Do we switch??

[6891tmc]

Hi all. Not sure how to word my question but I will give it a go. I currently work with my father on his small holder. We keep around 15 head of suckler cows and what ever calves we get from that. Its part time but keeps us busy.
I will become head of holding some day but with my full time job I'm slightly dreading it however I do enjoy the work. My question is should I stay with the suckler herd and try and juggle watching cows heat and calving etc or switch to finishing steers. Granted there's a lot of work with finishing steers also. I just thought it would make life a small bit easier. I will have to put my full time job first as it's my main source of income. I also have to factor in the fact I have a small family so have others to consider.
Just wondering if anyone out there can juggle as much and if so how do they manage.
Many thanks in advance.

 

[Al R]

Do they calve inside? Wintered inside etc? If you enjoy the sucklers and they generate a profit would cameras in the shed be of use? The worker with me has a camera over their lambing ewes (20odd pedigree) in a shed and they check it a few times a day, if their not sure on something they can either pop home - 8 mile or get their parents/neighbour to quickly check something. Works well

 

[Cowabunga]

It comes down to the breed and temperament of the sucklers. 15 nice docile sucklers shouldn't be more than the occasional inconvenience really. However, if you have little affinity to them and the job and the layout and system is old fashioned and labour intensive, give it up. It's not as if 15 sucklers make much net income for you unless they are some special pedigree.

The main thing is to have a system that takes the least amount of your time annually. If you use AI, then consider synchronising them so they calve in one close batch perhaps. I'm sure that an hour every other day could be achievable for most of the year. I TB tested [first day with the jabs] 225 cows and heifers today in 2.5 hours including ¾ for lunch and a seven mile trip to the heifer shed. Admittedly there were four of us for the dairy cows to keep cows flowing but two of us did the 15 dry cows and 35 bulling heifers which had locking yolks in just over half an hour including taking BVD blood test for monitoring purposes from a random 20 heifers that will be vaccinated for it next week. Nice easy stress-free work.

Avoid Limos! Think about Herefords.

 

[Juggler]

I did it for 23 years, 25 to 30 pedigree cows and 100 pedigree sheep plus a fairly full on full time job and a young family.
It's do-able but I found I was doing something every evening and weekend, even using my annual leave to lamb sheep and go to bull sales, decided to sell up the stock 5 years ago and don't regret it, now rent the land out, do some other bits and bobs and have more time with the Mrs and kids than I ever had. Suits me.

I swapped from pedigree Blues & Lims to Angus cows & Tex to Lleyn ewes, that definitely helped with workload but in the end I just couldn't see it being sustainable alongside a full time job, ironically, now the kids are older they could help out which kind of makes it almost do-able again if the urge took me