Is there any future in suckler cows ?

Happy

Member
Location
Scotland
I've worked most types of farming.

I certainly know veg growers who have suffered from frost bite in the harder winters of the past. I myself ended up in quite a state doing a 36 hour shift harvesting Xmas sprouts, including 14 hours of a damp frost working in the dark.

On the other hand vegetables don't attack the growers. If stock are dying of hypothermia or starvation, may be time to plant trees.

We really as farmers should not be critical of each other & if we think the grass is greener. Well sell up & buy a different type of farm

Certainly can’t be much fun being a carrot grower right now:(
Fields saturated for months, supermarkets demanding them in the shop. Landowner not wanting you anywhere near his field in these conditions.
Have seen some real sorry sights in the past few weeks.
 

Treg

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Cornwall
Weaning calves is easy . Shut them in the creep feeder when they go in, back up with trailer and take off to shed at farm . All my cattle are fed out of a bag with a bit of rolled barley dribbled along the ground at least 3 times a week purely for the reason of cattle management . You only you have to stand at the gate and rattle a bag and they come running . I have purpose built holding pens between some fields where I can easily get cattle in just by following a bag .
Pd'ing is not that necessary as I keep a record of which cows are bulling and when and, like I said previously, if they are seen bulling 3 times then they are moved to another patch away from the bull left to rear their calf then they are gone (they are Pd tested before leaving just in case I have got it wrong )
I'm happy to be questioned as there's are probably not many do it my way but it works for me and there is ,in my book, nothing more satisfying than sitting in the truck at half 5 or 6 in the morning watching the cows . You see so much! . As I posted earlier it is surprising how quite a few of the cows calve quite close together, i.e. we have had 9 calves in the past week and 7 of them bulls .
TB'ing is our biggest headache. We have 3 tests coming up and it's a lot of work moving the kit around but because I spend a lot of time with the cattle they are very quiet and it usually goes smoothly ......it's me that usually upsets the job!!
I calve AYR as well . I use ai on the whole herd , everything written down, as @Hfd Cattle says they quite often calve in groups.
I use different bulls for different families & heifers.
I'd need more sheds if I calved all at once, which wouldn't show a cost in my gross margin but would be a higher capital expenditure.
Never got the whole tight calving pattern thing ? So if you've got a fantastic cow & she slips back a month you cull her? My cows pay for everything I have , I try to be as fair as I can back.
My herd is fully costed (y)
 

Treg

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Cornwall
Certainly can’t be much fun being a carrot grower right now:(
Fields saturated for months, supermarkets demanding them in the shop. Landowner not wanting you anywhere near his field in these conditions.
Have seen some real sorry sights in the past few weeks.
Luckily all those hardships will come to a end with impossible Broccoli & impossible carrots & all veg can be grown in a factory & leave the land for the cows to regenerate ;)
 

Wolds Beef

Member
On the positive side. @M-J-G are you anywhere near the large herds of LR in Scotland? There are now several and there is a lot of interest in them. I understand there will be several people from your part of the world at the Newark Sale on March the 21st (including the auctioneer!!) Scott will actually be judging them at the Royal Highland. To keep it relevent I do feed a few pellets even when they are at grass, because I can inspect them easier and if I rattle a bag they come running so they are easier to handle. The small cost of the pellets is out wayed by the docility.
WB
 

The Ruminant

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Hertfordshire
Never got the whole tight calving pattern thing ? So if you've got a fantastic cow & she slips back a month you cull her? My cows pay for everything I have , I try to be as fair as I can back.
My herd is fully costed (y)
I don’t think anyone culls a cow for slipping by a single month. However, a cow that slips far enough to be outside the pattern isn’t, in my opinion, a ‘fantastic’ cow.

To expand, if the bulls go in on 1st July for 9 weeks, then calving will start on 1st April, ending (in theory) around the 2nd June. This means that even the last cow to calve has 90 days to get over calving, start cycling and get in calf again. If she can’t manage to do this in that time then she’s gone. Why carry passengers and call them ‘fantastic’?
 

digger64

Member
I don’t think anyone culls a cow for slipping by a single month. However, a cow that slips far enough to be outside the pattern isn’t, in my opinion, a ‘fantastic’ cow.

To expand, if the bulls go in on 1st July for 9 weeks, then calving will start on 1st April, ending (in theory) around the 2nd June. This means that even the last cow to calve has 90 days to get over calving, start cycling and get in calf again. If she can’t manage to do this in that time then she’s gone. Why carry passengers and call them ‘fantastic’?
Probably because she has got a big back end and weighs 900 kg !
 
I calve AYR as well . I use ai on the whole herd , everything written down, as @Hfd Cattle says they quite often calve in groups.
I use different bulls for different families & heifers.
I'd need more sheds if I calved all at once, which wouldn't show a cost in my gross margin but would be a higher capital expenditure.
Never got the whole tight calving pattern thing ? So if you've got a fantastic cow & she slips back a month you cull her? My cows pay for everything I have , I try to be as fair as I can back.
My herd is fully costed (y)
My main reasons for liking a tight calving period.
For a short period all focus can go towards that job.
Just dry cows to deal with and not cows and calves which need more space.
Cows can easily stay outside during the winter.
If you have more cows calving at once you are more likely to have a spare calf to foster.
A level bunch if progeny to sell.
Less chance of heifer calves getting bulled if the bulls are taken away (not for you if you AI but I don't have time for that).
All cattle get the same treatments, management, and vet procedures, PD, vaccines, mineral management.
There isn't the knock on effect of staggered handling throughout the year for different groups.

And most importantly I'm not watching for cows calving or approaching calving for any more than a couple of months and I can get on with other things.

A cow cannot be faulted for calving 3 weeks later, not can she really be praised for calving 3 weeks earlier.
I wouldn't cull a cow for slipping a month as long as she calves within the set calving period.
But if she slips out with that period she is far from a fantastic cow IMO, others will disagree. More than 5% barren in a 9 week (6 weeks for heifers) calving is not good.

Different situations have different requirements.
As an old boy said to me years ago, "everyone has their own way of going mad!"
 

Treg

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Cornwall
My main reasons for liking a tight calving period.
For a short period all focus can go towards that job.
Just dry cows to deal with and not cows and calves which need more space.
Cows can easily stay outside during the winter.
If you have more cows calving at once you are more likely to have a spare calf to foster.
A level bunch if progeny to sell.
Less chance of heifer calves getting bulled if the bulls are taken away (not for you if you AI but I don't have time for that).
All cattle get the same treatments, management, and vet procedures, PD, vaccines, mineral management.
There isn't the knock on effect of staggered handling throughout the year for different groups.

And most importantly I'm not watching for cows calving or approaching calving for any more than a couple of months and I can get on with other things.

A cow cannot be faulted for calving 3 weeks later, not can she really be praised for calving 3 weeks earlier.
I wouldn't cull a cow for slipping a month as long as she calves within the set calving period.
But if she slips out with that period she is far from a fantastic cow IMO, others will disagree. More than 5% barren in a 9 week (6 weeks for heifers) calving is not good.

Different situations have different requirements.
As an old boy said to me years ago, "everyone has their own way of going mad!"
It would be extremely boring if we all did the same thing (y)
 

Hilly

Member
I answered the question a while back and the answer is no they have no future , look at how the profitability has dwindled over the years, everything is against them.
Out of curiosity has anyone actually answered the original question? For me i do see a future in suckler cows most certainly. However it will require a high level of management in my opinion irregardless of location or system. What do others believe?
 

Chae1

Member
Location
Aberdeenshire
I will put up the maps but had the field we rotationally graze gps mapped for n,p.k and mag last week.

Field next to it has been continually cut for silage it was sampled too.. What you're saying about docks is already obvious in field raped for silage.

Shall be interesting.

This is field thats been rotationally grazed. Only gets straight N has done for past 3 years.

Ok.
Screenshot_20200216-181208_Drive.jpg

Screenshot_20200216-181229_Drive.jpg


Field thats been continually cut for silage. I van easily put up maps for P & K too if you want. After silage i always put on 60 units of K to replace offtake
Screenshot_20200216-182105_Drive.jpg


Screenshot_20200216-182137_Drive.jpg
 
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Hfd Cattle

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Hereford
how much margin do you reckon they leave? do you finish them? weve done similar in the past but got bother with pneumonia
We used to finish them at around 25/28 mths but sold the last lot as stores at 22 mths which I think paid better. They really want to go on a maize ration to put a nice finish on them which we don't do . After all costs they probably leave around £250/£280 a head which is not a big earner but it's the right side on the books .
All the calves receive 15 m of hexasol on arrival and pneumonia doesn't seem to be a problem but we only buy a batch in Aug / Sept . When we reared calves on milk we would only be buying in May/ June so health problems were easier to mange .
To answer the OP I still think the sucker cow system has a good future but you have to be on top of the management of it . I think the last autumn has shown that in a tough time it's quality that sells and it's been difficult with the 'dairy' bred beef cattle .
You can feed dry cows very cheaply which helps the job .
 

Werzle

Member
Location
Midlands
We used to finish them at around 25/28 mths but sold the last lot as stores at 22 mths which I think paid better. They really want to go on a maize ration to put a nice finish on them which we don't do . After all costs they probably leave around £250/£280 a head which is not a big earner but it's the right side on the books .
All the calves receive 15 m of hexasol on arrival and pneumonia doesn't seem to be a problem but we only buy a batch in Aug / Sept . When we reared calves on milk we would only be buying in May/ June so health problems were easier to mange .
To answer the OP I still think the sucker cow system has a good future but you have to be on top of the management of it . I think the last autumn has shown that in a tough time it's quality that sells and it's been difficult with the 'dairy' bred beef cattle .
You can feed dry cows very cheaply which helps the job .
I have tried to cost both jobs in the past and there isnt much in it but it depends what you want to do and if you want late night calvings etc. One plus of sucklers is the herds worth at the end of the day which is better than a few feeders and buckets.
 

Hfd Cattle

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Hereford
I have tried to cost both jobs in the past and there isnt much in it but it depends what you want to do and if you want late night calvings etc. One plus of sucklers is the herds worth at the end of the day which is better than a few feeders and buckets.
Some of our cull cows recently came to more money than what we gave for them with calves at foot ! ..... long my that continue !
 

unlacedgecko

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Fife
Bit of a change of subject but I find the idea of this mob stocking quite exciting in all honesty. Its a man ranching his stock across land to improve it, grow them and make profit. As has been done for hundreds of years. Isn't that the soul of livestock farming in a nut shell?

It's really really exciting. Combined with HLS grassland and GS4 arable reversion there is great opportunity for someone like me.
 

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