What 5 bunches do you have, and how can you reduce that? 1st yr of no replacements here, and I'm certainly not missing not having that extra bunch of animals, I'd be off putting them in paddocks right now normally.
Dairying
- Thread starter podge 23
- Start date
What 5 bunches do you have, and how can you reduce that? 1st yr of no replacements here, and I'm certainly not missing not having that extra bunch of animals, I'd be off putting them in paddocks right now normally.
You're a very long time talking about putting in these cubicles....
JohnBoy
Well-Known Member
What do you want the bullocks for? Just get rid of them and keep your system simple
How do you know you wont be complaining if you get back into cows?
massey 6480
Well-Known Member
He will be
I need the bullocks because I wouldn't have enough cattle otherwise.
Isn't that what ye are here for to listen to me complaining 😂 !!
I roll my eyes everytime when I read you posting about getting back into milking
JohnBoy
Well-Known Member
Why do you need so many cattle?
Are you growing too much grass?
Cut back on fertiliser or lease out a few acres, or sow a bit of barley.
I do sell 1st cut silage and I would have to sell 2nd cut if it is Only contract heifers I would have for the winter and it's a thing I don't really like doing like lads can bog the place with fertiliser and I can't say much about it .
And I don't want to take on a second lad with heifers it can get messy then so then I have to buy calves to make up the slack if I only had the heifers my numbers would be small and it's not that I am putting out much fert it's just all young grass and well looked after .
Cows would sort the above problems but obviously create there own but if I did go bk it would be OAD I would be looking at for a number of reasons ...
And I don't want to take on a second lad with heifers it can get messy then so then I have to buy calves to make up the slack if I only had the heifers my numbers would be small and it's not that I am putting out much fert it's just all young grass and well looked after .
Cows would sort the above problems but obviously create there own but if I did go bk it would be OAD I would be looking at for a number of reasons ...
Arthur
Well-Known Member
You are not alone.
It took some balls to be fair to you to get out of cows at the end of 2022 after the most profitable year in dairying of all time. Its not really clear to me why you want to go back milking cows, if its OAD then financially you'll almost probably be as well off at the contract rearing. Talking about cows doing less tramping of ground in wet weather than young stock etc is a bit of a mute point really. Put them in the shed if the land is wet. Finding it hard to manage grass due to more groups of stock is a bit the same, couldn't you just join the two groups of heifers for instance? It's going to take even more balls to get back into cows than it took to get out of them.
Imo listening to your plight…. Your issue is you don’t like having cattle inside in February March and April.
Here is a potential system for you. Buy 100-120 calves each spring. Set up an auto calf feeder and adapt the sheds you have for €20k.
Rear the calves indoors till maybe mid may. Cut and early first cut for your own use the first week of May last. Sell a bit of later First cut. Calves graze after grass for the first month or so (obviously watch for the summer scour etc)
They graze away for the first year and you start housing around 15th October. As ground conditions get worse you drop your group size to stop the tramping. Housing the heaviest calves bit by bit. You may even get away with keeping the lightest 20 calves out fully.
Keep your calves till a year of age and sell in dribs and drabs from 1st march to 1st May. Don’t bother with spring grazing as you’ll be aiming for an early first cut and you’ll have the farm cleaned off after a winter of grazing light cattle.
Obviously if you stay contract rearing you’ll have heifers for a second grazing season for at least this way you could potentially only have 2 bunches of cattle. If you were contract rearing for a farmer you could do a deal too but all his calves to minimise rush and make sourcing easier
Imo the best profit in dairy beef is the first year of you aim to sell to the grass buyer. In the second year you don’t have as much profit but your workload is a fraction of the rearing stage.
jcb411abuser
Well-Known Member
you should have seen my thread about a tractor for triple mowers....
jcb411abuser
Well-Known Member
take a few hedges out, increase the paddock size, put that 2 bunch heifer group into 1, and get rid of the bullocks, get a second equally large group of contract heifers as the previous 2 to make 1 more group, sell all your silage, or
get rid of all of the cattle and sell all your silage
ever though about arable? maybe some spring barley?
The reason (I am thinking let me stress that point well ) of going bk is first of farming on heavy ground so not ideal
Get much rain and ground gets wet fast,so like cows would only be in the 1 field/plot for a short time as ye know so do less damage and this can't be done with dry cattle,if I join up the 2 bunches of heifers they would plough the place even if I gave them a 10 acre field get a wet night or 2 and it's wrecked .
A few good points there there uptown 125,no I don't mind having cattle insude them months .
That's alot of calves to scourse and alot to get scour
No ground not good enough for tillage
Get much rain and ground gets wet fast,so like cows would only be in the 1 field/plot for a short time as ye know so do less damage and this can't be done with dry cattle,if I join up the 2 bunches of heifers they would plough the place even if I gave them a 10 acre field get a wet night or 2 and it's wrecked .
A few good points there there uptown 125,no I don't mind having cattle insude them months .
That's alot of calves to scourse and alot to get scour
No ground not good enough for tillage
jcb411abuser
Well-Known Member
then why not rotationally graze your bunches aswell?
You’re going milking cause you think you have to go milking. Not cause you want to go milking. That’s what got you into your middle in the first place. You think you’re special with heavy land. All of the west of Ireland has land heavier than yours I can guarantee and most of them ain’t dairying. You’re getting way over fussed about cattle doing damage. This is gone beyond a joke now!
We’re all sick of it at this stage. You need to go share farming in some way shape or form cause you haven’t the decisiveness to make any decision and you’ll doubt yourself forever more.
Thinking about this post it's no bad idea,just to buy that many calves and rear them would be the big issue ..
Any idea is there a bit of profit out of it ?
It won’t match tax free leasing but it’s probably your best bet.
But your calf for €150
1.5 bags of milk replacer €75
Bedding €50
Meal - 500kg in the year being very generous €200
Silage €120
Grazing fertiliser €70
Costs at €670
Aim for €850 average.
€180/head.
100 head
€18k
…. The equivalent of 15 good cows on OAD haha
there's a fella over on boards currently waffling about 800/head at 30 months 🤣
There is jack shit out of rearing calves from what I can see here at home only lots of work. Cull cows seem the only show in town for dairy beef if you ask me.
I see him alright but he’s the exception. He’s depending on the first man to lose their shirt rearing calves. Which is probably the right system but not one which is easily achieved imo
Though it is probably fairly important to time the market. A better system for dairy beef tbf is buy calves in august/september. That way you have none of the work of rearing them, if they’re done poorly you can make up for lost time and most of the time you’ll buy them for cheaper than you rear them. €400 would generally buy you nice Angus heifers that time of year. Keep them for 7 months of winter off €120 of silage and €120 off meal and they should be worth €850 in April. Leaving you €200/head