- Location
- Cheshire
I don’t watch or listen too any of it because the people do wind me up. Just ignore them and do my job. That way I stay happy! Well… relatively happy anyway
Suckler cow future?
- Thread starter WOODCHIP
- Start date
Why not do better not more
- Location
- Owaka, New Zealand
Cow has 4 teats
Why feed 4 cows to feed 4 calves when 1 cow can do it?
This is the beauty of small-scale, in that you can create the necessary two hours that it takes to make that happen, the big boys are too busy trying to be efficient to think of that
Why feed 4 cows to feed 4 calves when 1 cow can do it?
This is the beauty of small-scale, in that you can create the necessary two hours that it takes to make that happen, the big boys are too busy trying to be efficient to think of that
- Location
- Owaka, New Zealand
Or if they thought of it, they create excuses why they can't do it
then spend two hours a night on the internet complaining how hard it is to compete with "the lucky ones" that aren't them
then spend two hours a night on the internet complaining how hard it is to compete with "the lucky ones" that aren't them
Chae1
Member
- Location
- Aberdeenshire
We have a few dairy cows. Have seen 1 of them rearing 4 calves. Cheaper and less work than buying powdered milk.
Better natured than our sucklers. Doesn't take much work to put them together.
Better natured than our sucklers. Doesn't take much work to put them together.
Found dead calf in field, opened it up and found nothing, took bloods and eye fluid....found no cause of death. So got two bb calves on cow next day and fed in shed for a week or so. Then took them out with rest of cows in field.
Cow would come into crush twice a day for a couple of handfulls of feed no problem. Only problem was she hated the calves and would butt them to death if she could. Calves soon learnt to scarper as soon as they had their feed. Weaned them off her at about 5mnths old and fed calves blue top milk instead. Calves turned out great.
Cow would come into crush twice a day for a couple of handfulls of feed no problem. Only problem was she hated the calves and would butt them to death if she could. Calves soon learnt to scarper as soon as they had their feed. Weaned them off her at about 5mnths old and fed calves blue top milk instead. Calves turned out great.
Look like cow makers , I would keep them. Everyone is anti meat at the moment but the demand is still there. Some will eat less meat but globally consumption is going up.
2 hours a day?
How much an hour is that gonna pay?
If calves were £10k each, then it'd be worth it. They aren't.
- Location
- Yorkshire coast
There is a bit of a living in suckler cows but you want just enough stock without having to buy lots of inputs and you want a very cheap and simple winter feed system.
- Location
- Cheshire
While I fully agree, it does only work small scale. (Unless you have nothing else too do that is) but that 2 hours of an evening after everything else is “family time”. People keep going on about the work/life balance. I think it does have too be thought about. Plus it’s like milking then, you are tied everyday.
muleman
Member
Ask the family if they would like to go out to shed to hold the blue alkathene pipe and feed the calves
Jokin aside , did plenty of that in my youth if a cow lost a calf.
Never again, we skin them now and they take them straight away
Do a similar thing to you...back trailer into field every 2 days....roll off haylage and put ring over it. Takes very little extra time as have to go up to check on cows anyway and ewes are on tack in the next field over. These girls have been out all winter and are a month off calving at the start of may.
Didn't need pipe as cow Hereford x and liked her food!Ask the family if they would like to go out to shed to hold the blue alkathene pipe and feed the calves
Jokin aside , did plenty of that in my youth if a cow lost a calf.
Never again, we skin them now and they take them straight away
Agree with you...never again (maybe) she had a huge bag with plenty of milk. Was worried she may have got mastitis?
- Location
- Owaka, New Zealand
2 hours a season. Do you think we're cray-cray?
We'd be lucky if we spent a half hour per day working on the farm now - but those couple of hours per cow generally payback about $3k extra profit per cow if we sell the calves right; and it means the cows can be fed to capacity without obesity, mastitis, running milk etc
our heifers also calve at 19-20 months to help keep mature cow size down, so if the cows are weaning double their own liveweight per year without feed costs or special genetics then it is 2 hours well spent.
The bonus for us is that we have really good neighbours who keep in contact over calving, so we get the right calves at the right time and that makes it a really straightforward process
Is that a dead fox, or have they just killed somebody's favourite dog?
- Location
- Owaka, New Zealand
Necessity?
A ewe that doesn't rear twins is a cull.
A cow that is barely fit for purpose is a national treasure: good for the circular rural economy and the GDP
A ewe that doesn't rear twins is a cull.
A cow that is barely fit for purpose is a national treasure: good for the circular rural economy and the GDP
because we don't have enough of them, if half the cows had twins they could be run separately and fed better, its no different to a dairy cow, as it is they are just kept with the rest