Northeastfarmer
Member
- Location
- Cleveland
And mine
forage situation
- Thread starter muleman
- Start date
livestock 1
Member
Haha does he want a job??
How much is he on an hour??
gone up the hill
Member
- Location
- Devon
Looking in the shed there looks a few replacement calves running about!
livestock 1
Member
gone up the hill
Member
- Location
- Devon
Complete madness if you ask me.
I told him to wean the calves off and turn the cows out into a small field even if he has to feed them silage, they would certainly eat less outdoors as they would pick at any grass growing and would certainly save on using so much straw/ work!
Imo suckler cows want/ should be outdoors as long as possible and should certainly be out at this time of year!
gone up the hill
Member
- Location
- Devon
No point keeping a cow for 12 months if she hasn't a calve!
livestock 1
Member
I dare bet there’s not many can say (myself included) on here that only has 2 out of every hundred having a free holiday
muleman
Member
and mine....reminds me of a fella i know,he has 80 cows and always sells 81 calves....but his nickname is flat 9!
livestock 1
Member
I know him well and yes that’s definitely the same man
muleman
Member
oh dear....i hesitated while typing!
Cow thats lost a calf or will not adopt one needs sending down the road, she will only get mud fat and have problems calving next time imo. I cant afford passengers .
livestock 1
Member
Don’t worry about that he knows it too and I won’t say owt lol
livestock 1
Member
What about one that looses time?? Say a few months?
muleman
Member
seems to know what he`s doing though...eblex did some costings and he was always in the top 10%!
Get her gone
muleman
Member
i sometimes just keep them if their a young cow that i like....would just have to buy a heifer to replace it with so might as well just keep the cow that is accustomed to the farm.
gone up the hill
Member
- Location
- Devon
I seem to find that one year you don't seem to lose hardly any and the next year you go from one disaster to another and there is no reason for it more often than not!
Worst year I had was when we got caught with a really bad BVD outbreak, lost/ had to put down a good 40% of calves, I wouldn't wish that on anyone, one cow would calve and was fine and the next was born, looked okay but never moved/ wouldn't stand and had to be shot, the amount of work it caused and time taken up was just unreal.
livestock 1
Member
Yes I wouldn’t doubt it. Very good farmer and his son.
Worth remembering Eblex did one here and they told me only the top third of hill farmers showed a profit. And 100% of the top third had very good stewardship schemes. That was maybe 10 years ago though. Remember when we used to get paid
livestock 1
Member
That’s all of them haha