rearing cavles
- Thread starter cull cows
- Start date
Where are you based too? The reason I ask, if your board I can lend you mine to rear!
Penmoel
Member
Always reckoned £100 to rear a calf, bag of powder, coarse mix/pellets straw and whatever
Have not done man for a few years but may have a go this year to push stock numbers up, listen to @Walterp and he will tell you leave the baby calves where they are and buy some young stores instead to save the agony.
Have not done man for a few years but may have a go this year to push stock numbers up, listen to @Walterp and he will tell you leave the baby calves where they are and buy some young stores instead to save the agony.
Thick Farmer
Member
- Location
- West Wales
It will cost about £20 a head more than you can sell them for at the end of it!
Sheep
Member
- Location
- Northern Ireland
£120 down to about £85, the more you rear the cheaper it gets; to an extent.
cudota
Member
- Location
- east lancashire
to much
IH 684
Member
- Location
- durham dales/cumbria border
here's my costs for freisian/holstein bull calves this is per two animals until off milk
1-£50 for calves
2-£32 for milk powder
3-£16 for cream pellets
4-£14 for follow on pellets
5-£6 straw
6-£15 hay
7-£5 water,electric
8-£10 diesel running about for feed. Collecting the calves etc
9-£4 mineral block
10-£20 for medicines
11-£5 office duties
12-£10 tractor
13-£15 unexpecteds
I think I have covered everything I have it wrote down in the house accurate. Works out about £100 a calf to buy and get them off milk
1-£50 for calves
2-£32 for milk powder
3-£16 for cream pellets
4-£14 for follow on pellets
5-£6 straw
6-£15 hay
7-£5 water,electric
8-£10 diesel running about for feed. Collecting the calves etc
9-£4 mineral block
10-£20 for medicines
11-£5 office duties
12-£10 tractor
13-£15 unexpecteds
I think I have covered everything I have it wrote down in the house accurate. Works out about £100 a calf to buy and get them off milk
Thanks for this a great help
Walterp
Member
- Location
- Pembrokeshire
Me? We'd look for yearling store heifers coming off the hills when it starts raining in October, preferably an unfashionable cross (Angus?), out-winter on a bit of silage and what they can forage, then in the Spring hope for compensatory growth, then bull.Always reckoned £100 to rear a calf, bag of powder, coarse mix/pellets straw and whatever
Have not done man for a few years but may have a go this year to push stock numbers up, listen to @Walterp and he will tell you leave the baby calves where they are and buy some young stores instead to save the agony.
It works better than it sounds.
Guiggs
Member
- Location
- Leicestershire
Your costs will become irrelevant if you lose any because you will be making a loss!
Remember to stay on top of your management, calves are very delicate when being hand reared, they go down hill so fast you can't afford to just feed them quickly, that one time you do because your in a rush will be the time one of them misses it's feed or is a bit under the weather, it will then start to go downhill over a few days and die but not before you've pumped x pounds of medicine into it!!!
Remember to stay on top of your management, calves are very delicate when being hand reared, they go down hill so fast you can't afford to just feed them quickly, that one time you do because your in a rush will be the time one of them misses it's feed or is a bit under the weather, it will then start to go downhill over a few days and die but not before you've pumped x pounds of medicine into it!!!
the first batch you will think this is a easy job to do but a couple batches down the line when disease will build up and bit you in the arse been their done that and still learning from it after several years I think mine cost me about £120 to 12 weeks its on here some where about 2 years ago on a post
If you can do all in all out so you can do a total clean down and disinfect between batches. We have found
Cleaning out the muck half way through their time on milk helps quite a lot with pneumonia as the straw underneath starts getting damp and heating up if left too long
Cleaning out the muck half way through their time on milk helps quite a lot with pneumonia as the straw underneath starts getting damp and heating up if left too long
You seem to do a lot unnecessary things, get a good milk powder, fed twice a day if young calves then once a day, good calf pellet and you wont need cream pellets or mineral blocks and straw is sufficient, no need for hay. Id suggest a higher quality calf will cause you less costs in the future, it will grow quicker and have less health issues. We vaccinate with rispoval intranasal when they arrive then aferw 10 weekz give a 2 dose rispoval 4 vaccine 2 program.
Anonymous...
Member
We found hay made ours a bit "pot bellied"
So ours get 1 bag of volac . 2 ltrs twice a day with a course calf mix wean at 8-10 weeks
They graze on the clean bedding straw then weather permitting out to grass but I keep them on a mix of beef grower nuts and sugar beet shreds ( around a kilo per head per day )
So ours get 1 bag of volac . 2 ltrs twice a day with a course calf mix wean at 8-10 weeks
They graze on the clean bedding straw then weather permitting out to grass but I keep them on a mix of beef grower nuts and sugar beet shreds ( around a kilo per head per day )
Headless chicken
Member
- Location
- West Wales
Can u enlighten me as to cream pellets?
- Location
- South shropshire
We rear Hereford bull calves and finish them for Dovecote Waitrose. I recon all costs inc labour, rent on she'd, mortality ( it does happen), triple vacc castration, de horn, straw, milk, 23kg per calf and conc £150 per calf.
I'm sure it can be done cheaper, but there are some very confused calculators around
Still good value compared with a weaned calf and the standstill when the weaned calf arrives and adapts to new regime /ration....been there and tried it.
I'm sure it can be done cheaper, but there are some very confused calculators around
Still good value compared with a weaned calf and the standstill when the weaned calf arrives and adapts to new regime /ration....been there and tried it.
What growth rates are you getting with that? As others have said not sure about feeding hay just feed decent straw. Shouldn't need minerals as there should be adequate in the milk and nuts and not sure about feeding cream pellets. We don't use any of these ourselves.
- Location
- roe valley
This is good guys im in the same situation myself wether to buy calves or not. Interesting to see the difference in the costs. I thought they would be higher. How long are you/what weight do you keep them to, or do you just get rid at 12 weeks?