Northeastfarmer
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Aye, I’m adding value to my calves rather than his pocketIs it
Aye, I’m adding value to my calves rather than his pocketIs it
Run the cattle and sheep separateIts defo an opportunity to make a few quid more, needs to be looked at as an investment, Adding value etc , seems to beat anything on offer at banks etc etc i just need to figure out how to keep the land lice out the creep feeders.
That makes no sense to meAye, I’m adding value to my calves rather than his pocket
So you’d rather give the tax man money than invest it in your farm and business?That makes no sense to me
Depends what I was buying and if it was going to make me any extra moneySo you’d rather give the tax man money than invest it in your farm and business?
That is only part of the story though as they will be eating gras and whatever else too. But they would still eat grass on creep or not240 a tonne at 4 kilos would be 24p x 4 96p to put a kilo on so it is viable
so the equipment time hassle and mess cost
That isn’t the full story as the calves would be eating grass and sucking so there would still be a conversion without creep.The feed companies claim great conversion rates that never happen here but they probably incorporate grass as a reseed or clover or similar. 3 or 4 to 1 is not unacceptable to expect but yes realistically here nearer 4. Feeding things like cull ewes or cows give bad conversions if they are agedFeed conversion efficiency is variable between individual animals.
3:1 would be amazing. It’s more likely to be 4:1, at best. But some individual animals could be as low as 14:1.
@dirty harry s father had a solution to this!And leaving 3 teats without a calf on them?
Seems odd to have one calf per cow when a decent cow can wean 10 a year, and then be feeding said spoilt calf cake as well....
makes the cow a lot more expensive to run however hard you screw her?
We're all ears@dirty harry s father had a solution to this!
Remember him saying thought it was pointless a cow having 3 teats and rearing one calf.
Think he had quiet dairy cows he reared multiple calves off of.We're all ears
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It was my first real money-maker when I started out, and will be my next, with any luck at all.Think he had quiet dairy cows he reared multiple calves off of.
Sure Harry will fill us in. I just met his father briefly when I bought a sprayer from them. He was another example of someone thinking out of the box not from a long line of farmers. Pretty sure he said made money from shoes. Probably wrong though.
what age do you calf your heifers if theyre not creeped?most of the calves are sold so I don't know what they get, any heifers that we keep for replacements will never get concentrate that incudes our pedigree British blues, as a rule the only cattle we feed concentrate to are the pedigree bulls after weaning till about 18 months and we keep a steer every year for the freezer and they only get about 2 kg/day of blend, there are odd exceptions to this eg calves whose mother dies and things like that
I did try creep feeding years ago but as we have loads of small fields the cattle are moved every few days sometimes up and down the road and to be honest I couldn't be arsed to move the bloody thing in the end it got left in a field for a few years then sold
all that said I am not against creep feeding, whatever fits your system and cattle its up to you
but if for the sake of round numbers you were to feed a hundred quid to each calf before its weaned and sold how much more would you want it to make to be worth the cost of feed, equipment and the time and hassle and mess of feeding them ?
Normally because when someone on here suggests buying a foster calf to go on a cow that’s lost her own, everyone tells them they are bat sh*t crazy because of health status and disease risk!It was my first real money-maker when I started out, and will be my next, with any luck at all.
To churn out 50 calves per season, why house/feed 55 cows when you can feed 7?
(It amazes me how few people actually appear to want to do it, but that's their business).
Thanks for the tagging-in, BTW
I calve mine at 2yrs . Your tempted not to creep feed now aren't you @Bossfarmer ? Only thing I would say is I think there's a bit of a North /South divide on creep feeding, so probably we get a better grass growing season down this end?what age do you calf your heifers if theyre not creeped?
I've got to agree with that, I used to buy in calves before I started a suckler herd it was like buying trouble. My sucklers are Hi Health & don't see the vet much.Normally because when someone on here suggests buying a foster calf to go on a cow that’s lost her own, everyone tells them they are bat sh*t crazy because of health status and disease risk!
You mean they are healthy and some others are unhealthy, no such thing as high health.I've got to agree with that, I used to buy in calves before I started a suckler herd it was like buying trouble. My sucklers are Hi Health & don't see the vet much.
No I mean their in a Hi Health scheme & are tested for Bvd & Johnes, also a closed herd for 10yrs so get very few issues.You mean they are healthy and some others are unhealthy, no such thing as high health.
Multiple suckling can be very labour intensive though. Dad did it in the 80s with his leftover dairy cows when he gave up milking to rear extra calves to get a suckler herd up and running.
Some cows just would not take the extra calf no matter how hard you tried. Teaching a cow to suckle more than one calf could be an impossible and painfully slow process that would have to be repeated when the first calves were weaned and new ones put on. Even when it went well it could take 15 minutes or more per cow to get them in a yoke and put the calves on probably more by the time they finished suckling? Times that by 10 cows and you may as well milk them and feed the calves with the milk . Not many cows would be happy just standing there in a pen with calves sucking them any old way to give you an easy life either. And they had to be kept separate or you would have all the calves on one cow and the rest either with one calf or none on them and stupid things like that would happen.
Probably need a pen or paddock per cow and calves with a place to out the calves away from the cow until they learn to help themselves properly and every cow would need her own yoke or crush so you aren't waiting for another cow to finish before you can out the next cow on.
Someone near me does it with his sucklers. This is secondhand info but what I've been told they put an extra calf on them as they calve. There is the father and 2 sons there and they are at it all day or so I've been told and they done have that many cows. Half the trouble there was buying calves that had been reared on buckets that didn't know how to suckle and the rest of the trouble was the cow that wouldn't take the calf it must work for them or they wouldnt do it. I'll ask if I see them somewhere.
between 2 and 2 and a half depending on the heiferwhat age do you calf your heifers if theyre not creeped?