Dairy Chitchat 4, an udder new thread.

I had to bring one home 2 years ago. No bid. Kept him in quarantine and took him back the following week and got a good price. As far as I can see the guys buying them are pretty clueless alot of the time. My neighbour puts his calves on ad lib milk and gets a huge price in the mart. Those calves never see crunch or hay and I'd love to see them a week after the lads taking them home. They would just melt.

That's farming...

All the giving out about labour with calves, have ye all computerised calf feeders? With the grant available for them and the labour they save, they are a serious return on investment. I put one in a month ago and this spring is night and day by comparison to last spring.

I was watching online. David was doing his best to pull bids.

We've circa 150 young lambs backed up in the sheds due to bad weather if we had them out I'd have no hesitation in putting in 25 or 30 of those bulls at them prices.

See Jan calves selling for 35e.

Grant for calf feeders also? And fellas giving out about FFG not doing anything for farmers?

Calves are still making good money here. Holstein bulls are only making €5 or even free but Ch and Lm crosses are making €250-350 at 3weeks old. It’s the first time calves have been able to be sold into February here. We’ve usually to keep them from mid January to mid May to accommodate Irish calves. Hopefully this trend continues.

He did tbf but the reality was a lot of unsold calves …I had one bunch of 3 all half twins luckily he found a home for them

Havnt heard from mart since but I reckon I will owe the mart a few quid ….20 calves sold /given away depending on what way you look at it ….if I waited another 2 weeks I could of sold them out of yard ….but 2 more weeks feeding and the risks of a scour outbreak etc ….and I’d still only get 40/60 euro at best

to be clear I’m dissapointed at the price I got …these calves were on whole milk for 3 days then onto powder …we’re starting to eat crunch and hay and we’re penned according to age with my heifers and got exact same treatement ….tg weather and no exporters buying hammerd the sale and high lightened how important the export trade is for theses calves …if/when it’s gone we have a big problem …putting down bull calves is something I’d be strongly against and not a practice I’d ever like to contemplate

Speaking of sexed, is the sexed lab in moorepark going to be operational for this season?

If everyone started using sexed, bring down the value of the rest of calves

I didn’t mean to come across as harsh and I think our wires crossed. Friesian bull calves have little or no value and live exports are definitely the only way we can keep a floor on beef price. Of course live exports going is Larry’s version of winning the Euromillions.

But I’m not sure how ethically right is it to be sending ten day old calves on a trip that you wouldn’t send 10 year old children on. My point being that Dairy farmers should either put in the facilities to care for calves till 28 days, cut back on cow numbers or take what they’re given. On farm debt or an excess of it isn’t a reason to be putting down calves at birth.

im coming across as harsh but with good calf sheds and automatic calf feeders farmers can make life a lot easier. If people are willing to sell calves at 2 weeks of age for €5 them full power to them but don’t complain that that’s the value of them cause there ain’t the margin in it. If there was money to be made at it everyone would be doing it. Why should beef farmers make slaves of themselves - at least in dairy the copious amounts of work put in returns some sort of viable margin. That just isn’t there in beef. Buying calves in the mart is a recipe for disaster , especially young Friesian bull calves out of first calvers, and I don’t care what ye say- you will lose a percentage.

No offence taken and hard disagree with a lot of that …I like rearing calves and have the space to rear about 95% of them …..I’d have no issue rearing a calf for 5/6 weeks if I could just cover cost ….but that dosnt happen ….this year with the cost of everything I can’t justify keeping calves that long to loose money I’d be happy to sell out of yard at 2 weeks old for 30/40 euros

Keep all calves here to yearling stage , wouldnt suit alot of dairy farms but suits us with an outfarm and they dont eat that much as calves until september, sold then either from shed early march or from grass in april depending , would be up on 550/600€ at 330/350kg , have lads telling me I should get rid of them as calves but I dont think the system is treating me too bad have to rear the heifer calves anyway so its not like its an extra group of stock.. cant get over lads saying FR bull calves arent worth anything the mind boggles at lads giving 3/400€ for a charolais/Belgian blue calf but wouldnt give 50€ for an FR , or giving 600/700 for a yearling but wont give 50 as a calf , youd wonder

Beef farmers slaves ? The margin mightn’t be massive but there feck all work with calves past 6 weeks old. They could be on OAD feeding at that age and looking at them every day at grass and moving them every few days

definitely not tied to it like a herd of cows

bull calves bought for 50€ 2 years ago coming into 13/1400€ now killed

there’s definitely a touch in that

My point exactly dont think the bull calf issue was ever as bad as early where your struggling to even get bids for fresians , youd think the lads who bought them 2 years ago and are killing them now would be going mad for them again fair profit in that scenario youd think with not a huge outlay day one, locked up with tb this year but i had put about half the herd in calf to limousin/belgian blue /hereford and the plan was to sell these as calves and keep the freisians to yearling stage again others be telling me to do the opposite but the difference in the money between the different breeds isnt as huge at yearling stage lads go solid mad for a good early LMX/BBX calf and still have 10 weeks of rearing in front of them.

Live exports are always the key this time of year. Every year when the weather is bad a boat doesn't go the world is ending.

Last year sent in strong bull calves, they made 17 euro as forecast had turned bad. 2 weeks later sold lighter ones for 85. Peak season. Later fr bulls all made over 100 then and that was farmers buying them

Live export is the only competition to the meat factories. If that is stopped the price of all beef will plummet, not just the fr bull