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

Grueller

mahoney_j wrote: »

Agree but then Sr and nitrates come into play ,

Calves could be the new dairy quota. A 350 cow man near here is gearing up to cut back to 250 cows and have to deal with his own calves.

Grueller

Less calves in total than last year
https://www.agriland.ie/farming-news/suckler-calves-born-in-august-continues-to-fall/

Markcheese

Panch18 wrote: »

If this comes to fruition we will defo rear every calf, you’d be a busy fool otherwise I reckon

The killing thing is that when lads get calves at 3 weeks old the hard work is done at that stage, some difference between managing a 3 week old calf and a 3 day old 1

There'll be nó trouble moving on beef cross calves (even if dairy farmers might not get what they want for them), but even at 8 weeks and considerable cost they may have to give away extreme dairy calves.... That could be just one of the costs of dairying....

Markcheese

How much of the national kill is going through feed lots? We have no differentiation between grass finished, and feed lot beef.. Bord bia seem to make a big fuss out of grass fed, but theres definitely little reward for those that do, if that takes extra time on the farm and goes over the 30 months that should be allowed, (and considering beef farmers are making a loss per animal, longer finishing times should lead to lower losses,), leave the dairy bull calves to the feed lots, or accept that they're just lawn mowers to qualify for grants get them for nothing and sell them for Feic all...

mahoney_j

Markcheese wrote: »

How much of the national kill is going through feed lots? We have no differentiation between grass finished, and feed lot beef.. Bord bia seem to make a big fuss out of grass fed, but theres definitely little reward for those that do, if that takes extra time on the farm and goes over the 30 months that should be allowed, (and considering beef farmers are making a loss per animal, longer finishing times should lead to lower losses,), leave the dairy bull calves to the feed lots, or accept that they're just lawn mowers to qualify for grants get them for nothing and sell them for Feic all...

Bord bia and ornua make a big song and dance about grass fed ,stock out grazing ,low carbon production premium products premium markets etc etc ......there’s no doubt we produce top quality beef and milk but ultimately we’re paid a **** price for it ,they can dress it up whatever way they wish but that’s reality

Bass Reeves

Grueller wrote: »

Less calves in total than last year
https://www.agriland.ie/farming-news/suckler-calves-born-in-august-continues-to-fall/

Problem is lads reducing suckler numbers are either going dairying for lads with a larger land block or lads on smaller blocks are downsizing.However number of dairy bred calves are increasing and the calving is becoming more and more compact where you have well over 1 million calves born in an 8 -10 week period. That is a lot of calves to rear to 12 weeks of age. The problem is a lot of heavier suckler farms are not ideal for calves until early May so you timing mismatch.

visatorro

Bass Reeves wrote: »

Problem is lads reducing suckler numbers are either going dairying for lads with a larger land block or lads on smaller blocks are downsizing.However number of dairy bred calves are increasing and the calving is becoming more and more compact where you have well over 1 million calves born in an 8 -10 week period. That is a lot of calves to rear to 12 weeks of age. The problem is a lot of heavier suckler farms are not ideal for calves until early May so you timing mismatch.

Would calves not suit heavier ground?

Markcheese

visatorro wrote: »

Would calves not suit heavier ground?

That's what I though, if you're buying the minimum number of relativly cheap/free reared calves/screws , putting them on heavy ground in April, as lawn mowers and get shut of them hopefully at breakeven in the autumn, and claim what ever grants get you the most income,
Feic making silage, Feic winter housing or winter feeding, Feic slurry,
You'd hardly need a tractor, to hell with fertillizer,and equipment... And plenty of free time to tell every one how hard life is...

Base price

Markcheese wrote: »

That's what I though, if you're buying the minimum number of relativly cheap/free reared calves/screws , putting them on heavy ground in April, as lawn mowers and get shut of them hopefully at breakeven in the autumn, and claim what ever grants get you the most income,
Feic making silage, Feic winter housing or winter feeding, Feic slurry,
You'd hardly need a tractor, to hell with fertillizer,and equipment... And plenty of free time to tell every one how hard life is...

Weaned (off milk) dairy bred bull calves will melt in front of your eyes if you throw them out onto grass in April or May and leave them to their own devices. They will need supplementary feeding of at least 1kg of meal otherwise you will have ill, sick and dead calves within no time leading to animal welfare issues.

wrangler

Base price wrote: »

Weaned (off milk) dairy bred bull calves will melt in front of your eyes if you throw them out onto grass in April or May and leave them to their own devices. They will need supplementary feeding of at least 1kg of meal otherwise you will have ill, sick and dead calves within no time leading to animal welfare issues.

Calves are like lambs, when grass get's more than 5 inches it's not worth a damn to them, ironically they could die of malnutritition if the pasture is let get into a meadow

mf240

Rearing calves is not a simple job. you can't rough them.

visatorro

visatorro wrote: »

Would calves not suit heavier ground?

I'm suggesting that they are lighter and won't sink/poach ground

wrangler

visatorro wrote: »

I'm suggesting that they are lighter and won't sink/poach ground

If the land works with sucklers it'll work better with calves, calves /yearlings are way easier on heavy land
To do calves properly you need yearlings or older to follow them,.... give the calves opportunity to selectively graze the pasture and then clean it off with older stock.
We used to do calf to beef here, jan/feb calves would would be given ration until 1st May and then only grass in a leader follower system until September.

That was the good old days when you could put hormones in them while there was room in their ears. :cool:

Muckit

jaymla627 wrote: »

Say lads give up the hobby tell the likes of yourself to run your calves up your hole.....

I'm still laughing. Remember that scene in Bruce Almighty.... "Did that monkey just come out your crack man?
Your version: "Did that jex just run up your hole?"

Markcheese

Base price wrote: »

Weaned (off milk) dairy bred bull calves will melt in front of your eyes if you throw them out onto grass in April or May and leave them to their own devices. They will need supplementary feeding of at least 1kg of meal otherwise you will have ill, sick and dead calves within no time leading to animal welfare issues.

I knew I was being a bit over the top there..
And I definitely wasnt seriously advocating that any one risk calves welfare..

Dakota Dan

wrangler wrote: »

Calves are like lambs, when grass get's more than 5 inches it's not worth a damn to them, ironically they could die of malnutritition if the pasture is let get into a meadow

You could end up with pot bellied calves if grass is too strong and no meal feeding. What about the leader follower system they had years ago? Of course the leader follower system won't work if you haven't followers. Only saw your other post now.

Dakota Dan

https://www.agriland.ie/farming-news/contract-rearing-male-dairy-calves-with-a-twist/

If the beef farmer makes no profit the dairy man looses his contract rearing costs :rolleyes:

wrangler

Dakota Dan wrote: »

https://www.agriland.ie/farming-news/contract-rearing-male-dairy-calves-with-a-twist/

If the beef farmer makes no profit the dairy man looses his contract rearing costs :rolleyes:

Everyone is starting to get desperate now ...... or else they know different dairy farmers than I do.

Markcheese

https://youtu.be/B5Zbeb0dYC4

I remember someone on here put this up a few years ago, a guy rearing six or seven hundred bull calves From 4 or 5 different dairy farms,
Didn't see many jerseys calves in there though...

Dakota Dan

Markcheese wrote: »

https://youtu.be/B5Zbeb0dYC4

I remember someone on here put this up a few years ago, a guy rearing six or seven hundred bull calves From 4 or 5 different dairy farms,
Didn't see many jerseys calves in there though...

I remember that but he sells them on when they are off milk, you still buyers.

Sheep breeder

Panch18 wrote: »

Reared on a few late calves last spring and sold them over the last few weeks they made the following:

Aubracs. 910
Limo 900
Hereford 850 and 820
Angus 840, 845 and 825

We were probably 2-3 weeks late going with the aubrac and limos which probably cost us 50 a head

People can work out their own costs to rear them, but we were happy enough with the margin they left, considering these were the last of the cows calved, were a bit late going out to grass as calves and were basically left to their own devices. They always had good grass though

What age were these cattle at sale and how much per kilo did they make.

Bass Reeves

Good article in today's FI . Peter Hynes is a dairy farmer. From the tone of the article he expects that calves will have to be kept on farm until 40 days at least. He thinks it should be 8 weeks and that this should be the minimum slaughter age as well. He highlighted that in the UK the supermarket require this already for milk suppliers. He says the days if exporting 14 day old calves is gone.

cosatron

iv no problem with keeping our calves for 8 weeks but the department better move there 44 day tb rule to correspond with the what ever length they expect us to keep them.

Mooooo

Bass Reeves wrote: »

Good article in today's FI . Peter Hynes is a dairy farmer. From the tone of the article he expects that calves will have to be kept on farm until 40 days at least. He thinks it should be 8 weeks and that this should be the minimum slaughter age as well. He highlighted that in the UK the supermarket require this already for milk suppliers. He says the days if exporting 14 day old calves is gone.

The UK and rest of Europe have similar issue just not at the one time of year. Some supermarkets may require it but not all do and not all processors. Also if such things are to come in tb rules would have to be adjusted

Morris Moss

Bass Reeves wrote: »

Good article in today's FI . Peter Hynes is a dairy farmer. From the tone of the article he expects that calves will have to be kept on farm until 40 days at least. He thinks it should be 8 weeks and that this should be the minimum slaughter age as well. He highlighted that in the UK the supermarket require this already for milk suppliers. He says the days if exporting 14 day old calves is gone.

And how much should the dairy farmer expect to get for rearing the calf, I'd have no problems holding onto a calf if I at least got a half decent price, but last year l kept the first calves for a month and barely averaged 20 euro, no jerseys here either.

Danzy

Morris Moss wrote: »

And how much should the dairy farmer expect to get for rearing the calf, I'd have no problems holding onto a calf if I at least got a half decent price, but last year l kept the first calves for a month and barely averaged 20 euro, no jerseys here either.

Should might not come into it any more.

The calf will be a cost of milk production.

Not right but that won't change it.

wrangler

Danzy wrote: »

Should might not come into it any more.

The calf will be a cost of milk production.

Not right but that won't change it.

It doesn't matter what the calf costs to get to the market, but what it's worth to the buyer.
Up to this they've been lucky in that the buyers have paid more than they're worth but if the forecasted glut materialises the market won't be as good

kevthegaff

Bass Reeves wrote: »

Good article in today's FI . Peter Hynes is a dairy farmer. From the tone of the article he expects that calves will have to be kept on farm until 40 days at least. He thinks it should be 8 weeks and that this should be the minimum slaughter age as well. He highlighted that in the UK the supermarket require this already for milk suppliers. He says the days if exporting 14 day old calves is gone.

Is it somehow less cruel to slaughter at 8 weeks compared to 1 day old, I'm not so sure. Between labour, cost of inputs and now cull and calf prices, dairyING will be following beef soon

Siamsa Sessions

Danzy wrote: »

Should might not come into it any more.

The calf will be a cost of milk production.

Not right but that won't change it.

Something similar happened with sheep's wool. It used to generate income but now it's a production cost.

Shearing costs €2/ewe but that fleece is only worth €1, so an annual loss of €1 per ewe since wool is now a by-product of lamb production.

jaymla627

kevthegaff wrote: »

Is it somehow less cruel to slaughter at 8 weeks compared to 1 day old, I'm not so sure. Between labour, cost of inputs and now cull and calf prices, dairyING will be following beef soon

Glanbia rep rang us yesterday wondering would I sign up to kepak scheme as my main calf buyer is in it, and if I want him to be able to purchase calves of us I'd have too, asked him did he want the deeds to the farm while he"s at it, who'd in their right mind would commit all their purchases to their dairy processor they'd own you basically