the weather is long it will be cut and baled as silage. He factoried six heifers end of May FS 3= to 4-. There are more ready but he is inclined to hold for 2-3 weeks. He is grazing covers of 1400 ish I think. In old money he is stocked at 1.6LU units/HA but it is heifers so about 800kgs/HA for the month of May which I consider quite low stocking rate. From August on he will be stocked at 550kg/HA provied he has all his heifers bought for next year. I not sure why lads think it is a high stocking rate

I carry 59 2 years olds on about 65 acres or about 2LU/HA in old money. Because of having bullocks and heifers at a guess I am at slightly over 1200kgs/HA for the month of May. I am feeding 3kgs/head to 20 of them. At present I have 195 bales (low DM compared to previous years) but will have at least another 100 before the end of the year. My average winter is 120 days and cattle spend the winter on silage only.

Too many lads think extra weight equates to extra profit. They feed meal instead of concentrating on Grass. At present IMO there is no extra margin in feeding excessive amounts of ration. Every kg of flesh put on on grass is costing less than a euro. There was an article last week in the Journal in feedlots in the US they get a conversion rate of 6.5-1 at liveweight with Hormones. Taking an animal killing out 55%taht equates to nearly 12-1 per kg of DW. With ration at 2.4/kg it costs 2.88 to put on a kg of DW and taht is with Hormones and US ranch cattle(AA and HE in the Main). Without hormones there is little or no margin on it. That is why we concentrate on grass, I use a little ration to get bullocks into a reasonable FS. With heifers it is not necessary especially if stocked as low as him

Count Mondego

I'd say you're one of the shrewdest farmers posting here, and the most informative. Out of interest, the FRs that you kill at 3-4 years, what price /kg do you get for them, considering they're over age and grade low.

Bass Reeves

Count Mondego wrote: »

I'd say you're one of the shrewdest farmers posting here, and the most informative. Out of interest, the FRs that you kill at 3-4 years, what price /kg do you get for them, considering they're over age and grade low.

I would only have a few that go that old. Mostly they either come in a job lot and are a ring or else when I am at the mart and a light virtually overage lot come in. Usually you can slip one away in a load and get the same base price otherwise you take a 20c/kg hit off the normal base. For animals have QA on them I try to draw it. Most animals come in with a margin for going off grass, that margin will not increase by carrying animals much over 10-12 months. Margin re!wins the same if you carry them for 2 years. I am a store to finish so animals have to have a margin on them.

Most lads forget economics when looking at finished prices. A Fr calf with a value of 5 euro at 15-20 day old if done right could hit 1300 euro at 30 months at present prices ( as I buy as store's they will hit about 1200), with current processors weight limits a suckler steer seems to be limited to around 1600 euro at present prices. Economically is it viable to keep a suckler cow for the difference of 350 euro. Even if prices rise by 40 cent a kg this will only add 150 onto the suckler steer but the gap between him and the FR will only be another 50 -70 euro. You can look at other dairy crosses compared to the suckler such as HE, AA or Cont and the pricing is quite similar.

You have the options of bulls with them all but the economics are similar. For the last 5+ years bulls solved the economics of the suckler in that lads could throw a few ton of ration into them carry them to nearly 500kgs DW and let them come into 1600+ at sub 16 months or about 2000 euro sub 24 months. That has all changed with discounted prices on bulls taking 200 a head off them with higher ration prices

If you are an fairly efficient suckler farmer you will be an effective drystock farmer. Maybe for some the heifer rearing for dairy farmers is the option. For other remaining in sucklers his an option if the industry downsizes. For other agroforestry is the answer or maybe even forestry or partial forestry. But lads who thinking of grading or higher prices will solve there economics cannot do the maths. Grading will only add 14-20 euro to a steer and then only to U grade steers and higher pricing 100-150 euro neither will change drastically the economics of a suckler cows especially at 0.8 calves weaned/cow/ year.

20silkcut

I have 50/60 euro calves making€ 850-950 in the mart two years later without ever seeing a scrap of meal .
Keep them alive as calves and just let them off. Not saying it’s fantastic but I have calves I paid €200+ for , making €950 -1000 at the same mart.
What type of calves would you be better off buying???

Anto_Meath

I am of the opinion that years ago all farmers where more or less mixed farms, few sheep & pigs, some fowl, a few cows sending milk and then a few calves reared with some spuds and corn grown, that produce was then sold when money was needed. The idea was to have a few bob coming in all year round and each enterprise complemented the other. Beef farming is similar to this now, in that you can run a suckler to weanlings / stores together with beef enterprise. I feel you will always get the value of suckler bred cattle in the mart at any stage of their life. Then as a complementary enterprise rear a few dairy bred suck calves, once these are off milk they can run with the suckler herd (it actually keeps the lot quite) again these can be sold anytime depend on your system but to get the most out of them you need to be killing them. My rule is anything I think will grade an O /P is fed for the factory (small amount of meal to help fat score) as that is the only place you will get their true value. Anything better that usually goes to the mart as every lad around the ring knows the value of the quality one but very few know the value of the plainer one.

Cavanjack

20silkcut wrote: »

I have 50/60 euro calves making€ 850-950 in the mart two years later without ever seeing a scrap of meal .
Keep them alive as calves and just let them off. Not saying it’s fantastic but I have calves I paid €200+ for , making €950 -1000 at the same mart.
What type of calves would you be better off buying???

No meal even as calves?

20silkcut

Cavanjack wrote: »

No meal even as calves?

Just until a week after they go to grass.
That’s it.

I had a bunch of 5 cattle in the mart a few years ago they were almost finished were on 10kg of meal for 3/4 weeks before and lesser amounts previous to that again.
3 of them sold at €1200
2 of them sold at €1000
The 2 that sold at €1000 were heavier than the others.
They were probably claimed. I couldn’t bring them home on the day.
After that I said to hell with feeding meal.
Might change my mind again but as long as I’m getting €850 plus for €50 calves at 24 months. I won’t be bothering feeding meal at grass.

Welding Rod

20silkcut wrote: »

I have 50/60 euro calves making€ 850-950 in the mart two years later without ever seeing a scrap of meal .
Keep them alive as calves and just let them off. Not saying it’s fantastic but I have calves I paid €200+ for , making €950 -1000 at the same mart.
What type of calves would you be better off buying???

What does the calf live on, from day of purchase to say six months old?
No meal??
Milk replacer .... how much??
Is it really just a case as you wrote of “keep them alive”, feed them nothing but grass and winter silage, and cash them in at the mart two years later for €850 - €950.

Personally, I have never yet seen any animal who didn’t get a good start to life, ever make anything of themselves. I wouldn’t class a bit of maverick, and straight to grass with no meal as a good start to a calves life. I’d be looking at a pot belly, and restricted growth for ever more, if they actually survived that start. At least in my place, I would.

20silkcut

Welding Rod wrote: »

What does the calf live on, from day of purchase to say six months old?
No meal??
Milk replacer .... how much??
Is it really just a case as you wrote of “keep them alive”, feed them nothing but grass and winter silage, and cash them in at the mart two years later for €850 - €950.

Personally, I have never yet seen any animal who didn’t get a good start to life, ever make anything of themselves. I wouldn’t class a bit of maverick, and straight to grass with no meal as a good start to a calves life. I’d be looking at a pot belly, and restricted growth for ever more, if they actually survived that start. At least in my place, I would.

Sorry I was misleading in the original post of course I feed them meal as calves. You’d never get them off milk if you didn’t. Feeding meal to calves is not expensive and I certainly was not advocating not feeding meal to calves. I was misleading. I meant they don’t see a scrap of meal as weanlings to 24 months.
I give them a bag and a half per head of milk replacer. Up the meal while weaning.
Get them out on fresh grass at 4/5 months and they turn inside out. Not by any means saying I’m doing everything right but it would make you question whether so called bad calves are that bad after all. I heard of a lad one time getting €1100 in the factory for a €5 jersey calf. That’s an extreme case but €50 to €100 friesian calf should make that in the factory consistently. If they have a bit of weight and your not stocked too tight and they have plenty of grass they can leave money behind.

270WIN

I reckon a lot of lads get caught up in the "journal/teagasc" method of farming ie spend as much as you can on meal/machinery/sheds and all will be fine. the shrewdest farmers around me are all farming fr bullocks to slaughter and couldnt care less about age or how they look. its all about the costs to them..i think they are right.

Bass Reeves

Welding Rod wrote: »

What does the calf live on, from day of purchase to say six months old?
No meal??
Milk replacer .... how much??
Is it really just a case as you wrote of “keep them alive”, feed them nothing but grass and winter silage, and cash them in at the mart two years later for €850 - €950.

Personally, I have never yet seen any animal who didn’t get a good start to life, ever make anything of themselves. I wouldn’t class a bit of maverick, and straight to grass with no meal as a good start to a calves life. I’d be looking at a pot belly, and restricted growth for ever more, if they actually survived that start. At least in my place, I would.

I have taken it as a given that Silkcut used milkreplacer and ration and taht he is averaging a round bale of straw to every two calves. I would actually have expected that he might have fed ration during the summer, autumn and even the first winter. If he had his system would still have sustained it 3/4 of a kg a day on average to calves from12 weeks until 8 weeks before turn out would not break the bank it is really more of a lablur issue during the summer hauling troughs around. The cost of that would be about 50 euro. Doing it without ration takes a bit of grass managment Silkcut obiviously manages that. The only other challenge in his system is Autumn stocking. He be carrying weanling and decent sized stores as at the price he is getting for them Friesians they be over 450kgs during the autumn. However his low stocking rate during the spring allows him to comcentrate on the calves and close a good section of the farm for silage

His system would be leaving a direct margin of 400/head

20silkcut

Bass Reeves wrote: »

I have taken it as a given that Silkcut used milkreplacer and ration and taht he is averaging a round bale of straw to every two calves. I would actually have expected that he might have fed ration during the summer, autumn and even the first winter. If he had his system would still have sustained it 3/4 of a kg a day on average to calves from12 weeks until 8 weeks before turn out would not break the bank it is really more of a lablur issue during the summer hauling troughs around. The cost of that would be about 50 euro. Doing it without ration takes a bit of grass managment Silkcut obiviously manages that. The only other challenge in his system is Autumn stocking. He be carrying weanling and decent sized stores as at the price he is getting for them Friesians they be over 450kgs during the autumn. However his low stocking rate during the spring allows him to comcentrate on the calves and close a good section of the farm for silage

His system would be leaving a direct margin of 400/head

I’m not any great shakes at grass management I have good free draining land that lends itself to early turnout and grazing until at least mid November every year, the odd year early December, and a low stocking rate.
Most farms around me would have double and triple my stocking rate.

Young95

20silkcut wrote: »

I’m not any great shakes at grass management I have good free draining land that lends itself to early turnout and grazing until at least mid November every year, the odd year early December, and a low stocking rate.
Most farms around me would have double and triple my stocking rate.

What is ur overall stocking rate?

Track9

I'm in similar quandry as earlier posts.Last five yrs have been losing money.I have been subsidising our suckler farm yearly.did bits of maintenance & repairs.Dropped suckler herd by 40% as margins too low,for risks & amt of capital tied up

dohc turbo2

Track9 wrote: »

I'm in similar quandry as earlier posts.Last five yrs have been losing money.I have been subsidising our suckler farm yearly.did bits of maintenance & repairs.Dropped suckler herd by 40% as margins too low,for risks & amt of capital tied up

and how’s that going for u ?

20silkcut

Young95 wrote: »

What is ur overall stocking rate?

1.2 LU/ha overall.
I sell bales off about 40 acres. Zero graze it in spring and or Autumn.
If I want to increase the stocking rate will have to build sheds and tanks etc.