Most PROFITABLE suckler cow breed!!!

[Werzle]

AA are getting better but they were always short and big gutted that passed the same trait onto there calves when the feeding men wanted length scope and shape.

 

[Bossfarmer]

Always think suckler cows are an inefficient waste of an animal. One calf a year and that's it?
Get rid of them and all the white water Holsteins, have a heap of decent dairy cows. A calf a year plus the milk check, less more efficient animals, keep the greenies happy All anyone wants is burgers and mince nowadays anyway.

calf them and then chuck them out to grass, dairy cows are soft and need milking twice a day, feet sorted out, calves reared

 

[egbert]

I was wondering the same. The poll should be ‘which ones makes the least loss’!

I've tried asking before, but no-one rises to the bait...
How much do you value your time at, when ersing about tending sucklers?
I factor in a value of a reasonably competent operative, at say £15/hour, when in truth it's often me, and my time doing almost anything else, is....er...rather more than that.
(Exactly double for most costed non-farming work)
How much interest is costed on owned live and deadstock?
Full rental value of owned land?
Percentage of annual fence/general repair budget accounted for?
depreciation on the shiny toys?

It would be easy to be using £8-10k of asset keeping a cow, i bet there's some on more....so interest rates on the floor is one of the things keeping everything afloat.

I haven't bothered looking the AHDB figures for some time, although last time I did, they'd started counting some of the above, and suddenly I was in the top flight, only losing £200 per cow!

It's a hobby which helps keep me close enough to sane to remain undetected.
I love having cows in my life, and try to ensure they lose as little money as possible.
And that's maybe why my breeds of choice aren't on boss farmers list!

 

[Bossfarmer]

I've tried asking before, but no-one rises to the bait...
How much do you value your time at, when ersing about tending sucklers?
I factor in a value of a reasonably competent operative, at say £15/hour, when in truth it's often me, and my time doing almost anything else, is....er...rather more than that.
(Exactly double for most costed non-farming work)
How much interest is costed on owned live and deadstock?
Full rental value of owned land?
Percentage of annual fence/general repair budget accounted for?
depreciation on the shiny toys?

It would be easy to be using £8-10k of asset keeping a cow, i bet there's some on more....so interest rates on the floor is one of the things keeping everything afloat.

I haven't bothered looking the AHDB figures for some time, although last time I did, they'd started counting some of the above, and suddenly I was in the top flight, only losing £200 per cow!

It's a hobby which helps keep me close enough to sane to remain undetected.
I love having cows in my life, and try to ensure they lose as little money as possible.
And that's maybe why my breeds of choice aren't on boss farmers list!

if you were to count all of the above i doubt there is much profit in any type of farming, the way i see it if you own all your farms outright you can make a living with sucklers just and keep a good rotation turning your own straw into muck , if you have rent or mortgages to pay you will need to take a risk, staff etc on dairy, pigs, potatoes etc

 

[egbert]

if you were to count all of the above i doubt there is much profit in any type of farming, the way i see it if you own all your farms outright you can make a living with sucklers just and keep a good rotation turning your own straw into muck , if you have rent or mortgages to pay you will need to take a risk, staff etc on dairy, pigs, potatoes etc

And if you don't count all the above......
If you own all the land, and don't cost all the above, you really need help.

As it goes, i'm not turning any of 'my straw' into muck, as I haven't any arable capable land at home, and hardly house any cows.
(I'm happy for you that you imagine everyone has alternatives available)
And the main holding is on an AHA, which is a significant factor in propping everything up.
(an FBT rent/large mortgage would cause me to question myself a lot harder, and I'm not sure I'd keep anything like as many cattle)

 

[Bossfarmer]

And if you don't count all the above......
If you own all the land, and don't cost all the above, you really need help.

As it goes, i'm not turning any of 'my straw' into muck, as I haven't any arable capable land at home, and hardly house any cows.
(I'm happy for you that you imagine everyone has alternatives available)
And the main holding is on an AHA, which is a significant factor in propping everything up.
(an FBT rent/large mortgage would cause me to question myself a lot harder, and I'm not sure I'd keep anything like as many cattle)

ive costed it before and pointed out on here that farming is one of the lowest return on asset businesses you can get into

 

[egbert]

ive costed it before and pointed out on here that farming is one of the lowest return on asset businesses you can get into

'lowest return!' ha...take away the subs and it's a job to get any return!

 

[Bossfarmer]

'lowest return!' ha...take away the subs and it's a job to get any return!

true, if i wasnt trying to keep cereal yields up and had my own straw and got tattie rent, i would keep a lot less cattle/machinery and run far more sheep with cows being used mainly to keep the worm burden down and for mixed grazing

 

[Bossfarmer]

its either that or dairying but the demand for cows milk is decreasing

 

[Agrivator]

A herd of good cows might not leave much cash surplus in the meantime, but they have invariably been an increasing asset which have provided a good pension or similar for a lot of farms.

They are a good way of keeping your money safe. And they are less than half the work compared to sheep.

 

[Nithsdale]

Is the main problem with dairy cattle not the cost and availability of labour? From what ive seen most milk contracts will only be 1 or 2ppl over cop, which is £100-200/ head profit per cow at 10,000l, a suckler cow can achieve that if its good?

National figures suggest beef cattle can't return £100 above costs though...

Depends on the scale maybe though.
Robots take alot of the work out of it from what I've seen. It's tying, but so is all livestock farming.

It's not labour that kills beef, it's the infrastructure you need - especially as you hint, for a 7month winter. Sheds, concrete, straw, machinery, water... dairy can justify these costs and leave a profit, you're forced with beef and margins are tight.

 

[Nithsdale]

National figures suggest beef cattle can't return £100 above costs though...

Depends on the scale maybe though.
Robots take alot of the work out of it from what I've seen. It's tying, but so is all livestock farming.

It's not labour that kills beef, it's the infrastructure you need - especially as you hint, for a 7month winter. Sheds, concrete, straw, machinery, water... dairy can justify these costs and leave a profit, you're forced with beef and margins are tight.

Anyways, my original post was just a sh*t stir joke...

Back to the op it really does depend on what you're doing. Do you take young right through to fat or do you sell as suckled calves, or forward stores?

Know you're market, breeds which sell best/easiest...

Also pick a breed you want to look at every day

 

[David_A]

National figures suggest beef cattle can't return £100 above costs though...

Depends on the scale maybe though.
Robots take alot of the work out of it from what I've seen. It's tying, but so is all livestock farming.

It's not labour that kills beef, it's the infrastructure you need - especially as you hint, for a 7month winter. Sheds, concrete, straw, machinery, water... dairy can justify these costs and leave a profit, you're forced with beef and margins are tight.

Is most of the infrastructure put in place to supposedly make the human happier nowadays. In the past it did increase productivity, but those days are gone now.Cows don't need sheds really, do they.

 

[Nithsdale]

Is most of the infrastructure put in place to supposedly make the human happier nowadays. In the past it did increase productivity, but those days are gone now.Cows don't need sheds really, do they.

That depends very much on location, land type, farm type and business model.

We house all our cattle, roughly for 6months... it's been a big improvement for the land - spring comes earlier because there's no poaching. There's more grass, too - because there's no poaching. The land can now carry more head of stock, and we are running 200 more ewes than when cattle were all outwintered. Our biggest limiting factor is the acres which get shut off to make silage to keep the cattle


Some people just go over the top with their sheds and pee money away for no gain. Although - NVZ regulations and the EA hinder in many places, forcing them to go above what's really needed.

 

[Bossfarmer]

National figures suggest beef cattle can't return £100 above costs though...

Depends on the scale maybe though.
Robots take alot of the work out of it from what I've seen. It's tying, but so is all livestock farming.

It's not labour that kills beef, it's the infrastructure you need - especially as you hint, for a 7month winter. Sheds, concrete, straw, machinery, water... dairy can justify these costs and leave a profit, you're forced with beef and margins are tight.

do the national profit figures for dairy include notional rent and unpaid labour though? when a dairy farmer says hes making 1 or 2ppl above cop is he including them? out of interest whats the rough cost for a robot and how many cows is it again per robot? 60?

 

[Nithsdale]

do the national profit figures for dairy include notional rent and unpaid labour though? when a dairy farmer says hes making 1 or 2ppl above cop is he including them? out of interest whats the rough cost for a robot and how many cows is it again per robot? 60?

But the national losses for beef don't include unpaid labour either!...


I'm not sure what a robot costs, 60 cattle sounds right. But spread over 10 years a robot will be peanuts compared to paying a dairymen/women for the same period of time

 

[egbert]

A herd of good cows might not leave much cash surplus in the meantime, but they have invariably been an increasing asset which have provided a good pension or similar for a lot of farms.

They are a good way of keeping your money safe. And they are less than half the work compared to sheep.

Hmm....perhaps you're a young'un agrivator.

i remember when a herd of decent cows was worth real money - or worth something in real terms.
And a field of glossy yearling bullocks represented potential a major chance to cash in.

Now? The cows in the field are worth a tenth of the value of the land they're on, when a generation ago they were worth almost as much.

as for sheep needing so much work?
Dunno what you do to your sheep, but if any of mine need anything like the daily winter feeding that the cows do, they'd be leaving Las Vegas.
I've got plenty of ewes i'd only touch 3 times a year.
(Mind, I'd rather spend time with cows than bliddy sheep).

 

[Poorbuthappy]

Hmm....perhaps you're a young'un agrivator.

i remember when a herd of decent cows was worth real money - or worth something in real terms.
And a field of glossy yearling bullocks represented potential a major chance to cash in.

Now? The cows in the field are worth a tenth of the value of the land they're on, when a generation ago they were worth almost as much.

as for sheep needing so much work?
Dunno what you do to your sheep, but if any of mine need anything like the daily winter feeding that the cows do, they'd be leaving Las Vegas.
I've got plenty of ewes i'd only touch 3 times a year.
(Mind, I'd rather spend time with cows than bliddy sheep).

And I don't know where Agrivator hails from but suckler prices quoted from up north are a whole lot different to those we see down here.

 

[kiwi pom]

Quite!

Only the top 25% making a profit from sucklers in England http://beefandlamb.ahdb.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/all-suckler-2018.pdf

Creative accounting for tax reasons?
How do the 75% that are making a loss keep going and pay the household bills?
People talk about 20 or 30 years ago when cattle were really worth something but any farmer I talked to 30 years ago said there was no money in it and that farming was on the edge of extinction in the UK. They're still saying it now.
If that's true how have they survived all these years?

 

[Chae1]

Subsidies.