Calves

I have heard of some very high prices being paid for dairy x beef calves this week. While early calves are obviously going to attract a premium, be careful around the price you pay. Paying in excess of €300 for calves leaves the margin very tight. Some farmers are contemplating a system switch to dairy-calf-to-beef. However, margins need to be looked at closely. While dairy X calves are cheap to get into, they can be expensive to bring to finish and could take between €600-€800 depending on the system. That means if you purchase 20 calves at €250, it’s €5,000. To get these calves through to finish will take an extra €12-€18k.

It’s important you draw up a rough cashflow budget to see where the pressure points will be. Margins are tight and efficiency levels need to be high. Do the sums before purchase and see what you can afford to pay for a calf. Current calf prices seem high for a beef farmer to make any money. Do some homework on the farmer you are purchasing the calves off and make sure enough colostrum has been fed. If you can buy in batches, do so, as buying ones and twos here and there is a recipe for a disease outbreak on your farm.

Dirty Cattle

Be careful about very dirty cows coming directly off slats for calving or some even calving on slats. Faecal material ingested by the calf can greatly increase the incidence of cryptosporidium infection and can also increase the chances of infection with Johne’s disease. If possible, try to move cows on to straw before calving and maybe feed dryer silage or hay to pre-calving cows to avoid hides and udders becoming very dirty. If a cow is in a calving gate, try to take any daggings off around the udder.

BDGP Compliance

An important point to remember regarding BDGP is that where a farm uses 100% AI, 80% of the AI bulls that are used on the farm must be genotyped four- or five-star on either the terminal index or the replacement index within or across breed. That means that if the bull has four or five stars in any of the top four boxes on the AI catalogue, it is eligible to use.

Save Our Suckler Events

Next week sees the start of our Save Our Sucklers series of events around the country. The first one kicks off in Inishowen Mart in Carndonagh, Co Donegal, next Tuesday night 20 February at 7pm. The second event next week takes place in Station Road Mart, Cootehill, Co Cavan, on Thursday 22 February at 7pm.

A live calving demo will be given with a local vet at each event and livestock will also be on display from local AI companies. Representatives from the Irish Farmers Journal, IFA, Teagasc and ICBF will speak on the night. Admission is free and all events are KT approved so will count as an event for those participating in the Knowledge Transfer programme. Farmers need to sign in on the night as proof of attendance.

It’s important that suckler and beef farmers attend these events and have their views heard about where the industry is going.