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

K.G.

kevthegaff wrote: »

It does seem everyone is talking us into a crisis

People are confusing the long term and the short term discussions. There will be export and there will be slaughter next spring.down west cork we already were having problems shifting peak calves and were selling for small money.from time to time people would have ring me from up the country either in relation to a card problem or looking for more calves like they had already.the minimum they would have paid for calves is twice the price i got.and even at that they be bought in dribs and drabs.cant understand why lads cant organise themselves to deal with a couple dairy lads for calves.they d get them cheaper healthier and with the numbers fellas have now all in 1 or 2 gos.better for both partys

grassroot1

K.G. wrote: »

People are confusing the long term and the short term discussions. There will be export and there will be slaughter next spring.down west cork we already were having problems shifting peak calves and were selling for small money.from time to time people would have ring me from up the country either in relation to a card problem or looking for more calves like they had already.the minimum they would have paid for calves is twice the price i got.and even at that they be bought in dribs and drabs.cant understand why lads cant organise themselves to deal with a couple dairy lads for calves.they d get them cheaper healthier and with the numbers fellas have now all in 1 or 2 gos.better for both partys

If you go to a dairy farmer and say you will take all his calves at 21 days old he will ask you the sun moon and stars for them. If a dealer comes in he will fair a good bit better.
That's just the way it is

mahoney_j

kevthegaff wrote: »

It does seem everyone is talking us into a crisis

It’s reality Kev,go to any mart and you’ll see the reality of it ,beef farming as we know it is goosed atm wouldn’t pay much attention to Hynes but he’s been relastic ,a lot are not

Markcheese

Bass Reeves wrote: »

Not with beef. Feedlot beef is much more expensive to produce than grass fed beef. The average Beef animal with out hormones need a scale of 13-1 to gain a kg of weight and that is LW killing at 50% on average you need a 26-1 feed ratio to produce a kg of beef carcasse. Assuming mixed high energy diets cost you 25c/kg DM its about 6.5/kg of beef produced in Ireland

Chickens are about 1.6-1 (or 2-2.5/kg meat carcass) and pigs 4-1 or about 5-1/kg of meat carcass. You still need someone to get the animal to within 100-120 days of finishing for feedlot cattle. In general cattle can not stay on a high grain diet longer than that even bulls or hormone treated cattle can only get to 150 days approx.
Finally hormone treated cattle react a bit like bulls and there efficiency is about 8-10/kg of LW or between 15 and 18/kg of carcass produced or about 4.25/kg in cost

All true, and someone has to rear the weanlings, but how much of the national kill is now being finished out of sheds, at scale?? Feedlots seem to be Coming in here more and more,

Base price

Bord Bia has announced changes to its SDAS (Sustainable Dairy Assurance Scheme) to come into force from the 11th of November. No on farm slaughtering of healthy calves will be allowed from this date - proper order too. There are other rules re welfare but the article doesn't go into detail. All SDAS farmers are to be notified shortly.
https://www.farmersjournal.ie/on-farm-calf-slaughter-banned-506795

Mooooo

Base price wrote: »

Bord Bia has announced changes to its SDAS (Sustainable Dairy Assurance Scheme) to come into force from the 11th of November. No on farm slaughtering of healthy calves will be allowed from this date - proper order too. There are other rules re welfare but the article doesn't go into detail. All SDAS farmers are to be notified shortly.
https://www.farmersjournal.ie/on-farm-calf-slaughter-banned-506795

Can't get on to that site, didn't think it was allowed anyway

leoch

why is it that factories say they dont want bulls yet thats all the feedlot buyers buy around here anyway??

patsy_mccabe

Larry unaffected by the Strike, it seems. 'Irreparable Damage' to the Irish Beef Industry eh....?

https://www.independent.ie/business/irish/abp-buys-its-third-production-facility-in-poland-35135337.html

_Brian

leoch wrote: »

why is it that factories say they dont want bulls yet thats all the feedlot buyers buy around here anyway??

Suppose by saying they’re not wanted lessens their desirability suppressing prices for their feedlots to fill with cheap cattle.

Siamsa Sessions

_Brian wrote: »

Suppose by saying they’re not wanted lessens their desirability suppressing prices for their feedlots to fill with cheap cattle.

And if they do want bulls, they have a world of cheaply-bought ones in their own feedlots.

jaymla627

Base price wrote: »

Bord Bia has announced changes to its SDAS (Sustainable Dairy Assurance Scheme) to come into force from the 11th of November. No on farm slaughtering of healthy calves will be allowed from this date - proper order too. There are other rules re welfare but the article doesn't go into detail. All SDAS farmers are to be notified shortly.
https://www.farmersjournal.ie/on-farm-calf-slaughter-banned-506795

The cute lads are transferring calves into a beef mans herd number and then they are sent to slaughter, unless they close this loophole its just a pr excercise

wrangler

jaymla627 wrote: »

The cute lads are transferring calves into a beef mans herd number and then they are sent to slaughter, unless they close this loophole its just a pr excercise

You'd need your head examined if you were doing that, talk about bringing trouble on yourself,
If ordering a few extra replacement tags is able to trigger an inspection, what would 100% deaths in your calves do

jaymla627

wrangler wrote: »

You'd need your head examined if you were doing that, talk about bringing trouble on yourself,
If ordering a few extra replacement tags is able to trigger an inspection, what would 100% deaths in your calves do

Dairy farmer is selling live calves to beef farmer( dairy farmer is paying beef farmer ) if beef farmer then decides to slaughter them in a approved department facility as is still perfectly legal their is no rules been broken,

Sheep breeder

jaymla627 wrote: »

Dairy farmer is selling live calves to beef farmer( dairy farmer is paying beef farmer ) if beef farmer then decides to slaughter them in a approved department facility as is still perfectly legal their is no rules been broken,

The department have the cmms to track all movements of all stock and have a check in place of movements into and out for dealer purposes and any thing out of the ordinary results in a inspection.

Mooooo

Are you just making thus stuff up or what?

Base price

jaymla627 wrote: »

Dairy farmer is selling live calves to beef farmer( dairy farmer is paying beef farmer ) if beef farmer then decides to slaughter them in a approved department facility as is still perfectly legal their is no rules been broken,

Neither is the dairy farmer who sends them directly (after 10 days old) to a DAFM slaughter facility breaking any law.
However to date any farmer that had numbers of newborn bull calves euthanised on farm received inspections from DAFM Vets including cross compliance inspections in some cases.

_Brian

This carry on is just giving the extremist anti farming groups a huge stick to beat farming with.

Base price

_Brian wrote: »

This carry on is just giving the extremist anti farming groups a huge stick to beat farming with.

Brian, public perception and anti farming (vegan) groups are driving the future course of Irish farming whether we like it or not. You have said that you don't like the idea of dairy bull calves been exported to mainland Europe but the reality is that, if and when that outlet is gone, we will have c.200K additional bull calves to deal with.
On a slightly positive note I read earlier that cattle suitable for the Chinese market are non QA bull beef so there maybe some hope for the FR/FRx bull calf.

mf240

Is it not legal to get the Knackeries out to collect calves I thought it was.
Surely with the real extreme calves if lads can't give them away then it's the only option.

Bass Reeves

Base price wrote: »

Brian, public perception and anti farming (vegan) groups are driving the future course of Irish farming whether we like it or not. You have said that you don't like the idea of dairy bull calves been exported to mainland Europe but the reality is that, if and when that outlet is gone, we will have c.200K additional bull calves to deal with.
On a slightly positive note I read earlier that cattle suitable for the Chinese market are non QA bull beef so there maybe some hope for the FR/FRx bull calf.

AFAIK the Chinese want U30 month QA beef. Now they may take bulls but it has to be QA. Processors are still not giving any headway on bulls. There may be weight limits in place although they slice and dice everything so I am be of the opinion that carcasse weight would not be a factor.

Bit issue I see with the Chinese market is it is a whit meat market, Pork, Chicken and fish. Unless there demand displaces these meats elsewhere and then the beef is send to those markets.

Base price

mf240 wrote: »

Is it not legal to get the Knackeries out to collect calves I thought it was.
Surely with the real extreme calves if lads can't give them away then it's the only option.

Knackeries are the only approved body that can collect dead stock ex farm. There are exceptions where some stock are sent/delivered directly to Universities and used for educational purposes. The Veterinary College in UCD would be an example.

AFAIK it is not illegal to euthanise new born calves but the majority of farmers prefer not to do so - however see my previous post.
There are a number of DAFM approved facilities that have been operating over the years that humanly cater for 10 day old+ dairy bull calves that cannot be sold or given away.

Danzy

Bass Reeves wrote: »

AFAIK the Chinese want U30 month QA beef. Now they may take bulls but it has to be QA. Processors are still not giving any headway on bulls. There may be weight limits in place although they slice and dice everything so I am be of the opinion that carcasse weight would not be a factor.

Bit issue I see with the Chinese market is it is a whit meat market, Pork, Chicken and fish. Unless there demand displaces these meats elsewhere and then the beef is send to those markets.

African Swine fever is going to finish off China's pigs.

Half the world's pigs live in China, that's bigger than all beef eaten worldwide.

Roughly twice as much pork eaten as beef globally.


That's before the death of pigs across Asia is taken in to account.

Its hard to grasp the scale but if every head of cattle in Europe and the Americas, North and South died tomorrow, it wouldn't even be close to what is going on.

It'll surely be a 5p bump in price.

mahoney_j

Danzy wrote: »

African Swine fever is going to finish off China's pigs.

Half the world's pigs live in China, that's bigger than all beef eaten worldwide.

Roughly twice as much pork eaten as beef globally.


That's before the death of pigs across Asia is taken in to account.

Its hard to grasp the scale but if every head of cattle in Europe and the Americas, North and South died tomorrow, it wouldn't even be close to what is going on.

It'll surely be a 5p bump in price.

The future is bright?The Chinese have killed 200 million pigs (50% of the national herd) and China has 50% of the worlds pigs. They will need to import 20 million tonnes of meat per year to meet their demand starting in 2020. There is only 8 million tonnes of pork traded and 10 million Tonnes of beef traded globally.

mf240

The local Chinese still has pork anyway maybe their pigs were some of the lucky ones

Base price

Bass Reeves wrote: »

]AFAIK the Chinese want U30 month QA beef. Now they may take bulls but it has to be QA. Processors are still not giving any headway on bulls. There may be weight limits in place although they slice and dice everything so I am be of the opinion that carcasse weight would not be a factor.

Bit issue I see with the Chinese market is it is a whit meat market, Pork, Chicken and fish. Unless there demand displaces these meats elsewhere and then the beef is send to those markets.

They want under 30 month old cattle but there is no requirement for QA so as I posted previously there is a possible outlet for dairy bull calves coming down the line.

Base price

mahoney_j wrote: »

]The future is bright?The Chinese have killed 200 million pigs (50% of the national herd) and China has 50% of the worlds pigs. They will need to import 20 million tonnes of meat per year to meet their demand starting in 2020. There is only 8 million tonnes of pork traded and 10 million Tonnes of beef traded globally.

Unfortunately in this situation one man's loss is another man's gain and Irish pig, poultry and beef producers will gain. Let us not forget that we've been down a simular road in the past when others supported us in our time of need.
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/cork-sculpture-recalls-generosity-of-choctaw-nation-during-famine-1.3118580

Buford T. Justice XIX

Base price wrote: »

Unfortunately in this situation one man's loss is another man's gain and Irish pig, poultry and beef producers will gain. Let us not forget that we've been down a simular road in the past when others supported us in our time of need.
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/cork-sculpture-recalls-generosity-of-choctaw-nation-during-famine-1.3118580

I doubt there's a chance of famine there, BP. The price of pork especially and other meats will rise but products and types of meat used will change. Poultry and pork will definitely rise and it's well overdue for both sectors. Offal and cheaper beef cuts will be more in demand as well, I'd expect.

tabby aspreme

Buford T. Justice VI wrote: »

I doubt there's a chance of famine there, BP. The price of pork especially and other meats will rise but products and types of meat used will change. Poultry and pork will definitely rise and it's well overdue for both sectors. Offal and cheaper beef cuts will be more in demand as well, I'd expect.

Pig prices have risen globally 25 - 40% in the last year

Buford T. Justice XIX

tabby aspreme wrote: »

Pig prices have risen globally 25 - 40% in the last year

And will rise more again. There's a lot of pig units still paying off accumulated losses from the last few years.

Base price

[QUOTE=Buford T. Justice VI;111715297]I doubt there's a chance of famine there, BP. The price of pork especially and other meats will rise but products and types of meat used will change. Poultry and pork will definitely rise and it's well overdue for both sectors. Offal and cheaper beef cuts will be more in demand as well, I'd expect.[/QUOTE]
AFAIK the Chinese government doesn't have the welfare of their entire population at heart :mad: