On not scanning

[Walterp]

Julie only scans cows that haven't calved in the Summer and are not obviously in calf - in effect the herd 'carries' a barren cow for a year, to allow her the chance of calving the following year.

Which she nearly always does.

If so, what's the point of killing them?

Here's a dairy-bred Hereford cow that died this week. Overall, was she a good cow, or a bad one? She has never seen a vet, never had bad feet, and was treated once in her lifetime via antibiotics, for 'injury'.

DOB: 09.07.1997
Served at 2 years old
Number of calves: 12
Skipped calving in 2003, 2007 and 2010. Went on to have four more calves in 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014.

When should she have been culled?

Out of interest, Julie doesn't cull very old cows because of the risk that they come back as bTB identifiers - they can pass a long lifetime of annual TB tests, but prove to have walled up lesions that don't kill her, but kills your business when the abattoir vet puts you on an automatic standstill.

Strange but true, it is more logical to keep them or kill and skip them if they have become age-infertile. (At least they will never fail a TB test).

 

[Dkb]

I suppose there’s nothing wrong with her just you have to add the cost of keeping her the 3 years with no calf over the years she had a calf. And the lack of sale of an animal from her for those 3 years. And also allow for the cow that didn’t have a calf in the second year and had to be culled anyway there for she was kept for 2 years longer than needed.

As long as you allow for theses costs and your still happy to do it. Then there’s nothing wrong with it

 

[Henarar]

 

[Walterp]

I suppose there’s nothing wrong with her just you have to add the cost of keeping her the 3 years with no calf over the years she had a calf. And the lack of sale of an animal from her for those 3 years. And also allow for the cow that didn’t have a calf in the second year and had to be culled anyway there for she was kept for 2 years longer than needed.

As long as you allow for theses costs and your still happy to do it. Then there’s nothing wrong with it

Less the sale value of the heifer you didn't keep back as a replacement, in each of those years, but plus the cull value of the cow?

Let's assume the cull cow is worth 600 kg x £1.00 = £600, and a fat heifer 600 kg x £2.00 = £1,200.

(Other weights, and types of cow, are available)

 

[Henarar]

Julie only scans cows that haven't calved in the Summer and are not obviously in calf - in effect the herd 'carries' a barren cow for a year, to allow her the chance of calving the following year.

I take it you calve in the spring ? march/April time ?
and you scan ones that have not calved before the bull goes back in again ?

if this is the case you just as well let them go back to the bull having kept them that long empty

 

[Dkb]

Less the sale value of the heifer you didn't keep back as a replacement, in each of those years, but plus the cull value of the cow?

Let's assume the cull cow is worth 600 kg x £1.00 = £600, and a fat heifer 600 kg x £2.00 = £1,200.

(Other weights, and types of cow, are available)

Yeah

But I suppose if you bulled a few extra heifers to allow for selling culls that were not in calf. You still have the same number of calves as always and a younger herd.

Also calculating a cull cow in Ireland is different in that cull cows often make roughly what heifers do as they’re heavier. Eg 330 dead cow by 3.60 same as. 300 dead heifer by 4.

Your cows seem to be the same weight as your heifers and get half the price so slightly different.

 

[milkloss]

Tb issue aside I think she should have gone the first time she was barren. It is proven by the fact she went on to do it another two times after that. What did she cost to keep over those winters and what would her calf have been worth had she had one?

You wouldn’t want a herd of those when trying to farm without the subs!

Sorry, had to do it.

 

[topground]

If you are sprng calving and limit the calving interval so know when the last one should have calved, any that are barren will have put on weight on grass to hit the market in June when cull cow prices are likely to be rasonable, assured or not.
Replacing older cows while they can still flesh will cover the cost of rearing a heifer to calve at 2 and particularly if you can use AI you have the opportunity to improve the genetic merit of the herd this way.
It works here.
Replacing cows at 8 years is said to be optimum.

 

[M-J-G]

There were multiple long threads on to carry or not carry empty cows in past years.
I see little point I dragging through it all again as it was debated and beaten into the ground repeatedly in the past.

 

[Nithsdale]

Our calving is a bit spread out... dad used to AYR, which we have been shifting to spring, but recently we have had a bull stop working which screwed up things a little...

We don't scan anything. Brother is self taught at PD'ing and if anything looks like it's not going to calf when she should, he checks her and we just cull the empties. He is getting quite good at it

 

[GTB]

We cave in spring and autumn. We scan all cows and first time offenders get a second chance six months later. If they'e empty the second time they'e gone.

Quite a few autumn calves slip into the spring herd but very few the other way.

 

[Walterp]

You wouldn’t want a herd of those when trying to farm without the subs!

Sorry, had to do it.

Out of curiosity I looked up the next-oldest.

Born 2001, calved at 2 year old (she was assisted, which indicates the biggest problem with this) and has had a calf every year bar one since (2014) including this year - 14 calves in 15 years.

She is with the bull.

Interestingly, Julie has kept lots of females out of her but none out of the cow in the OP (I'd like to think it was deliberate, but maybe she just wasn't as good a cow?)

By my lights she qualifies as a great suckler cow despite skipping once.

I wonder where the line should be drawn?

 

[milkloss]

Out of curiosity I looked up the next-oldest.

Born 2001, calved at 2 year old (she was assisted, which indicates the biggest problem with this) and has had a calf every year bar one since (2014) including this year - 14 calves in 15 years.

She is with the bull.

Interestingly, Julie has kept lots of females out of her but none out of the cow in the OP (I'd like to think it was deliberate, but maybe she just wasn't as good a cow?)

By my lights she qualifies as a great suckler cow despite skipping once.

I wonder where the line should be drawn?

Good cow: before it’s going to cost £180 to ship off with the knackerman as opposed to putting £600 plus in your pocket! I understand you don’t do this because of tb, do others do this?

 

[choochter]

Do you know the reason why she didn't calve in 2014?

Mine get culled before they start costing money - either because of feet issues, occasionally temperament or because they don't wean a heavy enough calf.

So I suppose it depends how you prefer to cost a cow being empty for a year.

 

[Northeastfarmer]

There were multiple long threads on to carry or not carry empty cows in past years.
I see little point I dragging through it all again as it was debated and beaten into the ground repeatedly in the past.

You’ve been here long enough to know it’s standard TFF

 

[Bill the Bass]

If they are not in calf they go. If you breed your own replacements you are just storing up problems keeping such animals.

 

[Henarar]

If they are not in calf they go. If you breed your own replacements you are just storing up problems keeping such animals.

why

 

[milkloss]

If they don’t get in calf on your farming system then why keep a bunch of breeding stock that is potentially incompatible with it?

 

[Poorbuthappy]

Julie only scans cows that haven't calved in the Summer and are not obviously in calf - in effect the herd 'carries' a barren cow for a year, to allow her the chance of calving the following year.

Which she nearly always does.

If so, what's the point of killing them?

Here's a dairy-bred Hereford cow that died this week. Overall, was she a good cow, or a bad one? She has never seen a vet, never had bad feet, and was treated once in her lifetime via antibiotics, for 'injury'.

DOB: 09.07.1997
Served at 2 years old
Number of calves: 12
Skipped calving in 2003, 2007 and 2010. Went on to have four more calves in 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014.

When should she have been culled?

Out of interest, Julie doesn't cull very old cows because of the risk that they come back as bTB identifiers - they can pass a long lifetime of annual TB tests, but prove to have walled up lesions that don't kill her, but kills your business when the abattoir vet puts you on an automatic standstill.

Strange but true, it is more logical to keep them or kill and skip them if they have become age-infertile. (At least they will never fail a TB test).

Bit of fag packet maths -
(Guth 'll shoot me down )

Say your calf is worth £750 at 12 months.
12 calves at £750 = £900
Divide that by the 19 years she' been on farm since "weaning" (I know she was dairy bred but presume own replacements)
= £473 /year income
Depreciation of cow - let's take your £1200 ÷ 19 years = £63
£410 net income.
Now consider a cow calved at 2, and sold at 10 years old that's calved every year.
8 x £750 = £6000 ÷ 9 years on farm since weaning = £666.
Depreciation - £1200 - £600 sale price = 600 ÷ 9 = £66/ year.
£600/ year net income.

In reality most people would sell your 20 year old cow for a few hundred, but equally would probably make more than £600 of the 10 yo.

I know you don't cost the keeping of a cow that high Walter but whether £300/ year or £600/ year - the younger herd surely pays better?

And no I haven't assisted a 2yo heifer calve since using the right bulls on them. (No doubt there'll be the odd one in future)

 

[multi power]

It wouldn't bother me to carry a cow over for a year, but I definitely wouldn't keep a replacement from her