Northeastfarmer
Member
- Location
- Cleveland
Aye, I’m adding value to my calves rather than his pocket
Is there any future in suckler cows ?
- Thread starter ges
- Start date
Run the cattle and sheep separate
Rotational grazing mind you anyone swiching to rotational grazing could well see a better improvement than switching to creep feeding
That makes no sense to me
Northeastfarmer
Member
- Location
- Cleveland
So you’d rather give the tax man money than invest it in your farm and business?
Depends what I was buying and if it was going to make me any extra money
But if it makes extra money then you have to pay tax on that
In some cases yes I would rather pay tax
livestock 1
Member
That is only part of the story though as they will be eating gras and whatever else too. But they would still eat grass on creep or not
livestock 1
Member
That isn’t the full story as the calves would be eating grass and sucking so there would still be a conversion without creep.The feed companies claim great conversion rates that never happen here but they probably incorporate grass as a reseed or clover or similar. 3 or 4 to 1 is not unacceptable to expect but yes realistically here nearer 4. Feeding things like cull ewes or cows give bad conversions if they are aged
Chae1
Member
- Location
- Aberdeenshire
@dirty harry s father had a solution to this!
Remember him saying thought it was pointless a cow having 3 teats and rearing one calf.
- Location
- Owaka, New Zealand
Chae1
Member
- Location
- Aberdeenshire
Think he had quiet dairy cows he reared multiple calves off of.
Sure Harry will fill us in. I just met his father briefly when I bought a sprayer from them. He was another example of someone thinking out of the box not from a long line of farmers. Pretty sure he said made money from shoes. Probably wrong though.
- Location
- Owaka, New Zealand
It was my first real money-maker when I started out, and will be my next, with any luck at all.
To churn out 50 calves per season, why house/feed 55 cows when you can feed 7?
(It amazes me how few people actually appear to want to do it, but that's their business).
Thanks for the tagging-in, BTW
Multiple suckling can be very labour intensive though. Dad did it in the 80s with his leftover dairy cows when he gave up milking to rear extra calves to get a suckler herd up and running.
Some cows just would not take the extra calf no matter how hard you tried. Teaching a cow to suckle more than one calf could be an impossible and painfully slow process that would have to be repeated when the first calves were weaned and new ones put on. Even when it went well it could take 15 minutes or more per cow to get them in a yoke and put the calves on probably more by the time they finished suckling? Times that by 10 cows and you may as well milk them and feed the calves with the milk. Not many cows would be happy just standing there in a pen with calves sucking them any old way to give you an easy life either. And they had to be kept separate or you would have all the calves on one cow and the rest either with one calf or none on them and stupid things like that would happen.
Probably need a pen or paddock per cow and calves with a place to out the calves away from the cow until they learn to help themselves properly and every cow would need her own yoke or crush so you aren't waiting for another cow to finish before you can out the next cow on.
Someone near me does it with his sucklers. This is secondhand info but what I've been told they put an extra calf on them as they calve. There is the father and 2 sons there and they are at it all day or so I've been told and they done have that many cows. Half the trouble there was buying calves that had been reared on buckets that didn't know how to suckle and the rest of the trouble was the cow that wouldn't take the calf it must work for them or they wouldnt do it. I'll ask if I see them somewhere.
Some cows just would not take the extra calf no matter how hard you tried. Teaching a cow to suckle more than one calf could be an impossible and painfully slow process that would have to be repeated when the first calves were weaned and new ones put on. Even when it went well it could take 15 minutes or more per cow to get them in a yoke and put the calves on probably more by the time they finished suckling? Times that by 10 cows and you may as well milk them and feed the calves with the milk
. Not many cows would be happy just standing there in a pen with calves sucking them any old way to give you an easy life either. And they had to be kept separate or you would have all the calves on one cow and the rest either with one calf or none on them and stupid things like that would happen. Probably need a pen or paddock per cow and calves with a place to out the calves away from the cow until they learn to help themselves properly and every cow would need her own yoke or crush so you aren't waiting for another cow to finish before you can out the next cow on.
Someone near me does it with his sucklers. This is secondhand info but what I've been told they put an extra calf on them as they calve. There is the father and 2 sons there and they are at it all day or so I've been told and they done have that many cows. Half the trouble there was buying calves that had been reared on buckets that didn't know how to suckle and the rest of the trouble was the cow that wouldn't take the calf
it must work for them or they wouldnt do it. I'll ask if I see them somewhere.
Bossfarmer
Member
- Location
- between Perth and Inverness
what age do you calf your heifers if theyre not creeped?
- Location
- Buxton, Derbyshire
Normally because when someone on here suggests buying a foster calf to go on a cow that’s lost her own, everyone tells them they are bat sh*t crazy because of health status and disease risk!It was my first real money-maker when I started out, and will be my next, with any luck at all.
To churn out 50 calves per season, why house/feed 55 cows when you can feed 7?
(It amazes me how few people actually appear to want to do it, but that's their business).
Thanks for the tagging-in, BTW
I calve mine at 2yrs . Your tempted not to creep feed now aren't you @Bossfarmer ? Only thing I would say is I think there's a bit of a North /South divide on creep feeding, so probably we get a better grass growing season down this end?
Any Scottish farmers that don't creep feed?
I've got to agree with that, I used to buy in calves before I started a suckler herd it was like buying trouble. My sucklers are Hi Health & don't see the vet much.
Hilly
Member
- Location
- Scottish Borders.
You mean they are healthy and some others are unhealthy, no such thing as high health.
No I mean their in a Hi Health scheme & are tested for Bvd & Johnes, also a closed herd for 10yrs so get very few issues.
All cow's & heifers Ai'd so I mean a proper closed herd.
- Location
- East Sussex
Multiple suckling can be very labour intensive though. Dad did it in the 80s with his leftover dairy cows when he gave up milking to rear extra calves to get a suckler herd up and running.
Some cows just would not take the extra calf no matter how hard you tried. Teaching a cow to suckle more than one calf could be an impossible and painfully slow process that would have to be repeated when the first calves were weaned and new ones put on. Even when it went well it could take 15 minutes or more per cow to get them in a yoke and put the calves on probably more by the time they finished suckling? Times that by 10 cows and you may as well milk them and feed the calves with the milk
Probably need a pen or paddock per cow and calves with a place to out the calves away from the cow until they learn to help themselves properly and every cow would need her own yoke or crush so you aren't waiting for another cow to finish before you can out the next cow on.
Someone near me does it with his sucklers. This is secondhand info but what I've been told they put an extra calf on them as they calve. There is the father and 2 sons there and they are at it all day or so I've been told and they done have that many cows. Half the trouble there was buying calves that had been reared on buckets that didn't know how to suckle and the rest of the trouble was the cow that wouldn't take the calf
Doesn’t have to be that hard work but, yes, I would agree. If you have an open sided race you can run a few cows in and open the gates to let the calves milk them out. Trouble is you then have to feed the cow as well as manage the teats, mastitis etc from all the beating they get as well as feed the calf.
In the field you have trouble with fostering as well as all the above and having to cope with non doers that the cows don’t like.
It can be done but time and hassle will need to be friends imo.
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between 2 and 2 and a half depending on the heifer