Which beef breed bull to use going forward

[sidjon]

a bit of colostrum would be a good start.

Feed heaps here, as get dead calves from ecoli pretty quickly, but you would think with the prices of calves people would happily get them a good heap of it.

 

[som farmer]

whe

perhaps my view of simms is a selfish one!

when we bought calves to rear, simx were not popular, around here, there were to many simx bulls, or very badly bred, bulls running with herds, and calves were definitely not the best, hopefully that has changed.

 

[som farmer]

Think going forward, as dairy farmers we need to know what the beef guys want and need to make their business work better too.

asked that question on here months ago, the answer came back as charolais.

 

[M-J-G]

Sims too heavy boned for easy calving, may make better beast to finish, but not at expense of the cow, had someone else ring up today for more Hereford heifers.

I've used mainly Simmental bulls on beef heifers calving at 22-24 months for a long time and they are fine, calves sub 40kg that come out looking almost premature.
I've also sold bulls born from these heifers to dairy farmers to run with heifers who became return customers.

Anyone who is prepared to do some homework on any breed will soon find easy calving lines if they want them.

 

[som farmer]

doing the homework, is exactly what a lot don't do.

 

[sidjon]

I've used mainly Simmental bulls on beef heifers calving at 22-24 months for a long time and they are fine, calves sub 40kg that come out looking almost premature.
I've also sold bulls born from these heifers to dairy farmers to run with heifers who became return customers.

Anyone who is prepared to do some homework on any breed will soon find easy calving lines if they want them.

AI company's have very poor choices of lesser common breeds, and from our own experience of sims of longer gestation bigger calves, their not even on the list of breeds to use, Ai rep talked me out of trying speckle park this year as, he's finding the to be to hard a calving.

 

[M-J-G]

doing the homework, is exactly what a lot don't do.

I spoke to a dairy farming mate who told me he'd switched from BB and Her AI to Sim over the past two or three years.
Having some interest in the breed I asked him which bulls he'd used, he said he hadn't got a clue, just whatever was cheap

To be fair, the bugger is getting away with it!

 

[M-J-G]

AI company's have very poor choices of lesser common breeds, and from our own experience of sims of longer gestation bigger calves, their not even on the list of breeds to use, Ai rep talked me out of trying speckle park this year as, he's finding the to be to hard a calving.

I've rarely ever bought Simmental semen from a commercial UK AI company.

 

[sidjon]

I've rarely ever bought Simmental semen from a commercial UK AI company.

Probably why the Main Ai don't bother and dairy farmer don't end up using them, until recently most beef straw where a couple of quid as a add on for your dairy straws, is changing slightly, but most is brought on price only, I'm looking at birth weights and gestation length firstly and not so much on the finished beast as most of ours are going as calves, have used the same Hereford bulls for several years now and would be reluctant to change away from him.

 

[Holsteinfriesian90]

What’s a beef shorthorn like on dairy cows never hear anything about them. Probably for a reason.

 

[M-J-G]

Probably why the Main Ai don't bother and dairy farmer don't end up using them, until recently most beef straw where a couple of quid as a add on for your dairy straws, is changing slightly, but most is brought on price only, I'm looking at birth weights and gestation length firstly and not so much on the finished beast as most of ours are going as calves, have used the same Hereford bulls for several years now and would be reluctant to change away from him.

For most dairy farmers I think the Sim never came back from the late 80s early 90s. Back then a lot of dairy farmers wanted pale colours to define the Simmental from a Hereford and a lot selected mainly for colour and in doing so forgot a lot of traits.
Twin that with some others buying a heifer to breed their own bull with and AI'ing with any old bull soon gives bad experiences.

 

[Wesley]

GP dont know nor care

Bit of a sweeping statement but I imagine the majority of the people who don’t care what chicken tastes like as long as its cheap aren’t the ones buying many joints of beef. Probably just mince. Beef gets treated as more of a luxury for many & would be disappointed if it was poor quality.

 

[Kiwi Pete]

Its utter madness. Basically forcing them to grow as fast as possible by pushing as much concentrate into them as possible. Beef will end up going the same way as chicken, bland tasteless rubbish. But apparently thats progress

It is for the anti-meat agenda - why make it easy for them to score points

 

[crashbox]

For selling calves, blues seem to have the value.

For rearing onto stores on poorer permanent pasture, Herefords flesh out well with fewer inputs e.g. grass only.

Angus seem a half way house IME.

Use Angus bulls on heifers and Herefords to sweep up cows due to calving reputation.

 

[JP1]

Horses for courses , its alright for mince but i agree an older beast grown slower must taste better. I think we were all amazed that lowering the slaughter age was talked about as the future when it looked far more likely extensive beef ticked the enviro boxes

That's the National Feedlot Association and their advisor and acolytes pushing that one

 

[som farmer]

Bit of a sweeping statement but I imagine the majority of the people who don’t care what chicken tastes like as long as its cheap aren’t the ones buying many joints of beef. Probably just mince. Beef gets treated as more of a luxury for many & would be disappointed if it was poor quality.

but chicken isn't a cheap meat, you don't use much more than 45%, the rest is bones, water, skin etc, whereas with mince, you use virtually all of it.

 

[som farmer]

What’s a beef shorthorn like on dairy cows never hear anything about them. Probably for a reason.

bought a beef shorthorn hfr calf, looks exactly like a fr hfr calf,

 

[sidjon]

For selling calves, blues seem to have the value.

For rearing onto stores on poorer permanent pasture, Herefords flesh out well with fewer inputs e.g. grass only.

Angus seem a half way house IME.

Use Angus bulls on heifers and Herefords to sweep up cows due to calving reputation.

Basically that's what we do, without the Angus.

 

[Wesley]

but chicken isn't a cheap meat, you don't use much more than 45%, the rest is bones, water, skin etc, whereas with mince, you use virtually all of it.

Have you seen the price of chicken? You don’t get much beef for the money.

 

[som farmer]

£2.45 kg, for chicken, and you throw over half away, not sure mince is £5.00 kg, not going shopping, l wouldn't be certain. Have found out, if you go with your other half, and keep stopping to check prices, is the easiest way, to not get asked to go.
And, having checked on line prices, admit mince is more than £6.00 a kg, stand corrected, But a bit shocked.
It makes one realise what food inflation is, perhaps more importantly, we know that further increases are coming, because of the return in our prices, to pay for our inflating prices. There is trouble ahead, and with energy costs rising as well, the consumer is in for a hiding to nothing.
It is for food, the result of a cheap food, at any cost polices, by guvs, across the globe, to keep their populations happy. That policy is f####d, and guvs cannot control world prices, so, what can they do ? To have an effect, on food, or energy costs, to the consumer, they have to subsidise either, or both. Sounds rather like the return of production subsidies, which will not please the green zealots.
Summing up, its a buggers muddle, and l am very glad, not to be a politician, who has to sort it out !!