holsteins

[auctionboy]

Has anyone considered switching to Holsteins, and raising them to get calves only, and not milking them. If you sold all of the calves at birth and dried of the cows it seems like imput would be very low. You would also get a lot of beef when culling these cows. Has anyone tried this.

 

[dun]

Has anyone considered switching to Holsteins, and raising them to get calves only, and not milking them. If you sold all of the calves at birth and dried of the cows it seems like imput would be very low. You would also get a lot of beef when culling these cows. Has anyone tried this.

I'm having a hard time figuring the point of doing it

dun

 

[MikeC]

Has anyone considered switching to Holsteins, and raising them to get calves only, and not milking them. If you sold all of the calves at birth and dried of the cows it seems like imput would be very low. You would also get a lot of beef when culling these cows. Has anyone tried this.

This would take a very creative business plan. :lol:

 

[backhoeboogie]

Has anyone considered switching to Holsteins, and raising them to get calves only, and not milking them. If you sold all of the calves at birth and dried of the cows it seems like imput would be very low. You would also get a lot of beef when culling these cows. Has anyone tried this.

Just have one holstein and her function is to be my nurse cow in case I get in a situation again. I bred her to a brangus bull and got a really good calf.

Problem 1) One calf cannot nurse enough, so you have to put another calf on her and deal with getting her to accept a second calf in addition to her own. That is cumbersome for a couple of weeks. Anyway, she has to be a nurse cow, even if you don't need it at the time, unless you milk her too.

Problem 2) If you are running her with your herd, she is not going to get enough supplement. Once the calves are big enough to thoroughly nurse her out, they are doing it all the time. The cow gives everything to the calves. So she needs a bit more than the other cows in the pasture. Next cycle I am taking the holstein to the pastures at my house and keeping her separate from the herd at the farm.

 

[auctionboy]

I wouldn't nurse the calves at all. I would sell the calves at the sales barn at birth. A dry cow on good pasture seems like it would get fat. This also gives auction guys like my self a good chance to make some money on some three teaters. There is opportunty to nurse the calves on just a few cows and add some value. I'm just thinking out loud, so all comments are appreciated.

 

[dun]

I wouldn't nurse the calves at all. I would sell the calves at the sales barn at birth. A dry cow on good pasture seems like it would get fat. This also gives auction guys like my self a good chance to make some money on some three teaters. There is opportunty to nurse the calves on just a few cows and add some value. I'm just thinking out loud, so all comments are appreciated.

A beef calf from a Holstein cow isn;t going to make that much money as a drop calf. The cow, even on pasture had a cost. If you bred those 3 titters toa Holstein and got heifer calves you could make some money, hard to believe what a Holstein heifer calf will bring. But the caveat to that is that some folks are reluctant to buy Holstein heifer calves from a salebarn. Too many freemartins and other problems possibly attached. The bull calves wouldn;t bring squat. For a Holstein heifer to really bring decent money you need to have DHIA records on the dam, that's dairying and whole different set of problems.

dun

 

[auctionboy]

The day old calves in my area get $200 on the bulls and $600 for the heifers. So an average of $400 dollars at birth. Every heifer that probes okay gets big money up here.

 

[El_Putzo]

I'm going to have to disagree, Dun.

A coworker and I came down your way to Norwood to the dairy sale back in January. He was looking for some 1/2 dairy, 1/2 angus heifers. He found a dozen 600 lb'rs for less than $1 a lb. But the day old and week old holstein heifers were bringing anywhere from $400 to $700. I was astonished. The bull and steer calves were bringing $100 to $250 depending on age and condition.

Now, with all that being said, I'm not advocating trying to raise dairy heifers just to sell without doing any milking as I think there might be some other problems such as mastitis and such that would cause massive headaches, but the market does seem to be pretty strong for dairy heifers right now. I guess a lot of it would depend on if you had easy access to a sale barn that held dairy sales very often. Gotta have a market for your product. Just my observations.

 

[auctionboy]

The buyers are at the three sales a week for the last five years paying those prices so I wouldn't worry about a market.
My plan is to buy 7 month along holsteins from the sale that are three titers for $500-600 bucks. The three titers are usualy the best shot at health cows. The dry them of and wait for the calf. If it is a heifer and you get $600 bucks for it and then sell the fattened cow for another $600 or more you make money quick minus death of course. You can still do well if it's a bull and make $200-300 bucks in just a few months. It would also be interesting to have a few nurse cows and raise the calves for four months( the bull calves, the heifers worth so much at birth are not worth the risk of raising, and you wouldn't make any more money till the heifers got to be #600)

 

[milkmaid]

Sounds risky. First off, I don't know of any dairy that sells a cow when she's ready to dry off - 7 months bred. If they've kept 'em that long they might as well keep 'em another 60 days, calve 'em out, and give them a chance as a fresh cow to pay their way.

Second off, if they ARE actually bred, there's gotta be a catch somewhere. If that cow is running through the auction she has something wrong with her; if it isn't obvious right off (feet), first thing I'd suspect is something internal. DA, hernia, that kind of stuff.

Then, how would you KNOW the cow is bred? The auction up here doesn't routinely preg check. Sometimes I can tell if a cow is OPEN - holstein running through with chalk marks on her rump is very likely to be a cow that was open a few too many times. Saw a fat, dry cow go through the other day - either she had problems at one point, and she was dried off and fed until she looked good, or, she was bred and just slipped that calf and whoever owned her said "Enough!".

And...how would you KNOW the cow is a 2, 3, or 4 quarter cow? Never heard anyone announce it when the cow's going to slaughter anyway. To put it plainly, udders are what I deal with on a daily basis, and I wouldn't dare guess on a cow running through the auction if she was a 4 quarter cow or less. My boss has some cows running through the herd with a visually balanced udder...that only milk from 3 quarters. I'd be willing to guess if she'd had mastitis at some point, but not which quarter or if she had it currently. And...it doesn't matter to the folks buying slaughter cows at the auction if the cow only milks from 3 quarters. Doesn't mean they'll pay more or less for her. It's based on body condition.

 

[dj]

El_Putzo and auctionboy,
Those high price heifers were they from proven milking stock?

 

[auctionboy]

I was talking about 3 quarter cows because alot come threw the auction. They preg check all of the cows sold as dairy, and are fairly honest. I'm not talkin about buying out of the per pound pen. I didn't say there utter would effect cull prices that makes no sense. I would sell them as burger anyway.
I do see alot of long bred dairy come threw the sales barn, when the milk slows up a lot of guys cull then. I understand the risk, but there is a lot of money to be made also.

 

[auctionboy]

They don't have to be proven, just black and white and over #85.

 

[El_Putzo]

The prices I saw were on day old to month old calves with no background info given during the auction, except that they had been tubed and should be breeders. No registration, no production numbers of dams or anything. Now, there were a few heifers that did have accompanying info like you are speaking of, and those went higher yet. Some up to $800

 

[Aero]

as long as you are planning on using the cows that have steers to nurse their own calves, you could keep them till they were 6 mo old and sell them as feeders i guess.

the only problem i see is that any dairy that has cows will have to keep them bred for it to remain a dairy. if they are getting heifers from you, i guess they could sell their culls for beef but they have to know that your heifers are better than their culls.

 

[dj]

I hope it works for you. I did hear the other day dairy herds of 100 head were making $341 per AU and those with 1000 head were only making $34 per AU. Maybe your in on the upswing in small dairy expansion. Good Luck.

Milkmaid,
Thanks your insight with dairy operations and herd/animal health are always enjoyable.

 

[rkm]

In local sale barns I have seen 3 day old heifer calves bring $700, six month old well grown heifers bring $500. If you replaced the heifer calves with bulls let them nurse for 6 to 8 weeks and sell them for veal.

 

[novaman]

This all looks good on paper. The problem is actually making it work and making money. Anybody that has experience with Holsteins knows that they are not the easiest animals to work with. It's not like having beef cattle. The way it sounds you're planning on having just a couple head at any one time. If for some reason something doesn't go right and you lose a calf or the cow gets sick and dies your profit is out the window. I don't know how it is in your area but we usually raise the heifers up to yearlings and we can make from $1300-1500. Just a couple things to think about.

 

[auctionboy]

I have thought about buying cheap calves at the auction after selling the heifers. You can easily do this and produce veal or 3-4 weight feaders that sell well of the nurse cows.

 

[auctionboy]

there isn't that much money up front on auction cattle, and finding them the next day with four hooves in the air isn't that shocking. That's why you get to the auction early talk to the people and it doesn't hurt to know the truckers bringing in these cattle, they usually have the scoop.