Importing dairy heifers

[cattow]

Would they be from the Kirkby herd by any chance?

No, but close

 

[Serup]

When we started dairying in 2010 we massively struggled to find any good cows in the UK from TB free areas that weren't Holsteins.

We bought xbreds here and there but the best decision we made was buying a truck load of pure Danish Reds from Denmark. If I was starting again tomorrow I would go straight to Denmark and buy a whole herd of them.

We sell about 20-30 Danish Red heifers/year. In the past 5 years all have went for export as the quota in Denmark gets filled every year on fewer cows than last. I believe more than 50% have went to the UK, but they go everywhere in europe.

When we sell, it's usually an order of maybe 50 or 300 heifers inseminated in a 2 month windows and fulfilling certain criteria's that really vary a lot! We sold some to spain a few years ago, they only wanted a special shade of red and only big (old) fat heifers.
Then the buyer usually go rounds to farms looking for the best ones he can buy, and we sell maybe 5-8 at a time.

Most difficult and expensive was Jordan - they require so much paperwork and vet-checks that they won't get anymore from here..

They usually get picked up 2-3 month before calving, and we get around £900 average. That barely cover cost of making them, but we recon it's better than x-breed 30% of the cows with beef and sell them together with bullcalves. It also gives us the opportunity to replace more cows or raise herd size if we want. And nobody knows where we are in 3 years time.

Our herd are all colours and a lot of different pedigrees. I personally like the medium sized, round, red or red and white cows with very good udders the best.

1 pic from the milking flock - sorry about image quality, it was too dark for my phone.

1 pic from the maternity ward, this side is heifers only - those in the first box are the ones due in the next 2 weeks (and yes, it's a hereford cow in the back - we only have 1. She stay inside with the heifers during winter time)


I'll try to see if i can find a few good cows someday when the sun is up....

 

[bullbeef]

How much?

Why would you want to know how much as you are a grazing man

 

[Baling Hay]

Why would you want to know how much as you are a grazing man

Lol. I have never been asked "why" by the seller before, most would like a sale.

Irish Holsteins are supposedly not too bad for grazing, obviously depends on bulls used and may be useful for crossing. Ity is also interesting to hear the price differentials between Irish stock and Uk stock.

 

[bullbeef]

They are slightly cheaper than UK stock and good type Holstein wouldn't work on 1/2 tonne of cake

 

[Baling Hay]

They are slightly cheaper than UK stock and good type Holstein wouldn't work on 1/2 tonne of cake

Agreed but we don't feed 1/2 tonne of cake anyway.

 

[Martyn]

Our imported bunch of 36 Irish Friesian/Holstein heifers are the best bunch of stock I have ever purchased. Now been in milk 300 days and being dried of now, fantastic fertility, only picked up three feet in ten months, held condition well and just been an easy bunch, give the Irish breeder credit they did a fab job rearing them, will have averaged 6800l first lactation, have lost two out of the 36 from silly accidents, everything back in calf.

 

[james ds]

Our imported bunch of 36 Irish Friesian/Holstein heifers are the best bunch of stock I have ever purchased. Now been in milk 300 days and being dried of now, fantastic fertility, only picked up three feet in ten months, held condition well and just been an easy bunch, give the Irish breeder credit they did a fab job rearing them, will have averaged 6800l first lactation, have lost two out of the 36 from silly accidents, everything back in calf.

Who did you source them through. Great to hear of Irish stock doing well . Good luck with them.

 

[Bruce Almighty]

Nice cows Serup
I agree with Steakeater about the Reds.
We bought 20 Danish red bulling heifers back in 2008. They were available completely by chance having been imported by ADAS for a trial & then the trial was cancelled - so we bought them - cheaply
They have been the nicest bunch of cattle I have ever bought.
We ran them with a Holstein bull & the cross breed is excellent.
2 years ago we imported another 10 I/c heifers, not quite such a consistent bunch but ok. (Through BACA)
Autumn 2014 we imported some Dutch red & white heifers (Holstein / MRI) and they have been very good and were a fair bit cheaper than Danish (BACA)

The most disappointing heifers I have bought were Friesians a year ago.
They looked a nice group but the milk yield has been very poor. They are 2nd calving now & haven't improved much. They did 5-6000 litres where our B&W and Danish Xs ave 8-9000 litres in their first, the best doing 11000

 

[Baling Hay]

Nice cows Serup
I agree with Steakeater about the Reds.
We bought 20 Danish red bulling heifers back in 2008. They were available completely by chance having been imported by ADAS for a trial & then the trial was cancelled - so we bought them - cheaply
They have been the nicest bunch of cattle I have ever bought.
We ran them with a Holstein bull & the cross breed is excellent.
2 years ago we imported another 10 I/c heifers, not quite such a consistent bunch but ok. (Through BACA)
Autumn 2014 we imported some Dutch red & white heifers (Holstein / MRI) and they have been very good and were a fair bit cheaper than Danish (BACA)

The most disappointing heifers I have bought were Friesians a year ago.
They looked a nice group but the milk yield has been very poor. They are 2nd calving now & haven't improved much. They did 5-6000 litres where our B&W and Danish Xs ave 8-9000 litres in their first, the best doing 11000

Who did you import the dutch R&Ws through? BACA as well?

 

[Martyn]

We purchased through David Clarke, very good service.

 

[Bruce Almighty]

Who did you import the dutch R&Ws through? BACA as well?

Yes

 

[Baling Hay]

Yes

So they were cheaper and better than the danish cattle through BACA. Interesting.

I don't suppose you have any photos of the R&W's?

 

[Bruce Almighty]

So they were cheaper and better than the danish cattle through BACA. Interesting.

Danish 2 years ago were 1500
Dutch last Autumn were 1275

Both groups had 80% bull calves, I suspect scanning told them this so they sold the ones carrying bull calves ?

 

[Baling Hay]

Danish 2 years ago were 1500
Dutch last Autumn were 1275

Both groups had 80% bull calves, I suspect scanning told them this so they sold the ones carrying bull calves ?

Interesting observation as 80-90% of our Danish Reds also had bull calves!!! We thought they were maybe inseminated with left overs after sexing semen!

 

[Serup]

Danish 2 years ago were 1500
Dutch last Autumn were 1275

Both groups had 80% bull calves, I suspect scanning told them this so they sold the ones carrying bull calves ?

It's possible to scan for gender in cows? I didn't know that!
When we sell for export, we just have to get the AI-company to check them and sign that the heifers are pregnant. So if this happens, someone after we sell them, sort them and sell the ones with heifers in for a better price - never heard any rumours or anything.

Interesting observation as 80-90% of our Danish Reds also had bull calves!!! We thought they were maybe inseminated with left overs after sexing semen!

We have asked for sexed bull-semen before, thinking they must have plenty in store, but was told that when they sex a sample, they only get a small percentage with the wanted sex, and the rest of the sample is lost. And that it's more difficult to sex for bulls than heifers. So i'm pretty sure that it's just normal semen used if it's not sold as 90% guarantied heifers. Also the price difference between sexed and normal semen is considerable.

 

[Baling Hay]

It's possible to scan for gender in cows? I didn't know that!
When we sell for export, we just have to get the AI-company to check them and sign that the heifers are pregnant. So if this happens, someone after we sell them, sort them and sell the ones with heifers in for a better price - never heard any rumours or anything.



We have asked for sexed bull-semen before, thinking they must have plenty in store, but was told that when they sex a sample, they only get a small percentage with the wanted sex, and the rest of the sample is lost. And that it's more difficult to sex for bulls than heifers. So i'm pretty sure that it's just normal semen used if it's not sold as 90% guarantied heifers. Also the price difference between sexed and normal semen is considerable.

Oh I know, I was being sarcastic. I wonder if the scan showed them as bulls so they sent them to us? Is that possible?

 

[Serup]

Oh I know, I was being sarcastic. I wonder if the scan showed them as bulls so they sent them to us? Is that possible?

I still have never heard of it, and didn't know anybody scanned cows for pregnancy. All the heifers i know of being sold, was statistically going to give 50% bulls. Wouldn't know how to cheat if i wanted to.

 

[Serup]

Oh I know, I was being sarcastic. I wonder if the scan showed them as bulls so they sent them to us? Is that possible?

Also, if you wanna sell heifers here, you just say "aye" at least 3 out of 4 times when they ask "this one?" If not, they usually don't come back next time. So not much room to fiddle with anything

 

[Serup]

I know it's slightly off-topic, but if the average cow last 4-5-6 lactations over "there" then why do you need to import all these animals? Here the average production life of a cow i way shorter, and even without sexed semen we never imported much.

Is it all because of TB? I don't know much about it, other than it's a big problem over there.