Starting a sucker herd

[AftonShepherd]

And they seem to have a nasty streak as well,som lims are wild but salers seem to be nasty

Maybe I've just been lucky, but been working with Salers X cows for 17 years and never met a nasty one yet. The odd one can almost be over-protective when new calved but even they settle down quickly.

Probably not the breed for the OP if he wants showy cattle but ours couldn't be much easier to manage.

 

[livestock 1]

Maybe I've just been lucky, but been working with Salers X cows for 17 years and never met a nasty one yet. The odd one can almost be over-protective when new calved but even they settle down quickly.

Probably not the breed for the OP if he wants showy cattle but ours couldn't be much easier to manage.

Honest reliable cows are the key

 

[Kiwi Pete]

We did the complete opposite of all the advice given here, different market here.

Having read TFF for a few years I'm still not completely convinced that the future of your beef industry is going to be all about the EUROP grid, nor about adhering to norms regarding bigger cows that use a lot of energy to maintain themselves.

We went for smaller cows, dairy halfbred with beef shorthorn, which decreases the maintenance energy requirement - and that increases the milk production per tonne of grass.
This avoids much of the "fixed cost" associated with keeping cows and means that they're milky enough that they can rear a couple or 3 calves each as a heifer, and two batches of calves as a cow.

This means our heifers will pay us back much sooner and then we can set our sights on running "breeds" with "looks" which in our context, will likely be Speckle Park as they tick most of the boxes -other than gaining Angus/Hereford premiums.
As we shift towards more EQ based premiums, we need to shift our herd in that direction.

Speckle Park are composed of black Angus bull over a roan BSH cow, with a touch of British White, and thus fit our system which is all-grass. One of our heifers is rearing our future SP bull right now.

I fully expect this post to be shot down, but as a newcomer myself I had to look outside the box at the various inefficiencies in traditional beef production systems and minimise those in order to get where we want to be and avoid going broke in the meantime.
Our first heifers need to wean about 115% of their liveweight as two-year-olds in order to do this; here in NZ it's fairly tough going to compete against the debt-free 3000 ac farms off a mortgaged 100 ac - but we're giving it a good crack.
All the very best

PS I just bought 9 pure char heifer calves this week to add to the herd; this year's calf crop from 6 heifers will pay for those and leave us in profit. Timing is critical in the beef sector.

 

[wellingtonfarmer]

Commercial, pedigree’s are overdone in both sheep and cattle

If your in a Tb area- I think it good idea to be pedigree

 

[JP1]

To the OP I would say focus on buying in healthy cattle and maintaining that with good herd biosecurity and testing

 

[Fendt65]

None on the ground yet from the lim but can get some of the Angus. Tremendous growth but the heifers are not going to get the weight before they need to go hence the change. Heifers 500kgs at 13–14m best steers was 616kgs at 13m!! Forage based diet but they have had 2ks barley and 2kgs beans/oats blend since weaning. I should probably run the heifers just on silage.
It’s the cows that impress me most, just hassle free with plenty of milk for the calves and very low maintenance, not pulled one yet and calves up and sucked very quick.
Blue cows on the other hand?several needed assistance, too much milk, mastitis, couple not wanting their calves, downers!!, massive appetites.
I won’t be bulling any more blue heifers anyway.

I have bought some stabiliser cows and calves but I’m about to put a lim bull in but I’m very impressed with quiet,milky good mothers,

 

[Cowslip]

The saler x south devons are very quiet, the saler crosses are averaging slightly more than the lim x south devons when sold as stores. As like anything selecting the right bull is key, our saler bull was bought from the breeder went and looked at all cattle on their farm, 14 bulls to choose from, I personally wanted something a little shorter in the leg but good length and a bit of shape at the backend turned out to be a cracking bull and have no regrets. Looked at other breeds and did alot of research before buying the saler for my heifers.

 

[Tom19]

I doubt I will go pedigree but if I did and developed good blood lines,would the market for pedigree bulls and breeding heifers be worth much more than commercial

 

[Bald Rick]

I am planning to start a small suckler herd 10-20 cattle, I know that money is limited in this system but it is more of a hobby hopefully to breed high quality commercial cattle. The question I have is where would you start,what animal would you choose to start your herd.
Would you choose well bred heifers from a suckler herd or dairy cross heifers
Thank you

I’ve got 5 lovely Angus x Jersey heifers coming up to bulling age. Very placid and gentle that would make ideal suckler cows in due course
Be ashame to kill them in due course

 

[Tom19]

I’ve got 5 lovely Angus x Jersey heifers coming up to bulling age. Very placid and gentle that would make ideal suckler cows in due course
Be ashame to kill them in due course

I wouldn’t touch jersey blood with a barge pole

 

[Bald Rick]

I wouldn’t touch jersey blood with a barge pole

Tastiest meat there is ... unfortunately graders just can’t seem to understand that

 

[tr250]

And they seem to have a nasty streak as well,som lims are wild but salers seem to be nasty

We’ve got one that’s nasty for a couple of days at calving and a few we wouldn’t trust but they are different to Lims in that they want to protect the calf you can walk in the yard fine as long as you don’t go near her calf lims will kill the calf in the process of coming over through the gate at you

 

[v8willy]

I wouldn’t touch jersey blood with a barge pole

Are they not the highest carrier of Johne's?

 

[Weasel]

Sim x luing to a charolais bull. Won't go wrong with them

 

[Agrivator]

I’ve got 5 lovely Angus x Jersey heifers coming up to bulling age. Very placid and gentle that would make ideal suckler cows in due course
Be ashame to kill them in due course

Jersey beef is known for marbling and flavour.

A Jersey, or Jersey cross is one of the most efficient suckler cows.

But Jerseys should really be extinct - for safety reasons, every Jersey bull should be shot on sight.

 

[Bald Rick]

- for safety reasons, every Jersey bull should be shot on sight.

Damn tootin’ right. It’s what your right arm is for

Wouldn’t have a Jersey bull anywhere near the farm.

 

[Henarar]

I read the thread with interest - having started a suckler herd - and then you wrote that... they're the bovine equivalent of bulldogs or pugs. I guess you can define such a herd as freely as you want, but it's always implied low maintenance to me, and so the calving ease - or lack of it - with those breeds would preclude them from being choices for a suckler herd.

rubbish

 

[Henarar]

I am planning to start a small suckler herd 10-20 cattle, I know that money is limited in this system but it is more of a hobby hopefully to breed high quality commercial cattle. The question I have is where would you start,what animal would you choose to start your herd.
Would you choose well bred heifers from a suckler herd or dairy cross heifers
Thank you

at what age are you going to sell your calves and where ? if your going to sell stores at market I suggest you go there and sit a watch and see what sells well, you don't say where you are from and it seems to vary around the country as to what sells well
if your going to sell them finished then you need to know what that market requires
I know you say its a hobby but I am presuming you don't want to lose vast amounts of money

 

[Bossfarmer]

i always had a love for Charolais,limousine and blues but as some suggest blues might not be best starting.the current plan is to buy a few limo breeding heifers, breed them to limo bulls keep all the heifers and sell bulls as stores,second breeding will probably be to a Charolais

why limousine? a sim cow is quieter, roomier for calving a big charolais which is what the store buyers want also milkier

 

[egbert]

We have south Devon cows and put a saler over heifers and lim on the rest, milk well and do on poor grass no creep, calves look like pure lims, they sell very well as stores and fatten easily, also very easy and quiet to handle.

I only breed SDs pure now - the surplus hfrs are very saleable, and i prefer to have my pick of replacements- but we have run charolais over them in the past.
DAMN! that can be an impressive bullock...2 doses of big frame, some shape, hybrid vigour, milky dam.