Fleckvieh as a beef sire

Jdunn55

Member
Right, hear me out on this one...

Looking to place my semen orders fairly soon and been having a think

Used limousin as my beef sire last year on the cows, but I've had an idea of using conventional fleckvieh this year.
Reason being any bulls born will be decent enough to rear (probably worse than a limo/bb but better than a Hereford or angus) and the heifers could well be worth some money as in-calf heifers - or even fresh if I have room and feedstock to calve them in at the time

It also means should I lose a large quantity of cows to tb or something in the future then I could even keep the flecks and milk them myself. Or if I had the opportunity to expand etc

Heifers would be going to an Angus still

Thoughts?
 

Mf310

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Co. Laois
AI companies here advertising fleckvieh sires as such now using them later on in season and you have your bull calf worth 250-300 and your heifer calf worth much the same and can bring the heifer to milk if you want, theres benefits in it maybe we should all be thinking of doing same but then theres other lads saying the flekviehs arent half what they are cracked up to be either
 
Right, hear me out on this one...

Looking to place my semen orders fairly soon and been having a think

Used limousin as my beef sire last year on the cows, but I've had an idea of using conventional fleckvieh this year.
Reason being any bulls born will be decent enough to rear (probably worse than a limo/bb but better than a Hereford or angus) and the heifers could well be worth some money as in-calf heifers - or even fresh if I have room and feedstock to calve them in at the time

It also means should I lose a large quantity of cows to tb or something in the future then I could even keep the flecks and milk them myself. Or if I had the opportunity to expand etc

Heifers would be going to an Angus still

Thoughts?
Better than a Hereford or AA? Really?
 

yellowRock

Member
Livestock Farmer
This is exactly what we are doing, although we're looking to move towards a 3 way cross fleck/Scandinavian red/holstein type animal. Using conventional fleck semen instead of angus/bb on older cows that I'd like a heifer from but don't want to use sexed. If a heifer comes out, great, if not well the bull calf isn't worthless

We also have a hereford stock bull we use for sweeping up heifers and the odd cow we have difficulty getting in calf to AI. The fleckvieh calves are generally 10-15 kilos heavier than the hereford, although that's probably down to gestation length.
 
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Ben B

Member
Mixed Farmer
Wow no market for Angus or Herefords. We got $550 for 5 day old Hereford bulls, $330 for heifers but that market was a miss for them we have had them do the same and more then the bulls. Angus calves would be a little less but that's probably to do with Herefords frame size.
 
Location
West Wales
Do you know which regions like them and which don't?
Not a clue 😆 locally we’ve driven a fair demand for the bull calves and they’ve gone on to do well in the markets. Think the Scottish boys quite like simmentals.
Was thinking that the friesian x fleck heifers would be cracking grazing animals and the holstein x flecks would be awesome milkers
Cross a fleck and a Holstein and she’ll graze well. The risk with a friesian is your taking two “beefy” breeds. Your bull selection would have to be perfect if you wanted them as dairy animals. If your happy they are definitely going then no problem as they’d make nice sucklers.

word to the wise though the variation we’ve seen with the same bull is absolutely insane. I’ve got some I’d consider to be perfect and some that are just tubs of lard
 

sidjon

Member
Location
EXMOOR
Wow no market for Angus or Herefords. We got $550 for 5 day old Hereford bulls, $330 for heifers but that market was a miss for them we have had them do the same and more then the bulls. Angus calves would be a little less but that's probably to do with Herefords frame size.
Arse end of Cornwall transport is the killer, locally can sell Herefords private for a premium, but nobody really wants Angus.
 

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Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

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quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

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