Beef cattle
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Ozzy Scott
Well-Known Member
Well at least with calf to beef you are guaranteed payment at the end
Contract rearers usually paid every month so that's bollux talk really, if you don't get paid at end of a month you can always send back the cattle on a truck
Ozzy Scott
Well-Known Member
Okay, reality locally was/is very different.
Must be great pride being your own man when the factories cut the beef price each year just when the big glut of dairy beef cattle are coming fit to kill! I don't see how contract rearing dairy cattle is making anyone a servant to a dairy farmer.
Ye must have some crew locally.
mixed fleet
Well-Known Member
Calf to beef is very low margin ( I'm at it myself)
Say that the average of what you're selling is coming into €1400
Then you can be fairly certain that you have €1200+ maybe more, of costs against each animal. You have an awful lot of money out over 2 years+ before you start selling. Your really only providing a banking service for the factory.
Say that the average of what you're selling is coming into €1400
Then you can be fairly certain that you have €1200+ maybe more, of costs against each animal. You have an awful lot of money out over 2 years+ before you start selling. Your really only providing a banking service for the factory.
Ozzy Scott
Well-Known Member
Wasn’t the local lads that were the issue, fellows from far away gave the game a bad name around here.
It's fairly simple stuff. If you aren't getting paid, send back the cattle on trucks, whether they like it or not.
From what I see locally, it suits lads with jobs off farm. If you were at home full time, with too much time on one's hands, then you are always going to think that you should be in some other fancier form of farming to make that extra euro. Lads with jobs, they are happy to draw down their grants and also have a set income from the contract rearing on top of it. It gives them certainty. They are getting the same number of heifers at the same time each year. The few lads I see locally getting on well at it aren't necessarily stocking the place to the absolute max, aren't the greatest grass managers either but they are good enough stockmen. And they are rearing heifers for the same farmers each year, not chasing another new guy that will give them 10c per day extra per head. The dairy stock suit guys with a mix of good ground and heavier ground too. The calves can graze off heavier areas when other stock would be down to their knees. We are in an area where there isn't an awful lot of calf to beef, the primary grazers were suckler cows or continental store bullocks to beef systems, neither a great source of reliable income for most men. Nothing wrong with calf to beef either but no point knocking contract rearing for the sake of it.
Barrowsider
Well-Known Member
It's mad to believe that the anti-dairy sentiment stretches so far that some lads would rather expose themselves to an annual roasting from Larry & Co than form a mutual relationship with a dairy farmer.
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Ozzy Scott
Well-Known Member
Not always as simple as that, TB is an issue around here. If your dealing with a lad for a year or two, you expect things to work away as normal, even when a poor price year comes along.
As always, if someone has to travel along way, and pass many similar setups to get to their destination, I would make you suspect.
I used often have cattle off at B&B, there are reasons lads get out of cattle in the first place😬
TB risk is no different to owning your own cattle to.be fair.
Ozzy Scott
Well-Known Member
Cattle can’t go home, is the main problem.
If you are rearing a calf you have an animal that can be sold any day of the year, mart or factory. Handy for getting a lump sum into your hand and you’re not being held to someone else’s targets.
Sell at year and half if you don’t want an expensive second winter and to deal with Larry
If you’re going to rear stock well they might as well be your own stock
Also your balance sheet is much stronger if you own the stock on your land rather than someone else owning them. A lad looking for a mortgage or whatever is in a much better position with his own stock than someone else’s
Sell at year and half if you don’t want an expensive second winter and to deal with Larry
If you’re going to rear stock well they might as well be your own stock
Also your balance sheet is much stronger if you own the stock on your land rather than someone else owning them. A lad looking for a mortgage or whatever is in a much better position with his own stock than someone else’s
Target weights, target calving dates, target conception rates. All great targets but none of them your own
You can kill your own
You don't know much about contract rearing so. The breeding programme is generally down to the owner of the heifers, for the 3 lads I know entails the following:
1. Sync programme for the heifers, done by owner and his staff and AI mam.
2. Repeats served once per day to AI for one week period. Contract rearer would be expected to tail paint and run in heifers once per day for that 7 day period.
3. Bulls running with heifers to mop up, bulls provided by heifer owners, not rearers fault if they don't work then.
I don't see what more the dairy farmer can do to make it any easier.
ithastopay
Well-Known Member
Some very interesting views and little information on which system is more profitable.
We’ve never done figures here on contract rearing, we have often done figures on the profitability of calf to beef.
It’s a tight game, I know lots of farmers who have tried in recent years, few have remained at it.
In my opinion they all made the same mistake, the calves were poor quality and cost too much.
There’s very little difference in the costs associated with bringing a O- or a P grade animal to 2 year old and a R grade and upwards, the difference in potential carcass weight is huge.
Buy the best calf the first day.
There’s very little advice coming from Teagasc or the farming media, on beef farming.
That doesn’t mean there’s no profit in it. There are some beef farmers still tipping away quietly.
The narrative for the past number for of years has been if your still beef farming, rear dairy calves to beef, or go contact rearing.
Simple sums, for me personally, if I was faced with the choice of doing either.
I’d probably give up farming.
I’d suggest a third option lease the farm, get a good tenant and take a fair price.
If giving advice to another farmer, if your ex dairy go with contact rearing.
If you’ve an interest in beef and intend to stay at it, get into your own stock, try to get some work on a good beef farm where you can learn.
There’s little to learned reading about it and lots to be learned from those who are doing it.
We’ve never done figures here on contract rearing, we have often done figures on the profitability of calf to beef.
It’s a tight game, I know lots of farmers who have tried in recent years, few have remained at it.
In my opinion they all made the same mistake, the calves were poor quality and cost too much.
There’s very little difference in the costs associated with bringing a O- or a P grade animal to 2 year old and a R grade and upwards, the difference in potential carcass weight is huge.
Buy the best calf the first day.
There’s very little advice coming from Teagasc or the farming media, on beef farming.
That doesn’t mean there’s no profit in it. There are some beef farmers still tipping away quietly.
The narrative for the past number for of years has been if your still beef farming, rear dairy calves to beef, or go contact rearing.
Simple sums, for me personally, if I was faced with the choice of doing either.
I’d probably give up farming.
I’d suggest a third option lease the farm, get a good tenant and take a fair price.
If giving advice to another farmer, if your ex dairy go with contact rearing.
If you’ve an interest in beef and intend to stay at it, get into your own stock, try to get some work on a good beef farm where you can learn.
There’s little to learned reading about it and lots to be learned from those who are doing it.
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am I reading it as the owner puts them on program and Ai's them themselves instead off the contract rearer.
alot of lads around us contract rearing, but they have all to do themselves, sync them organise a local Ai man , the owner might only appear to look at them 2 or 3 times a year, and from what I hear some of the stock coming to the contract rearers from the owners leave alot to be desired and an up hill challenge to get them to reach the target on time
The rate the rearer is paid is generally not in the public domain, because each agreement is different in reality so there is a variability there. For example, some lads send them back to the dairy farm just in time for calving, others send them the previous autumn so they only have them 1 winter etc. The calf to beef costings are fairly widely available via farmers journal and teagasc etc I'd have thought.
Yes, that's it, and to be fair I think that's the fairest way to do it. That way the contract rearer has no risk as such when it comes to conception rates. As a dairy farmer, I'd be happier knowing we did that type of synch work ourselves top anyways, removes some of the risk for all parties. For example, having your own reliable AI man into do a big run of sexed semen gives more confidence than entrusting the job to an unknown third party AI tech.