forced to stop milking, advice on making suckle herd from dairy

[Whitepeak]

What about breeding dairy replacements?
You calve the heifer and parlour train her. Sell her full in milk ,ready to go.
Put your best cows to dairy and the others to beef.
Sell beef stores / finish them.
And because your not selling milk, spending hours a day in the pit, you don't have to re invest in a new parlour .
Always trade for a full in milk, fresh calved , parlour trained animal. Money straight in the tank!
Edit, and no dairy inspections? Just a farm assured?

Know quite a few who do this, main thing is you need to milk the heifers for atleast a week before you can sell her, preferably a bit longer. So what do you do with all that milk? Also need to be very well managed to ensure all heifers are saleable ie. No 3 titters, no retained cleansings etc.
Also the nearest dairy market to Newark would be Leek which is 2 hours away.

 

[Woolless]

Know quite a few who do this, main thing is you need to milk the heifers for atleast a week before you can sell her, preferably a bit longer. So what do you do with all that milk? Also need to be very well managed to ensure all heifers are saleable ie. No 3 titters, no retained cleansings etc.
Also the nearest dairy market to Newark would be Leek which is 2 hours away.

Regarding the milk, what about some pigs? Buy some weaners in before a group is due to calve?

 

[unlacedgecko]

Regarding the milk, what about some pigs? Buy some weaners in before a group is due to calve?

Or some calves?

 

[Woolless]

Or some calves?

I was just thinking that if the quantity of milk varies, due to heifers being sold, then the pigs could be fed something else. Calves will need milk. Of course, there will be calves out the heifers to feed anyway (never thought of that ).

 

[Woolless]

Or some calves?

Could you freeze milk and defrost to feed calves after the heifers have gone?

 

[le bon paysan]

Know quite a few who do this, main thing is you need to milk the heifers for atleast a week before you can sell her, preferably a bit longer. So what do you do with all that milk? Also need to be very well managed to ensure all heifers are saleable ie. No 3 titters, no retained cleansings etc.
Also the nearest dairy market to Newark would be Leek which is 2 hours away.

Have a few pigs.
Sell private?/ Online?

 

[unlacedgecko]

I was just thinking that if the quantity of milk varies, due to heifers being sold, then the pigs could be fed something else. Calves will need milk. Of course, there will be calves out the heifers to feed anyway (never thought of that ).

Sell heifers 8 weeks in milk when you want calves.

Or keep back one cow for every 3 heifers then use the cow the multi suckle all the calves. Use sex semen on all dairy cattle and buy in beef calves for the cows to rear once you wean the dairy calves.

 

[Kiwi Pete]

Could you freeze milk and defrost to feed calves after the heifers have gone?

Yoghurt sachets, one per 200 litre drum keeps milk for months (and the calves do much better on it)

 

[le bon paysan]

Sell heifers 8 weeks in milk when you want calves.

Or keep back one cow for every 3 heifers then use the cow the multi suckle all the calves. Use sex semen on all dairy cattle and buy in beef calves for the cows to rear once you wean the dairy calves.

Don't put calves on the cow they spoil the bag for milking

 

[Woolless]

Yoghurt sachets, one per 200 litre drum keeps milk for months (and the calves do much better on it)

Terrific idea . I quite fancy a go at this myself now .

 

[unlacedgecko]

Don't put calves on the cow they spoil the bag for milking

For calf rearing use the high cell count cows that don't milk well anyway.

 

[Kiwi Pete]

Terrific idea . I quite fancy a go at this myself now .

Great cheap way to keep surplus milk.
Our first season rearing calves here we just bought reject milk in IBCs and tipped in the sachets, whirred them up with the leccy drill and put a cover over them.
Weaned the calves and fattened up some baconers with the remainder, and it was still fine by the time the pigs were fat

 

[Woolless]

Great cheap way to keep surplus milk.
Our first season rearing calves here we just bought reject milk in IBCs and tipped in the sachets, whirred them up with the leccy drill and put a cover over them.
Weaned the calves and fattened up some baconers with the remainder, and it was still fine by the time the pigs were fat

What was wrong with the reject milk? Too warm or high cell count?

 

[Kiwi Pete]

What was wrong with the reject milk? Too warm or high cell count?

Freezing point, their plate cooler had a boo-boo and added 'a few' litres into the tank

 

[hally]

If you are going into sucklers unless you intend to be very kind to them keep away from any Holstein blood. Soft feet, poor fertility, poor confirmation can be tolerated in a dairy hard with a four figures margin but a suckler with a few hundred pound margin cannot cope with those problems.
Our limmys are certainly mental when they calve but soon settle down but have a different temperament to a dairy cow and need to be handled with caution.
We crossed a lot of our maternal cows with a Belgian blue bull for a couple of years thinking it would quieten them down ( and help with conformation) but it worked the opposite in that they were nuts but bred no better shaped calves so stuck with limousin.
Also if breeding for store farmers are fussier buyers than abattoirs so you need good conformation, if feeding them right through it’s less important.

 

[Bossfarmer]

Imagine yourself in the middle of the Atlantic, force 10 , you have a hole in you canoe, no bucket to chuck the water out and you lose you paddle over board, that is what sheep farming is like having been a dairy farmer all your life , you cant swim either

why? as in financially?

 

[harperfarmer]

Everyone will have different ideas on what will suit your situation. I have no issue whatsoever with a Holstein based cow as I'm in a kinder climate and lower height than quite a few suckler men on here. In a lowland situation(as I gather yours is!?) the increased milking ability of the dairy x beef cow will more than make up for her "softer" nature. As you're potentially looking to sell at 7-8 months off the cow you'll need that size in the calf and that comes from milk. Creep will help but can't do it alone. The system you're suggesting is pretty much what I do here but I'll finish the lesser half of the bulls. All Heifers and best bulls are sold off the cow. TB as with everything is the potential spanner in the works.

 

[gone up the hill]

Dairy cattle are selling very well currently.

What the OP should do if he/she wants to go into suckler farming is to sell all the dairy cows that don't have faults/ high cell counts etc and re-invest that money in top quality suckler cows that are capable of producing U/E grade calves and creep feed from day one and sell off the cows at 9/10 months old.

Keep the problem dairy cows and breed from until you can replace with cows of the above quality ( ie keep them just to help keep numbers up for now )

Good quality suckler bred cattle are getting few and far between but there is still a very good demand for top end calves and that is always the case when the store price is generally good or crap ( the latter like it has been the last few weeks ) and will always sell.

2nd grade suckler stuff/ dairy x calves are really starting to struggle price wise and that will only increase, especially now that from 2020 all Arla producers will have to ensure that all calves are reared until at least 8 weeks old and that includes all the utter crap from NZ type dairy cows that will end up being reared until they are 2+ years old and then dumped on the store market and thus further reducing prices in this sector of the store cattle trade.

 

[Tarw Coch]

Slight off topic, but are you saying ARLA producers won’t be allowed to sell claves under 8 weeks, at which point they will have to TB test them?

 

[gone up the hill]

Slight off topic, but are you saying ARLA producers won’t be allowed to sell claves under 8 weeks, at which point they will have to TB test them?

Info in the Arla thread in the dairy section

But yes they will not be allowed to slaughter calves under 8 weeks old and ALL calves will have to be reared until that age.

I think they can sell them but have to ensure the buyer rears them untill they are 8 weeks old.