Suckler cow breed

Jones24

Member
Livestock Farmer
Montbéliardes x beef? :)

Would of thought they would make some nice sucklers.. but i will still stick to my salers cross for my ground.
 

Wolds Beef

Member
Another cow thread! @Stevt . I see you are near Doncaster! Well you are practically on one of the easy care, easy feed native breeds. The Lincoln Red. The Multi Breed Sale at Newark on the 23rd is the place to be. You might even pick up some good Heifers that are docile and quiet and will cross very well with most breeds including continentals. Literally as I was writing this my daughter has watched a cow calve by herself! Another animal added to the Winceby Herd.
WB
 

bazza3034

Member
Location
co.tyrone
Fact not unless fertilser desial and labour and machinery contractor fees and shed up keep is free in your world tell me what do you think it take s to keep a suckler cow
 

Jones24

Member
Livestock Farmer
Fact not unless fertilser desial and labour and machinery contractor fees and shed up keep is free in your world tell me what do you think it take s to keep a suckler cow

Appreciate everyone has there system. For us if sucklers costs where anywhere near your Cop then we wouldent keep them. Ours are out all year. Try to winter them on kale for 100 days and back on the hill again.. there hasent been a tractor on the hill ever.. no costs in sheds.slurry ect.. let them do that on there own.

But as I said everyone has there own system and business.
 
Fact not unless fertilser desial and labour and machinery contractor fees and shed up keep is free in your world tell me what do you think it take s to keep a suckler cow

Most types of farming work on historical costs.

Will already have most of the above.

Thus giving lower cost of production, leaving a margin, some for farmer (and his bills) & some for reinvestment.

Nothing here, pays if costed carefully, yet I've ended up quite well off, with few qualifications, long term business.
 

Wolds Beef

Member
I gather from the breed secretary that we have the pleasure of Scott Donaldson, H&H joint MD as the auctioneer at the Multi Breed Sale at Newark on the 23rd March. Hopefully he will bring some of you northern boys to see how good the Lincoln Red is as a suckler cow. I now have 4 calves on the ground born in lovely conditions, warm and sunny in south facing, open crewyards.
WB
 

Hfd Cattle

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Hereford
What a stupid comment
I would far rather keep a cow and breed my own than go to market and try and buy suckler bred weanlings.....utter buffoonery of the highest order to say cows don't pay !
We buy in a lot of calves in to rear in May/June and we buy in a lot of 'dairy ' bred stores in the Autumn to over winter but the ones that pay the best are the sucklers . Have just fostered a calf onto a heifer which lost one, and though the calf is a good one ,it will never make the grade of the others in the group that are suckler bred !
.....good job we don't all take the view 'cows don't ' pay else it would be all
Dairy bred calves and they would be a premium. If a cow costs £2.50 a day to keep then it's not the cow enterprise that need looking at its the business !
 

Agrivator

Member
I gather from the breed secretary that we have the pleasure of Scott Donaldson, H&H joint MD as the auctioneer at the Multi Breed Sale at Newark on the 23rd March. Hopefully he will bring some of you northern boys to see how good the Lincoln Red is as a suckler cow. I now have 4 calves on the ground born in lovely conditions, warm and sunny in south facing, open crewyards.
WB

Has a bit of Limousin been put into the Lincoln Red?

And if not, why not? It wouldn't do a bit of harm.
 

Wolds Beef

Member
There 'P' and 'XP' Lincoln Red's. The P's are pure Lincoln Red like at South Ormsby Estate(Facebook) and St Fort(Website). The XP's have in them, a little continental blood done openly in the breed improvement scheme. Maine Anjou, Limousin, Chianina, and Blues were used in there background and then bred using a percentage system. The old boys that started used words like Majestic, Limithan and Chieftain in the names of the Bulls but this was slowly dropped! but if you go back in the pedigrees you can work out what they have in them most of the time. a very few of mine have a little South Devon in them and I have used family names on the female side to reflect this like, Sade, Sadira, Sandy and so on. You get the idea!! They can now hold there own in the Interbreed classes as was proved at the Royal Welsh this last year. Of course that is a judges opinion!!. Newstead farm(Facebook) is another example of a farm using Lincoln,s and box selling their beef. There are also some large herds at Sutton estates using Lincoln,s crossed with angus to get the premium but using the maternal traits of the Lincoln for ease of management.
WB
 
Currently have HE x cows but not impressed with there Mothering in the first 24hrs and quite a bit of bag trouble. What replacements should I look at. Must be easy calving and fleshing.

Terminal sire on carefully selected HE x Fresian cows is hard to beat, but an easyish calving Charolais bull on a herd of Salers cows will do it.
 

Roy_H

Member
Has a bit of Limousin been put into the Lincoln Red?

And if not, why not? It wouldn't do a bit of harm.
Quite a few native beef breeds have had "The Limousin influence" including Sussex. I remember a chap from Genus telling me that whilst admiring a herd of South Devons he just happened to say half jokingly that "They are so shapely they almost look as if they've had a bit of Limmo blood put into them" To which the farmer replied "Er....well.." and winked at him ;)
 

Cowgirl

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Ayrshire
There 'P' and 'XP' Lincoln Red's. The P's are pure Lincoln Red like at South Ormsby Estate(Facebook) and St Fort(Website). The XP's have in them, a little continental blood done openly in the breed improvement scheme. Maine Anjou, Limousin, Chianina, and Blues were used in there background and then bred using a percentage system. The old boys that started used words like Majestic, Limithan and Chieftain in the names of the Bulls but this was slowly dropped! but if you go back in the pedigrees you can work out what they have in them most of the time. a very few of mine have a little South Devon in them and I have used family names on the female side to reflect this like, Sade, Sadira, Sandy and so on. You get the idea!! They can now hold there own in the Interbreed classes as was proved at the Royal Welsh this last year. Of course that is a judges opinion!!. Newstead farm(Facebook) is another example of a farm using Lincoln,s and box selling their beef. There are also some large herds at Sutton estates using Lincoln,s crossed with angus to get the premium but using the maternal traits of the Lincoln for ease of management.
WB
Thanks for explaining that - I was curious to know! “Done openly in the breed improvement scheme” is the important bit!
 

egbert

Member
Livestock Farmer
Quite a few native beef breeds have had "The Limousin influence" including Sussex. I remember a chap from Genus telling me that whilst admiring a herd of South Devons he just happened to say half jokingly that "They are so shapely they almost look as if they've had a bit of Limmo blood put into them" To which the farmer replied "Er....well.." and winked at him ;)

It was done quite openly in decades past (I recall a blonde cross calf going through the pedigree sale ring, with some reference to grading up), but most pedigree/pure breeders have stepped back from it. Some commercial herds use a lim as a crossing bull on them, but carefully select out progeny.

There's a double muscled gene within the breed, and a lot of bulls are tested for it - many breeders don't want it due to calving issues.
My own experience of it was that I got the occasional calves really really stuck, and got rid of the bull responsible quickly, but that then, his daughters would throw up the odd one, usually with disastrous results.

As for behavioural traits...i'll stick with pure bred thanks.
 

Wolds Beef

Member
Last evening, I checked the cows at about 7.40pm and a cow had signs she was starting so I came home(200m down lane) and went back at 9.20pm to find she had calved, calf was up and sucking! Now that has cost me very little in labour or angst!. Last year I helped only one of my 27 calving cows! The bulls are 'XP' Lincoln Red's and I have already bought my next bull! He will be delivered in September! He was the champion at the Autumn Sale!!
@Cowgirl My wife is from Paisley! We met in Ayrshire at a Countrylink weekend!
WB
 

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