What is your ideal suckler cow?

Walterp · Oct 20, 2014

DrWazzock said:
Why do people send a cow with calf to market, if it's not to get rid of a problem?

Around here there are smaller, semi-retired farmers who rear on heifers specifically for this trade - they do all the work, take all the risk, so's you can buy a nice first calver with a classy calf for £1,100 or so.

Below that trade there's dispersal sales, where older cattle aren't wanted much - I'd suppose TF's main bidding competition'd come from dealers rather than farmers.

Who else would want to buy suckler cows?

Me? If TB weren't rife around here, we wouldn't bother keeping cows at all.

M-J-G · Oct 20, 2014

Walterp said:
Around here there are smaller, semi-retired farmers who rear on heifers specifically for this trade - they do all the work, take all the risk, so's you can buy a nice first calver with a classy calf for £1,100 or so.

Below that trade there's dispersal sales, where older cattle aren't wanted much - I'd suppose TF's main bidding competition'd come from dealers rather than farmers.

Who else would want to buy suckler cows?

Me? If TB weren't rife around here, we wouldn't bother keeping cows at all.

A heifer and calf for £1100, she'd have been more 6 months earlier as beef.

Why does Tb encourage you to keep cows?

Henarar · Oct 20, 2014

dealer put the bottom in the market for suck cows in market plenty go for death in calf or not but there are farmer buyers as well
I have bought cows and calves in market before and they have been fine, I don't now as we seem to know a few and buy them private but I do buy cows and calves as well as bulling and in calf heifers whatever seems the right animal at right money

Walterp · Oct 20, 2014

martin gribbon said:
A heifer and calf for £1100, she'd have been more 6 months earlier as beef.

Why does Tb encourage you to keep cows?

TB lockdown means just that - you can go months or years without being allowed to either sell or buy live cattle, even bulls if you're really unlucky.

So if you want to produce cattle in a TB area you have to keep breeding cows. Then work out how to finish the progeny at a profit ('cos in this area TF would be a relative rarity in consistently being TB free. He's even rarer in relying on it.)

As the cider-drinker says, there's a wide range of cattle available; the semi-retired guys who breed heifers would get their heifer calves either as dairy crosses (black Limousin is popular, as is Belgian Blue) or from stores, then usually use a Limousin bull.

I don't really know whether they'd be better off fattening these heifers themselves, because they'd have to feed them and house them whilst, as first calvers, they've probably been outside most of the time on grass and a bit of hay. This is a system that'd suit semi-retired guys who, often, have been in dairying before retiring, and they use females that also suit this system.

Do they make a profit? Yes, I think they do - the heifer calf might've cost £180, so there's a relatively large margin available. In a non-TB area, it's a great way to run a cattle business.

M-J-G · Oct 20, 2014

Ive got a 21 month old heifer that was no good for selling as a breeder who Ive been feeding 3kg a day for 6 weeks or so up until then she was on grass, and I'll be disappointed if shes not worth 1200, never mind another winter and risking calving them for that.

Henarar · Oct 20, 2014

martin gribbon said:
Ive got a 21 month old heifer that was no good for selling as a breeder who Ive been feeding 3kg a day for 6 weeks or so up until then she was on grass, and I'll be disappointed if shes not worth 1200, never mind another winter and risking calving them for that.

Your right buying in is the cheapest way to get replacements
It can also be the most expensive

Walterp · Oct 20, 2014

Henarar said:
Your right buying in is the cheapest way to get replacements
It can also be the most expensive

Farmers like treadmills: industry surveys consistently show that keeping a herd to produce progeny, rather than buying progeny to produce herd replacements, is tough.

The old guy whom everyone knows, buying a few heifer calves every year, and selling then on after calving, may make more profit per head or per hour spent than many an intensive suckler farmer.

But no one wants to do it.

Amazing...

Hilly · Oct 20, 2014

I

martin gribbon said:
A heifer and calf for £1100, she'd have been more 6 months earlier as beef.

Why does Tb encourage you to keep cows?

Ive sold store heifers for 1250, I would devastated selling them a year later with a calf for 1100.

Poorbuthappy · Oct 20, 2014

Hilly said:
I

Ive sold store heifers for 1250, I would devastated selling them a year later with a calf for 1100.

martin gribbon said:
Ive got a 21 month old heifer that was no good for selling as a breeder who Ive been feeding 3kg a day for 6 weeks or so up until then she was on grass, and I'll be disappointed if shes not worth 1200, never mind another winter and risking calving them for that.

I agree with what you're saying, but you have to remember Walter is talking about dairy crosses.
However, I've been there with those dairy crosses, and considered running a bull with them, but could see no additional money to be made over selling them either as bulling heifers, forward stores, or taking them to fat, all of which could be done by or before the age you could sell them with a calf at foot, for similar money (a little less for the bulling heifers).

Walterp said:
The old guy whom everyone knows, buying a few heifer calves every year, and selling then on after calving, may make more profit per head or per hour spent than many an intensive suckler farmer.

But no one wants to do it.

Amazing...

Not sure how you work that out Walter - rearing calves, and calving heifers, is always going to be more labour intensive, and arguably more risky, than mature age sucklers surely?

Walterp · Oct 20, 2014

Poorbuthappy said:
Not sure how you work that out Walter - rearing calves, and calving heifers, is always going to be more labour intensive, and arguably more risky, than mature age sucklers surely?

Back in the day, it used to be really commonplace for retiring dairy farmers around here to buy in and rear on dairy replacements. I don't see it so much these days, so I'm guessing it's not so common; perhaps 'cos the dairy boys prefer to batch-rear their own breeding? Or 'cos the old guys done finally retired? Or maybe I don't get out enough?

Anyway, their big business risk was always dodgy quarters more than anything else. I recall one old chap telling me his success rate was 7 out of 10 (in a good year). Dunno what he did with the other 3. Maybe that's why it's not so common these days? and contract-rearing is?

What's the big business risk with rearing beef replacement heifers? I'd guess that it's at the other end of the job, when they're bought in as calves. But these old guys will have reared shed-loads of calves in their time, so the risk'd be minimal: they'd have the housing and management spot on.

So the success rate would be more than 7/10 - more like 10/10 most years, being that they'd all be using the same Limousin bull that they'd use every year. I think that they must, in general, be pretty confident before they'd use Belgian Blue crosses, is what I'd be thinking if I were by the ring.

Fat? Some semi-retired chaps prefer this system, but they tended (so far as I can tell) to hit two big problems: they'd have to pay twice as much for the calf (so the monetary risk is doubled, straight off) and then they'd have to feed the bloody thing to get it to grow to a U grade (so the monetary cost is much more than doubled). It's the feed costs that kill that job: wonderful cattle, just no profit in doing it.

Rather, there is a profit, but it's gone to the dairy farmer and the processor.

DrWazzock · Oct 20, 2014

Well it always surprises me is to see an in calf cow with calf at foot knocked down for £500 - £600 (Herefords) even when it's a known retirement job, then in comes some 18 month old store Friesian x bullock that looks like a coat hanger and up it goes to £800 or £900, while in the fat ring next door they've struggled to reach £2 per kg for the best continentals.

And yes it's usually only dealers who by the in calf cows.

Yes you can buy in trouble with in calf cows but you can with stores. How many older stores in the market are poor doers that they've given up trying to fatten and weeded out of another batch?

DB67 · Oct 20, 2014

There are a few guys up here who actually do the heifer with calf at foot business. Right good yokes too (average £3000 right enough) but they don't keep any so what your getting is top end cattle. They are buying dearish hwifwrs and taking all the risk. They will admit the risks are big because of expense of good heifers and the ones that don't rear. One guy has said he may change breed policy.

We have started buying bulling heifers but that's not short of its own risk as even good ones are likely to be someone else's cast offs.

TheRanger · Oct 21, 2014

Walterp said:
Around here there are smaller, semi-retired farmers who rear on heifers specifically for this trade - they do all the work, take all the risk, so's you can buy a nice first calver with a classy calf for £1,100 or so.

Below that trade there's dispersal sales, where older cattle aren't wanted much - I'd suppose TF's main bidding competition'd come from dealers rather than farmers.

Who else would want to buy suckler cows?

Me? If TB weren't rife around here, we wouldn't bother keeping cows at all.

Fantastic trade for heifers with calves at foot this year (unlike the last 2 years), neighbour has sold most of his for over £2000. Lim x Fresians with mostly Simmental calves at foot.

GTB · Oct 21, 2014

Henarar said:
Your right buying in is the cheapest way to get replacements
It can also be the most expensive

My father used to operate a very profitable flying suckler herd. He would buy anything that looked worth the money. Trouble is he often bought in disease too.

Poorbuthappy · Oct 21, 2014

TheRanger said:
Fantastic trade for heifers with calves at foot this year (unlike the last 2 years), neighbour has sold most of his for over £2000. Lim x Fresians with mostly Simmental calves at foot.

The way Walter describes producing these heifers to sell, buying 2nd/3rd quality calves and not feeding them much, would suggest a value of £1100 is realistic.
Not sure they would make even that down here, as figures of £2000+ aren't seen for good quality sucklers in general.

JP1 · Oct 21, 2014

3rd calver, late May born calf, live calf every year, never pulled a single calf in the entire 35 cow group, lives on foggage until Christmas then barley straw, odd bale of rough haylage off conservation marsh and a mouthful of brewers grains

Heifer calf will be Galloway Cattle Society registered and being red will doubtless be of interest to German buyers but could equally live out on the hill and calve to a Limousin

wdah/him · Oct 21, 2014

JP1 said:
3rd calver, late May born calf, live calf every year, never pulled a single calf in the entire 35 cow group, lives on foggage until Christmas then barley straw, odd bale of rough haylage off conservation marsh and a mouthful of brewers grains

View attachment 74803

Heifer calf will be Galloway Cattle Society registered and being red will doubtless be of interest to German buyers but could equally live out on the hill and calve to a Limousin

that i feel is the future for sucklers, management animal for rough grazing with lowland for finishing,

nice looking turnout there

Walterp · Oct 21, 2014

Poorbuthappy said:
The way Walter describes producing these heifers to sell, buying 2nd/3rd quality calves and not feeding them much, would suggest a value of £1100 is realistic.
Not sure they would make even that down here, as figures of £2000+ aren't seen for good quality sucklers in general.

Nope, that's not really accurate: £1,100 buys you a nice outfit.

This is accurate - Huw and Rhian Leyshon have a bi annual sale in Neath, with top quality breeding cattle. These are some of the 2012 and 2014 figures, which to me suggest the downward trend that other areas seem to have escaped. The photo is of the top in 2014, going (with others) to the well-known equestrian Mr Keri Tanner of Britton Ferry, near Neath.

2012
top Spring heifer/calf £2,950
average £2,265
bulling heifers average £960

2014
top Spring heifer/calf £2,320
average £1,735
bulling heifers average £949

M-J-G · Oct 21, 2014

Those who are selling cows and calves for prices in the hundreds would be better off lifting the calves at two weeks old to put them through the ring, and selling or fattening the mother, and if shes a heifer get her away before she's 30 months.

Calving cattle, especially heifers and selling them at anywhere close to beef money is madness unless people just do it because they like it and aren't bothered about the money.

A beef finishing animal is always going to be less bother that a breeding heifer regardless of how easy calving/managed they are.

Hilly · Oct 21, 2014

Walterp said:
Nope, that's not really accurate: £1,100 buys you a nice outfit.

This is accurate - Huw and Rhian Leyshon have a bi annual sale in Neath, with top quality breeding cattle. These are some of the 2012 and 2014 figures, which to me suggest the downward trend that other areas seem to have escaped. The photo is of the top in 2014, going (with others) to the well-known equestrian Mr Keri Tanner of Britton Ferry, near Neath.

2012
top Spring heifer/calf £2,950
average £2,265
bulling heifers average £960

2014
top Spring heifer/calf £2,320
average £1,735
bulling heifers average £949

View attachment 74862

Bloody awfull that, BB will be soft as sh!t and require a long winter.

What is your ideal suckler cow?

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