- Location
- Co. Down, UK
This heifers are in calf and nearly 3 years old.
Price of suckler replacements
- Thread starter johnspeehs
- Start date
The question is do you think the bovine equivalent of a 'female' Russian shot putter will make a good mother, calve easily, milk well, and produce heifers that will in turn be good mothers?!
Let the cow be a cow, with female & maternal attributes and if aiming to produce killing cattle use a terminal sire on that maternal cow.
There is no money to be made from a dead calf or a Caesarian, unless you are the vet!
Let the cow be a cow, with female & maternal attributes and if aiming to produce killing cattle use a terminal sire on that maternal cow.
There is no money to be made from a dead calf or a Caesarian, unless you are the vet!
johnspeehs
Member
- Location
- Co Antrim
A fair few of them 3 1/2 and I saw one 4 years old
M-J-G
Member
At that age they are not a good trade for the seller at all, they'd have been better sold as stores.
Jonny B88
Member
- Location
- ballykelly. NI
Is it just me or do these look like prime beef animals and not cow potential? Think I'd be working for that animal instead of the animal working for me!
Totally but some people just want to top the show and sale to get their name in the paper.
The guys that like to do the same with suckled calves /stores seem quite happy to buy this type of cow in order to do the same.
Can't see how they can be any better of than someone quietly working away with easy calving, milky maternal types myself but each to their own if they are happy with how their numbers add up.
pine_guy
Member
- Location
- North Cumbria
Them girls will eat some grub a year, milk tap might be a bit restricted as well. But each to their own. I'm just starting with sucklers coming up to my second calving, mostly AA out of dairy. Replacements are cheap, 90% of calves are well shaped and the rest are ok. And as heifers they calved generally easy. But as I said, each to the cow that suits their system.
I agree its best to work away with easy calving maternal type milky cows but you can still top the market and get your name in the paper without feeding them hard feed at all it can be I know we have done it time after time and as I said before we have no heavy muscled commercial cows and I don't want them, interestingly its not usually our most heavy muscled store calves that make the most money but buyers do want some shape on them
CharcoalWally
Member
- Location
- West of Scotland
Well , listening to some of the guys that farm this type of cow in their herd , I'm not entirely sure they will be as well off.
One of them admitted that he'd lost confidence in his ability to calve his own cows , and therefore had his neighbours on speed dial. The vet is in all the time , and C sections are a big part of his calving. It doesn't end with the Ceaser as we all know , drugs , aftercare , time, labour , cows lost , not a pretty thought.
Another has been heard to threaten after his latest struggle to calve a cow that he's had enough and that he's going back to Native cattle to try to get easy calving. Then , he reflects that you're "not anybody" if you're not working with musclebound , market topping cattle , and he carries on.
Plenty of guys with the fancy types cluttering the bar at local shows bemoaning that "there's no money in sucklers."
It is as has been said up to people's own choice , but a more interesting question is why do they choose these cows? Not every one can leave a show topper. If they're as difficult to work with as these people who work with them make it sound , then why? God knows , sucklers can be hard enough work without aiming the gun at your own foot all the time.
Oh , and I forgot to say , all the time spent going round the dairy neighbours looking to stock up on frozen colostrum as the cow doesn't calve with nearly enough herself. I know of at least 1 dairyman who had to politely request his beef neighbour not to lift any more buckets of colostrum out of the dairy as he did actually need some for his own calves!!
Then there's the guy who sells Lim X Blue heifers with calves at foot and who lost a huge number of calves at calving so heifers had to have other calves outsourced. These two last things have got to compromise herd health further.
- Location
- Ardrossan Ayrshire
Some sanity!
M-J-G
Member
Pretty much every advisor and astute farmer I've spoken to has suggested that topping the market is not important, and that seeking it is generally driven by vanity or ego.
Topping the market may make the vendor feel like he's a good herd manger, but cost per calf, calves sold per cow bulled, calves sold per acre, age at sale, etc. are better indicators of performance.
After all, a calf making £50 more than everything else in the Market isn't much use if the cow calves every 13 months, you run every cow over excessive acres, the calf is older than everything else, or have to allocate a large chunk of a calves price to labour costs.
Determining what is a success is dependant on where the bar is set.
Topping the market may make the vendor feel like he's a good herd manger, but cost per calf, calves sold per cow bulled, calves sold per acre, age at sale, etc. are better indicators of performance.
After all, a calf making £50 more than everything else in the Market isn't much use if the cow calves every 13 months, you run every cow over excessive acres, the calf is older than everything else, or have to allocate a large chunk of a calves price to labour costs.
Determining what is a success is dependant on where the bar is set.
M-J-G
Member
You might not say that if you met him!
- Location
- West Somerset
Old boy said to me once "Sanity before Vanity"
- Location
- Ardrossan Ayrshire
Lovegoodstock
Member
- Location
- Buckinghamshire
It's OK jumping on the 'lets knock continentals' bandwagon.
Ok, some of them don't tick all the boxes, but many do.
Neighbour of mine has AA, and certainly has more cows running around with no calf/ stunted calf than you'd expect , so just plumping for "native" or "maternal" ain't all you might think.
More variation within a breed, than between breeds.
Was looking at Genus catalogue this morning having a brew, you'd be surprised how easy calving some of the BB bulls are.
(Hard calving bulls are also available)
There wouldn't be such a huge continental influence if they were all cr*p, and natives had sunshine coming out of their rs.
Ok, some of them don't tick all the boxes, but many do.
Neighbour of mine has AA, and certainly has more cows running around with no calf/ stunted calf than you'd expect , so just plumping for "native" or "maternal" ain't all you might think.
More variation within a breed, than between breeds.
Was looking at Genus catalogue this morning having a brew, you'd be surprised how easy calving some of the BB bulls are.
(Hard calving bulls are also available)
There wouldn't be such a huge continental influence if they were all cr*p, and natives had sunshine coming out of their rs.
Northeastfarmer
Member
- Location
- Cleveland
The right bull selection and cow nutrition is essential...have limmy bulls here that were selected for ease of calving and they fart the calves out...even the 'Russian shot putter' style ones calve themselves
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CharcoalWally
Member
- Location
- West of Scotland
When the Natives decided they were going to have to be more like Continentals then the Continentals were, that's when they started to have problems calving. Ironically, it also kept the ones that did it in the public eye.
My point exactly.
IMO people do not select hard enough on their (In this case) bulls, and are too tight to invest in good enough stock. Of whatever type.
And whinge when it all goes wrong.
Last bull I bought cost a lot in £, but was in fact cheap.
But then, I did my homework before the sale, and didn't turn up on the day to buy the biggest arsed bull there. (wouldn't want to)
Northeastfarmer
Member
- Location
- Cleveland
Yep totally agree