Dairy Chitchat 4, an udder new thread.

You want a premium to improve calf welfare ? You want to give the most lucrative sector in Irish agriculture some sort of benefit to do what is morally the right thing ?

Advocating for improved conditions for our animals is not the high moral ground.

Once a farm is adhering to bord bia and co-op requirements the morality of the situation doesn't come into it, theirs enough fire fighting daily on dairy farms to keep their own wheelhouse in order, then having to police mart staff, lorry drivers etc who should be department regulated and inspectors providing oversight and ensuring animal welfare standards are enforced....

Genuinely the margins in dairying this year are non-existant what regulations are coming in re nitrates will probably finish alot of us off in the next 5 years if we enter a period of stagnet/below cop milk prices, throw in your argument another couple of hundred euro should be levied on us per calf to do the morally right thing re keeping calves to a year old and 90% of dairy farms will be loss making

I don't understand the vilification of the Jersey breed in his article, "It is so called ‘extreme dairy breeds’ that are the problem. Often they are Jersey cross cattle that are good for milk production but valueless in terms of beef production."

Firstly they are all Friesian calves going for live export to the European veal markets and secondly does he think meat from a Jersey/Jersey cross animal is toxic?

There was always going to be a backlash after the nature restoration law didn't sail through and I fear the might of the climate change lobby is going to come for all agricultural sectors with a vengeance in the coming months.

That being said, calves not being fed for an 18 hour period during transit is unacceptable.

Should the government be lobbied to try and get Michael o Leary to fly them out. They would be fed and housed in a few hours. A handy plane would carry a few hundred. It's only three months of the year i know. the IFA gave their leader an extra 40000 pay rise a couple of years ago, they are flush, they might chip in

I don't get the overstocked argument. Farms are stocked correctly (in the most part) because they are able to move the calves away off the farm. You're on about stocking rates including calves, but that makes no sense if the calves are gone. And keeping them is increasing stocking rate, not reducing it. Add to the fact dairy farmers are dairy focused, forcing them to keep beef animals out of goodwill doesn't make sense to me when there are plenty good beef farmers who now won't be able to access calves.

The PT report will shine a bad light. It's more focused outside the farm gate but that won't stop the bandwagon jumpers getting up onto he farmer again. Nevertheless, this bolloxing of mistreating animals, no matter where it happens, has to be dealt with and dealt with severely.

You are missing my point .Overstocking as in being unable to deal with the volume of calves on hand as well as the work involved in milking the cows rather any artificial metric imposed by the Department or EU .

I genuinely don’t understand this narrative . You post about beef farmers who won’t be able to access calves . They can access them at the minute for nothing or next to nothing so why aren’t they ending up on Irish beef farms ?

If you genuinely think that there is nothing wrong with producing a calf that has no value and pursuing a model that involves dumping the calf as quickly as possible ( however you do it ) then there is no point in my debating with you .

The current furore revolves entirely around the calves that are worth nothing or next to nothing. You won’t see too many continental bulls being abused.

There is a market in the EU only as long as they can be got there. Any industry worth its salt would identify that as a serious business risk and plan accordingly. Would you honestly say that Irish farms have planned for the absence of live calf exports ?

It's as I said on the beef tracker thread, a pincer move on dairy farmers, pressure from so many sides such as dero, nitrates, enviro etc and now calves. This is to force the issue on numbers and reduce the cow herd by approx 10%. This will reduce the number of calves near enough what is exported, but the crux is it will not reduce the issue of poorly bred dairy beef calves.

Dairy farmers need to take the narrative over the coming days and come out with a clear plan. Exports days are numbered.

A simple 5 point plan clearly delivered will help.

1. Holding calves on farm to 28days

2. Greater use of sexed semen (sexed female straws only for dairy breeds)

3. Re evaluation of EBI for beef sub index to help confident of calf buyers

4. Reduction of exports, due to Dero changes

5. Investment in Genotyping to show true beef value.

Failing to do this will have you taking control of calves until 6 months like the UK

Yes

Been involved in farming for over fifty years. Grew up on a farm of less than 50 acres of poor land with no outside income or subsidies . You can call me a troll if it makes you happy. Sticks and stones and all that .

jaymla627 implies that a 250 acre farm carrying 90 milking cows plus the sale of their followers every year plus a BPS and ANC isn’t viable. Sitting on a land bank worth north of two million euros with 150 plus head of cattle . And that isn’t viable . That’s BS

Your out of tune there as regards costs and the impacts all these enviro and nitrates reductions will have if we have to comply with all the red tape been thrown at us

the bank of land only has a value if u sell it same as stock ……