Starting a sucker herd
- Thread starter Tom19
- Start date
- Location
- Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk
Did you expect anything different
i always had a love for Charolais,limousine and blues but as some suggest blues might not be best starting.the current plan is to buy a few limo breeding heifers, breed them to limo bulls keep all the heifers and sell bulls as stores,second breeding will probably be to a Charolais
- Location
- West Wales
Commercial, pedigree’s are overdone in both sheep and cattle
Mine are pedigree but run commercially, the best stay with a south Devon bull and the rest get crossed, sell a couple of bulls a year retain all heifers, normally do a bit of showing too but at the end of the day they have to earn their keep. Can have the smartest looking cow but if she doesn't rear a calf every year she's out the herd.
I would go pedigree lim hfrs even if you didnt always use a lim bull on them. Beware of calving anything with great shape and no room in the pelvis
Something similar to what we did. Started with some Hereford & blues out of dairy cows and calves them to an easy calving lim... also bought some older cows all of different breeds to see what’s the best that would suit us etc... 4 years down line... herefords from dairy cows are doing well, just calves and get on with it... blues have had one or 2 issues. Still buying Hereford calves from dairy cows and rearing them to calve at 24months. First year we been putting them to easy calving lim and over the years we been putting them to calve to different breeeds but found charalois sell best for us. We ai so nice to choose what breed to cow/heifer. Also try to sell ours around the 9/10month old. That’s from my experience.
Dont waste of time
do you have any pictures of stabiliser x lim calves by any chance
Danllan
Member
- Location
- Sir Gar / Carms
I read the thread with interest - having started a suckler herd - and then you wrote that... they're the bovine equivalent of bulldogs or pugs. I guess you can define such a herd as freely as you want, but it's always implied low maintenance to me, and so the calving ease - or lack of it - with those breeds would preclude them from being choices for a suckler herd.
Yes with blues and limos there can be calving difficulties,but not always,I’m just looking down different routes first
beefandsleep
Member
- Location
- Staffordshire
None on the ground yet from the lim but can get some of the Angus. Tremendous growth but the heifers are not going to get the weight before they need to go hence the change. Heifers 500kgs at 13–14m best steers was 616kgs at 13m!! Forage based diet but they have had 2ks barley and 2kgs beans/oats blend since weaning. I should probably run the heifers just on silage.
It’s the cows that impress me most, just hassle free with plenty of milk for the calves and very low maintenance, not pulled one yet and calves up and sucked very quick.
Blue cows on the other hand?several needed assistance, too much milk, mastitis, couple not wanting their calves, downers!!, massive appetites.
I won’t be bulling any more blue heifers anyway.
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JMTHORNLEY
Member
- Location
- Glossop
I started my heard with two cows bought from Chelford mart with the dream of being in the Shorthorn pedigree society, alas that never happened so I’ve done this
Bulled with the pedigree Shorthorn for years to gradually build my herd of home bred animals, closed herd all very good blood lines and then billed to the blue. Nice short easy calving bull, specifically selected to go over my cows. Best decision I’ve made so far, come out like beans and grow like weeds. Hoping to be selling them direct to a local butcher this year round. Had to take the hit with the bull calves, or so I thought, had a good market for them in the end.
Anyway all I’ll recommend is the Shorthorn with a commercial cross I doubt you’d be disappointed but they will drive you crazy, be warned ?
Bulled with the pedigree Shorthorn for years to gradually build my herd of home bred animals, closed herd all very good blood lines and then billed to the blue. Nice short easy calving bull, specifically selected to go over my cows. Best decision I’ve made so far, come out like beans and grow like weeds. Hoping to be selling them direct to a local butcher this year round. Had to take the hit with the bull calves, or so I thought, had a good market for them in the end.
Anyway all I’ll recommend is the Shorthorn with a commercial cross I doubt you’d be disappointed but they will drive you crazy, be warned ?
- Location
- our house, Norn Iron
An old farmer with cows said "it was his hobby, & if his hobby had of been golf that would cost money too"
Just a thought on AI...we use a bull but the last one went with TB so were forced to use AI for a season.
Got some great calves from it, & most were served in the house which was fine, but it was a right PITA having to drag cows from the field to get served when plenty of other things going on....tho I suppose if you are more switched on to it you can keep the ones needing served closer to the yard.
Yes they can be a bit plain and hard finnishers but there’s nothing like a saler cow to calve and want to look after her calf and crossed with a charalais have really nice calves. Also saler bull are very easy calving on heifers
livestock 1
Member
One of the things that is key in my mind is keeping an eye on replacements costs.
Plenty of outfits near or over the number 3 mark.
My calculator doesn’t like it one bit
More money in the cheaper ones as long as you aren’t buying crap
Big egos take a lot of feeding
Plenty of outfits near or over the number 3 mark.
My calculator doesn’t like it one bit
More money in the cheaper ones as long as you aren’t buying crap
Big egos take a lot of feeding