how do you mean losses are covered better? the main concern i would have is you have to buy the additional calf to start with, the cow may abandon it at grass, the cows own calf would prob make £100 less at least due to compromised performance? the cow would also need more expensive feed
What he means is if you have a cow that usually sells a calf that is worth say £1000 then she could rear 2 calves worth £700 say put very simply.
why haylage and not silage?
true but youd have to pay £300 for the additional calf, leaving £100 margin to cover losses and extra work
Yes like I said there is all sorts of problems and only you will know if you can make it work. Those numbers are only examples they might be way off either way.
I honestly don't think there are enough famers around to do it to flood the market; the London middle-class with money to burn is huge, and it keeps expanding. We've the advantage of having holiday lets, this means a captive audience for the 'cute' suckler herd and any staying here aren't broke. Leaving a complimentary steak or some such goes down well and has paid for itself many, many times over.
The one with the lowest cost of production
some abattoirs deduct, for more than 4 moves, s/mkts pushing it, to try and force more farmers to sell dead, to keep movements down
It would be very cow dependant whether they could do a decent job of two calves or not. It's never going to be for everyone but is something I'd be looking a lot more at if I had dairy cross cows. It wouldn't suit my limousine and Angus though especially now with a closed herd. I don't fancy buying disease in with the calves. It wouldn't matter so much if I had bought in dairy cross cows though.
We make everything as dry as possible so we can feed it too the sheep if needs be. All bales, no clamp.
More calves, so a calf loss is a lesser percentage of the calf crop, a cow loss is offset against more calves weaned by the cow.
as I posted earlier, u tube USA, 3 massive feedlots, 1 abattoir killing 5,000 cattle a day, 1 size box, for meat. Looking at the cattle in the lots, all look the same size, It just wouldn't happen here, Of course we suffer under a public, that wouldn't allow massive feedlots over here, but I think the beef industry would gain from a more uniform sized animal. As a dairy farmer, we really need the beef farmers to make a profit, as, has already started, we will not be able to 'euthanise' un wanted calves at birth, which will put 10,000's of extra calves into the market place, there has to be a solution, and, it is only by working together, do we have, a better chance of finding the solution.
Too much emphasis on price per calf and virtually none on profit per hectare - because that's what "subsidy" is for?
dry bulky silage wont keep well in a pit?
Woah woah woah! Don't pick on luck money! Something has too buy my food and drink during the day! ??More calves, so a calf loss is a lesser percentage of the calf crop, a cow loss is offset against more calves weaned by the cow.
Definitely the individual calf performance can be less, especially if comparing a single calf left on mum for 300 days and pushed on creep, we tend to wean at around 150 days max, the earlier the better really.
In a UK context, stuffed if I know @Bossfarmer. The markets are distorted to the extent I don't know even if there is a standout "most profitable" system, because it all looks pretty stone-age stuff - what with luck-money and supermarkets wanting beef that fits a tray, to fit a shelf.... people going mad over "nice heads" etc and a calf's profit being divided amongst several people...
..however the main cost is that of keeping the cow on your farm for the year, the 'fewer cows kept per ton of calf sold' is what has driven cow/calf size OTT on the same basis.
I think it's high time to reevaluate many of those beliefs and see where they lead?
Good thread
