On not scanning

[Walterp]

£50 +vat is what Goddard's quoted me a few weeks ago

'A few weeks ago'?

'The price war is over', says Douglas Bros.

I'll check.

 

[Samcowman]

I'm sure I can remember you slating people for giving cattle second chance's on here, am I right thinking your running some round empty ?, be careful they'l soon be on their third.

Ha ha. i had a mess up this year with bulls so I have 4 first calvers I will be running cheap this winter otherwise I would be running short on cows. I had 2 other first calvers which won't be getting a second chance one I don't like her temperament and the other from memory only had a calf at 32% (from memory) at 200 days. Already had a problem when buying in some in calf cows with calf at foot this autumn with one of the calves being a pi. So need to limit the risk a bit.
No chance they will be getting another chance. And I have learnt my lesson with bulls.

 

[irish dom]

No it's not.

Ask any drover - the number of false negatives going thru' the barren ring, and the number of false positives going thru' the in-calf section, is astonishing.

All on the back of vet PDs.

It's a fallible method, physical PDing. Scanning isn't infallible either.

I beg to differ. No fecking way should a vet or a scanner be let back into the yard when they make multiple balls ups. If they can't tell yes or no they should give up scanning. It's a cows womb. There is nowhere else it can hide. What a load of rubbish. Scanning is my business and I would not deserve to get paid if I gave such a shoddy service. To say it isn't infallible is dependent on the operator. If he's that sh!t no scanner is gonna save him.

 

[Walterp]

We definitely lose a couple during tb testing no matter how well and calm it goes. Nearly always find one abort in the yard over 24hrs and one a couple of days later.

You want to take a fresh look at that - we've not got the quietest herd in the region, but only ever had one suspected test-linked abortion in 20 years, despite some tests looking more like a circus.

Conclusion: It's down to the vet, not the cattle.

 

[Walterp]

I beg to differ. No fecking way should a vet or a scanner be let back into the yard when they make multiple balls ups. If they can't tell yes or no they should give up scanning. It's a cows womb. There is nowhere else it can hide. What a load of rubbish. Scanning is my business and I would not deserve to get paid if I gave such a shoddy service. To say it isn't infallible is dependent on the operator. If he's that sh!t no scanner is gonna save him.

Just quoting from drovers' accounts and personal experience in local marts. Some dealers used to make a living just buying barreners they'd punched in the pens.

Happens all the time.

 

[multi power]

Just quoting from drovers' accounts and personal experience in local marts. Some dealers used to make a living just buying barreners they'd punched in the pens.

Happens all the time.

As you say plenty of people have made a living buying and milking or suckling "barren" cows

 

[multi power]

Just one point. We scan late for various reasons, not least we have a spread out calving (yes I know its not good) but most losses of calves happen in the first 1/3 of pregnacy so inadvertantly we are not scanning barely in calf cows. Could you maybe be scanning a wee bit soon?

We actually were a bit late this year, I'd suggest they were pregnant on the day but aborted later

 

[Walterp]

Loss of £300? No, you forgot the calf worth £650 she should have had to pay her way. Bet you didn’t maintain her on the cheap while empty and she ran with the gang. Did she get too fat in the meantime and need special management so she could squeeze a calf out?

The monetary cost is £300; the imaginary calf is a 'Chinese Loss' i.e. it never existed.

To turn that Chinese loss into a realisable profit you'd sell the cow (+£600) then retain a heifer (-£1,200) thus increasing the monetary loss from £300 to £600.

This is on a cash basis - on a capital basis you've still got the hopefully calved-down heifer, worth £1,200 (and gently depreciating down to £600).

[Julie runs cows in management groups of c 25, each with a bull from July - December.]

 

[Lovegoodstock]

FFS do we really need to go through this again.
I'm going to pick points from this as they come into my head.
Calving at 2 a no brainer unless you are way up in the highlands where there is no way they could. We calve our heifers at 2 they don't get crept as a calf and only a bit of barley through the winter cut off weight this year was 410kg and had plenty to choose from. I will be putting a top weight on them for next year which has been supported by my weaning efficiency I have done for the first time this autumn (that's a story for another thread coming soon). I would say if you are having problems calving at 2 it is likely to be down to management not the calving at 2.
Not culling an old cow which is empty is just plain daft. Each of those 3 calves she has had so far after that year off will have to make an extra £100 (at your extremely low costings) over the rest just to pay for that year off.
Giving a cow a third chance really??really? REALLY? I think your just doing this to wind people up.
Some people have no right to complain about prices or anything else

As learned last week we do things differently, which is the same as almost the whole uk industry. But as posted on another thread half an hour ago, its about your costs to keep a cow and your normal returns. Yes a cow run empty will be fitter, less likely to utilise calcium and in effect appear lazy, but if you know your stock you know that and observe, 3 weeks ago I sold a calf off of a 3rd calver, sweet heifer calf to a guy that buys a few for show each year, got 1550, thought 100 too cheap, her calf in 2015 was a steer and sold for 1120 at 13 months. Never calved spring 2016 and just where she was never had a chance with bull to calve at a late date. Was a good calf from her as a heifer, one of my better ones this year, definitely a premium this year of over 500 quid, nearer 700 as a heifer, if a run of mill cow producing a 750 suckled calf then it doesn't pay, but knowing your stock and managing them accordingly and having different types of stock alters figures greatly. If she was barren for a different reason now she would stay as in calf to same bull, wouldn't keep a breeding heifer from her granted but doesn't mean to say she is uneconomical to keep and should be on her way, on my farm ayway

 

[abitdaft]

A few years back we had a cow that was 8 years old, she had an impeccable calving record and was our biggest cow throwing cracking bull calves. The first year she didn't get in calf we decided to give her a chance and carried her over. Something was obviously wrong with her hormonally, she went from being quiet, a bit shy etc to full on in your face having a go. The following year she ran with the bull and even he was sh!t scared of her! I remember checking cows and calves on the hill and you had to make sure that you were nowhere near her when you stopped the bike, she actually reared like a horse. Needless to say she is burgers now, her end live weight was 982 kgs ( AAx), I just wonder what happened to cause this change @bovine . Anyhow, we would run one for one year, after that you are a passenger and we do not tolerate passengers! Although in saying that we do have an old dear, she owes nothing and is invaluable ( as well as being a darling with longest eyelashes which she bats at my hubby shamelessly ) when it comes to getting heifers to go where we want them to.

 

[bovine]

@abitdaft I've seen hormonally active ovarian tumours cause bull type behaviour a couple of times. Would have been interesting to scan her ovaries.

The economic benefits of 2 year calving is clear, as is that of a nice tight calving block with those falling outside the block sold/killed. Why anyone wants to keep a cost with no output for more than a year strikes me as mad. Scanning is so comparatively cheap, it's basic management and husbandry. It's so inefficient keeping feeding an animal 'just to see' if it calves. It's been a busy weekend and I can't be arsed arguing with those that want to bury their head in the sand.

 

[Lovegoodstock]

Maybe not bothered to argue with the likes of me that buries my head in the sand @bovine, so presumably all of your suckler herds are highly profitable removing the SFP, agree with scanning as a cheap management tool, but doesn't necessarily mean a cow is unprofitable to keep despite doing nothing for a year, if simply she has a long term net gain, inclusive of the gains of a potential replacement surely?

 

[bovine]

@Lovegoodstock of course a cow with no output for 12 months+ is unprofitable. They keep costing you money in feed, take up space that could have a prolific cow and if you want to look at the environmental side, increase the carbon footprint of beef production.

Can you imagine a company keeping paying a reps salary who wasn't going to sell anything this year, but promises to try harder next year?!

In a way I do like the fact that some farmers care about their animals and will give an old favourite a last chance. If you are accepting that is basically a big pet for a year and you feel warm inside then great. Don't moan at me if you can't make a living farming beef, especially post Brexit.

Without being rude some of those breeding the 'extreme' pedigree animals are the worst culprits. Keeping a cow that had a calf cut out the side but won a show so they keep trying with it. The odd animal making a lot of money so it props up an inefficient enterprise. It would be a huge leap forward in animal welfare if you couldn't show or breed from an animal born to a caesarean birth.......

 

[Kiwi Pete]

Maybe not bothered to argue with the likes of me that buries my head in the sand @bovine, so presumably all of your suckler herds are highly profitable removing the SFP, agree with scanning as a cheap management tool, but doesn't necessarily mean a cow is unprofitable to keep despite doing nothing for a year, if simply she has a long term net gain, inclusive of the gains of a potential replacement surely?

There is a pet phrase of mine that is gagging to be let out (I don't usually say all that is on my mind, on here, for obvious reasons) but over here we use the term "waste of a good shadow" in reference to when an asset crosses the liability line.

That isn't to say I'm going to hang up my 2 dry hoggets, they're babies and will get a second chance, the rest have had enough lambs to carry a couple of passengers; but, I know who they are... two strikes is two more than "average" and I have a long list of things that constitute a strike.

I particularly liked the mistakes the young lad practising scanning here made - two singles had twins.
The one that needed assistance has had a bearing since, so that's her two strikes.
She will wean her lamb and then make tasty chops...

In a way - we play predator as much as butler, to our livestock; in the interests of future productivity is is my duty to pick off the weakest and least able... in saying all that I can see Julie's reasoning for keeping her - bTb is not nearly the issue here that it could be.

I'm also not sure what BCS is approved for dry stock in the genteel UK, here we keep them thin and then crank the feed intake up pre-mating which seems to drastically alter the odds of the next conception holding.
That "rising feed plane" is an often underused management tool IMO.

Fat dry cows are a bigger cost than lighter ones on a tight ration, if they want to earn their keep they are often used as tools for cleaning up pastures etc.

 

[Lovegoodstock]

Don't know how much dealings you have in the private sector in the sales world, but from your statement I doubt a lot. So much in profitability is circumstantial, a top sales rep often put into a dud account to try and save it, if failed they wont get fired for non performance obviously, despite what you state would happen. I have very few c sections, one this year to date, but you state its obvious that its unprofitable to keep a cow doing nothing for a year, so when it yields a calf over double the value of your average cow its unprofitable? Yet costs less to keep the cow than one that rears one consecutively for two years? May have missed a trick and got it wrong, but maybe why so many claim sucklers are unprofitable, as so many don't look at margins. simply costs. Whilst farming is pathetic in terms of return to commodity value, sucklers are completely viable and without a doubt the best part of the farming industry for a number of years

 

[Samcowman]

As learned last week we do things differently, which is the same as almost the whole uk industry. But as posted on another thread half an hour ago, its about your costs to keep a cow and your normal returns. Yes a cow run empty will be fitter, less likely to utilise calcium and in effect appear lazy, but if you know your stock you know that and observe, 3 weeks ago I sold a calf off of a 3rd calver, sweet heifer calf to a guy that buys a few for show each year, got 1550, thought 100 too cheap, her calf in 2015 was a steer and sold for 1120 at 13 months. Never calved spring 2016 and just where she was never had a chance with bull to calve at a late date. Was a good calf from her as a heifer, one of my better ones this year, definitely a premium this year of over 500 quid, nearer 700 as a heifer, if a run of mill cow producing a 750 suckled calf then it doesn't pay, but knowing your stock and managing them accordingly and having different types of stock alters figures greatly. If she was barren for a different reason now she would stay as in calf to same bull, wouldn't keep a breeding heifer from her granted but doesn't mean to say she is uneconomical to keep and should be on her way, on my farm ayway

I would say that you run a different system to most commercial men by breeding extreme show type animals. It was a good job she did breed that show animal. For us producing commercial calves it wouldn't be worth it. Would you have kept her if she had a poorer calf as a heifer?

 

[milkloss]

The monetary cost is £300; the imaginary calf is a 'Chinese Loss' i.e. it never existed.

To turn that Chinese loss into a realisable profit you'd sell the cow (+£600) then retain a heifer (-£1,200) thus increasing the monetary loss from £300 to £600.

This is on a cash basis - on a capital basis you've still got the hopefully calved-down heifer, worth £1,200 (and gently depreciating down to £600).

[Julie runs cows in management groups of c 25, each with a bull from July - December.]

I’m not really sure of your point. A herd of decent cows needs investment either to maintain or improve productivity. If you want to be a laggard constantly holding onto old cows and limiting invest,ent then that’s your choice but in the long term it won’t do your herd any good.

 

[Whitepeak]

Is it just me that's picked up on the fact that @Walterp Is keeping cows infected with TB because he knows they don't show up on a skin test?? Surely this is madness and risking infecting the rest of his herd. I don't know the epidemiology of TB but surely these walled up lesions can still release infection at some point?? I'd want that risk gone and ensure I have a clean herd.
Not to mention the fact that he's admitted it on an open forum! No wonder we keep getting hit by ever stricter cattle controls!

 

[Walterp]

Is it just me that's picked up on the fact that @Walterp Is keeping cows infected with TB because he knows they don't show up on a skin test?? Surely this is madness and risking infecting the rest of his herd. I don't know the epidemiology of TB but surely these walled up lesions can still release infection at some point?? I'd want that risk gone and ensure I have a clean herd.
Not to mention the fact that he's admitted it on an open forum! No wonder we keep getting hit by ever stricter cattle controls!

That comes across as a spiteful comment.

Here are the facts: we run cattle in a High Risk TB area, with adjacent and nearby farms regularly going in and out of restrictions. Some have been under restriction for a long time. We have been in and out ourselves, over the years, although we are generally OTBF status.

The latest test failures we experienced were caused by a very diseased 'disperser' badger, who was wandering around the paddock prior to the first test - but who was, fortuitously, found dead prior to the re-test.

We observe that old and barren cows can test clear throughout their lives, but be culled and reveal TB. Riddled with it, as they say. But AHVLA are unable to culture TB therefrom, despite repeated attempts.

In such circumstances, do you recommend:
(a) culling (and hoping it does not re-occur)?
(b) killing and skipping?
(c) leave them hanging about because they'll have a few more calves?

Despite many suggesting that cattle-to-cattle transmissionis a major risk factor, research suggests that in an extensive system it is very hard to establish that it can be thus spread.

 

[Whitepeak]

That comes across as a spiteful comment.

Here are the facts: we run cattle in a High Risk TB area, with adjacent and nearby farms regularly going in and out of restrictions. Some have been under restriction for a long time. We have been in and out ourselves, over the years, although we are generally OTBF status.

The latest test failures we experienced were caused by a very diseased 'disperser' badger, who was wandering around the paddock prior to the first test - but who was, fortuitously, found dead prior to the re-test.

We observe that old and barren cows can test clear throughout their lives, but be culled and reveal TB. Riddled with it, as they say. But AHVLA are unable to culture TB therefrom, despite repeated attempts.

In such circumstances, do you recommend:
(a) culling (and hoping it does not re-occur)?
(b) killing and skipping?
(c) leave them hanging about because they'll have a few more calves?

Despite many suggesting that cattle-to-cattle transmissionis a major risk factor, research suggests that in an extensive system it is very hard to establish that it can be thus spread.

We run cattle in a high risk area as well and have just been placed in a 6 mth testing interval. We are fortunate to have not had a case on the farm, despite a farm a mile down the road losing half his herd this yr. Our main income is from stores and breeding stock so keeping clear of TB is our biggest concern. Hence why I might sound a bit narked that someone is knowingly keeping an animal that will potentially fail a post mortem.
In my eyes it's akin to keeping a PI calf because "isn't it a good calf" or "it might grow into a good heifer and breed a good calf".
Plus it gives the badger huggers plenty of canon fodder when someone's bragging about it on an open forum.
Sorry if I've offended you, but that's just my opinion.