Sourcing Calves

[Zippy768]

So we rear alot of calves and sell at 4/5 months. Historically been sourced from market. With the obvious trial and tribulations with market calves, I think we do a v good job.
However I feel I've come to the end of the line on that route. What we achieve is probably the best that can be done. But needing to simplify the system for labour purposes, we need to re-evaluate the sourcing.

With market calves one can have the pick of the animals; avoid heifers etc. But inevitably they are not all winners in the end. And it's these animals that causes the problems with the system.
We won't sell these animals but either run them round grass or just ad-lib them to push them on in time. Inevitably costly animals - in time and inputs - and shed room.

So professional rearers on tff, do you source from market?
Rearers for oneself - do you source from market?

 

[Keithy1394]

So we rear alot of calves and sell at 4/5 months. Historically been sourced from market. With the obvious trial and tribulations with market calves, I think we do a v good job.
However I feel I've come to the end of the line on that route. What we achieve is probably the best that can be done. But needing to simplify the system for labour purposes, we need to re-evaluate the sourcing.

With market calves one can have the pick of the animals; avoid heifers etc. But inevitably they are not all winners in the end. And it's these animals that causes the problems with the system.
We won't sell these animals but either run them round grass or just ad-lib them to push them on in time. Inevitably costly animals - in time and inputs - and shed room.

So professional rearers on tff, do you source from market?
Rearers for oneself - do you source from market?

We don't rear masses of calves but about 100 a year , doing a simular system to you but selling at 9-10month old and we source all ours from the market . There is a couple of us here mother father and girlfriend so not too much hassle for one of us to nip to market. I know the obvious disease risks of buying from market but find you can buy the calves you want and your in control of the price paid to a extent. We have tried buying off farm but people seem to either want top market price but expect you to take all there calves or take there best to market and you take what left. Many i time ive had it were i can't buy them of farms as they want too much but have then bought them out of the market for less. I also think everybody has a percentage of calves that just dont do i know we doo, they hang around to long but you just have to average them out across the rest. Have you thought of setting a buyer on to supply you out of the market to save you some time ?I think even if you bought a whole farms calves you would still have some that don't do . What age are you buying in at ?

 

[Werzle]

Calf rearing has its problems regardless of where they are sourced. Everybody would be on rearing them if it was easy.

 

[Samcowman]

We buy ours direct from farm. Works well the farmers like it because we go and get a trailer load at a time and works well for us as all animals have the same disease status. Get a lot less treatments than when we used to buy out of market or dealers.
like has been said there are always some poorer doers wherever you buy from.

 

[Werzle]

Calves are usually older and stronger in markets but usually find buying direct they want them gone at 2-3weeks old which can mean an extra bag of milk powder.

 

[Keithy1394]

Calves are usually older and stronger in markets but usually find buying direct they want them gone at 2-3weeks old which can mean an extra bag of milk powder.

I was just going to put that we buy most of our calves at 5-8 week old were as private there 2-3 weeks old

 

[Zippy768]

We don't rear masses of calves but about 100 a year , doing a simular system to you but selling at 9-10month old and we source all ours from the market . There is a couple of us here mother father and girlfriend so not too much hassle for one of us to nip to market. I know the obvious disease risks of buying from market but find you can buy the calves you want and your in control of the price paid to a extent. We have tried buying off farm but people seem to either want top market price but expect you to take all there calves or take there best to market and you take what left. Many i time ive had it were i can't buy them of farms as they want too much but have then bought them out of the market for less. I also think everybody has a percentage of calves that just dont do i know we doo, they hang around to long but you just have to average them out across the rest. Have you thought of setting a buyer on to supply you out of the market to save you some time ?I think even if you bought a whole farms calves you would still have some that don't do . What age are you buying in at ?

We do use a buyer for market calves, I simply don't have the time to be trailing around 5/6 markets a week he does.

You are correct with the pricing and picking. If the quality isn't in market or prices too high, nothing or just a few will arrive - buyer lives v close by, so dropping off 2 or 3 is thankfully no bother.

Tbh I've swayed away from the "dribbling in" effect. Barn is now ready and set up, and he has 3 weeks to fill 110 spaces. Idea being that it'll be one hit of bugs and should settle down.
Quality of animal hasn't fallen, more that buyer has to work harder and go a little further a field for the animals.

I like fresh calves tbh, but 3 weekers is the youngest. Avg age a month I'd have thought

 

[Zippy768]

Calf rearing has its problems regardless of where they are sourced. Everybody would be on rearing them if it was easy.

Amen to that

 

[Zippy768]

We buy ours direct from farm. Works well the farmers like it because we go and get a trailer load at a time and works well for us as all animals have the same disease status. Get a lot less treatments than when we used to buy out of market or dealers.
like has been said there are always some poorer doers wherever you buy from.

The trouble is having a large enough constant supply of animals AYR from single farms.
Realistically need 3 AYR calving dairy farms for animal throughput

 

[Zippy768]

Calves are usually older and stronger in markets but usually find buying direct they want them gone at 2-3weeks old which can mean an extra bag of milk powder.

I prefer fresh calves, less likely to have history. Rather chuck more powder at a decent animal, than a lower amount at an animal I may have no chance with.

We were taking a few calves directly off a small dairy. Despite me saying to him about letting us know, even if he only had 2/3, he would wait and tell us when he was full. Trouble is by then too many of them had lost their "bounce" iykwim.

 

[Keithy1394]

Ill be honest it sounds to me that you cant really improve on your current system . Unless you can find a few herds that all calve at different times and take all there calves but i think that maybe tricky and you will have a massive glut then nothing at all really

 

[Samcowman]

The trouble is having a large enough constant supply of animals AYR from single farms.
Realistically need 3 AYR calving dairy farms for animal throughput

Yes that would be an issue if rearing Ayr. We do it in 2 blocks summer/autumn and spring. Roughly 300 each block and 2 farms each block.

 

[som farmer]

market calves, bought through a dealer, should be better than the ones you buy yourself.

he has to earn his money, by selling good calves to you, if he started supplying you with 'problem' calves, you would quickly complain. He has the advantage of quickly learning which farms sell good calves, that do, rather than those that don't, that's his job.

and some of those dealers, will run prices up, if they think its to their advantage, eg they can buy the calves cheaper than you can ..............

buying off farm, there needs to be a great deal of trust, between you and the farmer. Have bought loads direct, some farmers you can trust implicitly, and some will try and pull a fast one, like the calf is a day old, or scouring, and claim its a week old, and fit. Then they wonder why you stop buying from them .............

to get the 'best' price for you, its always take every calf, even if you euthanise it next day. The farmer simply doesn't want poor calves left, to feck about with. And always buy on an average price, those crap calves can certainly pull the av price back

we haven't reared many 'extra' calves, for years, but now going to push numbers right up, we hopefully have come to an arrangement, to take all calves, from a 500 cow flying herd AYR, nearly all AAX, nearly 70 so far, and about 2 poorer ones, all one sire too, Now he set the price, and he's delighted, so all round

if you want a 'big' lot of calves, from 1 source, in 1 hit, talk to your auctioneers, they will have clients that meet that, often just gone free of TB, or some other reason, bonus, a % of those calves, could well be weaned, or close to, saving a lot of powder !! Auctioneers are happy doing that, better for them not to have inflated no's in mkt, their client is happy, as well.

and if you are selling weaned calves, you have to keep the shine on them, or get knocked hard.

 

[BRBX]

Buy all off one farm but take the lot some some bad but evens itself out in the end .
We are both down with TB at moment so its isolation unit time again but at lest it keeps us in the game. I like the fact we can choose bulls , vaccinate prior to pick up , big batches , its only really the runty ones that are an issue but no different to the OP , find first loss is cheapest so punt them into market as soon as .

 

[Rossymons]

I've bought privately and from market. My experience of privately has been disappointment really as often the seller sees the high prices in the market and think theres are worth the same which is rarely the case. Plus I get to see how they manage their calves which doesn't leave me feeling all warm and fuzzy in my tum tum.

I have a couple farmers that I have bought off privately that do a fantastic job of their calves and are a dream to deal with. Sadly I don't get many from them as they finish their own cattle!

I often go to market and buy what I want. I'm trying to concentrate on making sure I have bunches rather than buying all the cheap calves. I've been stung like that before.

I don't think the OP can improve much on what they're already doing already - there's always a bottom 10% that just won't cut it despite our best efforts.

 

[som farmer]

I've bought privately and from market. My experience of privately has been disappointment really as often the seller sees the high prices in the market and think theres are worth the same which is rarely the case. Plus I get to see how they manage their calves which doesn't leave me feeling all warm and fuzzy in my tum tum.

I have a couple farmers that I have bought off privately that do a fantastic job of their calves and are a dream to deal with. Sadly I don't get many from them as they finish their own cattle!

I often go to market and buy what I want. I'm trying to concentrate on making sure I have bunches rather than buying all the cheap calves. I've been stung like that before.

I don't think the OP can improve much on what they're already doing already - there's always a bottom 10% that just won't cut it despite our best efforts.

as l said above, trust is key word, when buying privately.

even when you know the farmer well, after a while they tend to 'try it on', usually on age. But it proves the system works, for the farmer, he just wants less work, and you provide that.

and some calves never do, and the best way to deal with them, is get rid, asap, they pull the whole batch down, slew the costs on them, sadly, its just not economic to keep them.


the best on farm calves we bought, were kept in an absolute sh1t hole, had calves from there for 5 years, till RT stopped him milking ! And had bad calves from 'proper' new calf sheds

 

[Zippy768]

I've bought privately and from market. My experience of privately has been disappointment really as often the seller sees the high prices in the market and think theres are worth the same which is rarely the case. Plus I get to see how they manage their calves which doesn't leave me feeling all warm and fuzzy in my tum tum.

I have a couple farmers that I have bought off privately that do a fantastic job of their calves and are a dream to deal with. Sadly I don't get many from them as they finish their own cattle!

I often go to market and buy what I want. I'm trying to concentrate on making sure I have bunches rather than buying all the cheap calves. I've been stung like that before.

I don't think the OP can improve much on what they're already doing already - there's always a bottom 10% that just won't cut it despite our best efforts.

It's that bottom 10%- 15% that are getting on my t1ts tbh. Mortality i can handle - to a point obviously - at least they are done with.
Alot of our customers are regulars and any new ones I want to try and impress, so I don't push these bottom-enders into sell groups.

It means we are stuck with them. I run 60 odd around the farm and tbh 90% of the "runts" sort themselves out by 18/20months. Though typically you also lose some of the "runts" along the way.

It's just these hangers on hold the system up too much.
Thought about putting them into market, but they need to sort themselves out first and by the time they do, I fancy my chances of taking them on longer - naively.

These 10%-15% I put into 3 categories.
Some you just have no chance with.
Some maybe should never had turned up (small %)
And - the largest - Some with problems that we may cause. I.e environment and specifically the amount of bugs we bring in with such wide sourcing.

It's quite a compressive vaccinations program now, but simply with so many sources comes so many bugs. We will always have issues and vaccinations will never be 100% because of the pressures they are under

 

[Zippy768]

market calves, bought through a dealer, should be better than the ones you buy yourself.

he has to earn his money, by selling good calves to you, if he started supplying you with 'problem' calves, you would quickly complain. He has the advantage of quickly learning which farms sell good calves, that do, rather than those that don't, that's his job.

and some of those dealers, will run prices up, if they think its to their advantage, eg they can buy the calves cheaper than you can ..............

buying off farm, there needs to be a great deal of trust, between you and the farmer. Have bought loads direct, some farmers you can trust implicitly, and some will try and pull a fast one, like the calf is a day old, or scouring, and claim its a week old, and fit. Then they wonder why you stop buying from them .............

to get the 'best' price for you, its always take every calf, even if you euthanise it next day. The farmer simply doesn't want poor calves left, to feck about with. And always buy on an average price, those crap calves can certainly pull the av price back

we haven't reared many 'extra' calves, for years, but now going to push numbers right up, we hopefully have come to an arrangement, to take all calves, from a 500 cow flying herd AYR, nearly all AAX, nearly 70 so far, and about 2 poorer ones, all one sire too, Now he set the price, and he's delighted, so all round

if you want a 'big' lot of calves, from 1 source, in 1 hit, talk to your auctioneers, they will have clients that meet that, often just gone free of TB, or some other reason, bonus, a % of those calves, could well be weaned, or close to, saving a lot of powder !! Auctioneers are happy doing that, better for them not to have inflated no's in mkt, their client is happy, as well.

and if you are selling weaned calves, you have to keep the shine on them, or get knocked hard.

I am not knocking our buyer at all.
He now really has to work for his money by filling within 3 weeks.

 

[Keithy1394]

It's that bottom 10%- 15% that are getting on my t1ts tbh. Mortality i can handle - to a point obviously - at least they are done with.
Alot of our customers are regulars and any new ones I want to try and impress, so I don't push these bottom-enders into sell groups.

It means we are stuck with them. I run 60 odd around the farm and tbh 90% of the "runts" sort themselves out by 18/20months. Though typically you also lose some of the "runts" along the way.

It's just these hangers on hold the system up too much.
Thought about putting them into market, but they need to sort themselves out first and by the time they do, I fancy my chances of taking them on longer - naively.

These 10%-15% I put into 3 categories.
Some you just have no chance with.
Some maybe should never had turned up (small %)
And - the largest - Some with problems that we may cause. I.e environment and specifically the amount of bugs we bring in with such wide sourcing.

It's quite a compressive vaccinations program now, but simply with so many sources comes so many bugs. We will always have issues and vaccinations will never be 100% because of the pressures they are under

I dont really think you can do a lot about that bottom 10% i think you will have that were ever you source your calves its just part of the job . Its just getting them as good as you can and getting shut as soon as possible is my opinion

 

[Zippy768]

I dont really think you can do a lot about that bottom 10% i think you will have that were ever you source your calves its just part of the job . Its just getting them as good as you can and getting shut as soon as possible is my opinion

I suppose the question I'm asking is: -
Buying what u want from the market and putting up with the associated bugs, would I end up with the same % of "3rd rate" calves as taking EVERYTHING from a farm?

I believe that the largest % of our bottom-enders is due to the pressure of bugs we bring in