BATTLE OF THE BREEDS FINAL! | Native vs Continental
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- Опубліковано 28 гру 2023
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You also need to factor in the damage that larger cows do to the grazing through compaction and mud-larking and extra drinking water needed in larger beasts. Bigger isn't always better.
What you are seeing is the benefit of hybrid vigour (also called heterosis) of a stabilised cross breed in the Stabiliser. Here in Australia we use have a lot of cross breeding to get the cattle we want for our climate situation. Unlike Europe, the UK and the USA, our cattle are outside year round and primarily raised on grass alone with finishing on feed prior to slaughter. There is now a trend to smaller, more efficient cows that are fertile. There is a lot of information online (which I suspect you’ve already seen!) about how the economics of larger cows are not as favourable in certain situations when compared to smaller grassed raised cows. Check out Greg Jeudy, a grazier from ?North Carolina who has put up a lot of information on UA-cam. His context is different but principles are useful.
I think in young stock the main benefits probably in the growth and the feed efficiency. They do very well on a grass based system especially if you steered the males and finished them off grass.
In cows it’s their ability to keep body condition on poor grazing and their fertility.
Really enjoy Greg’s videos. They make a lot of practical sense which is really helpful.
Informative Video James Thanks again
Great video mate and some fantastic insight in to farming for those just starting out. I’d personally like to see more videos like this to help people understand what farming is all about and educate people on the real struggle especially with regards to farm profits compared to supermarket giant costs and price. I think it will help people to understand massively. Fantastic channel and always love your content.
Great video and informative
Absolutely brilliant
brilliant video James!!!! A very Happy New Year to you and your family!!!!
Thanks keith! Happy new year to you too!!
As an ex herdsman from the 1980s who was well into breeding and genetics i found that an extremely interesting and enjoyable video.
For beef crosses on our dairy cows we used predominately Simmental bulls AI and ran our own Angus bulls in the herds we also tried Limousins and Belgian Blue. But we had a lot of calving issues with continentals
And limousins being turned out to grass wow ....ran the length of the field straight through the fence and got the last one back 4 days later.
I had never heard of the Stabilisers until i started watching your videos they seem like the perfect cross breed
Very informative.
Very informative one thing we find running Charolais sucklers is that a cull cow being more often than not over a time pays very well as a cull cow compared to many other breeds 👍
Yes that’s very true. They are a much bigger cow in the end which would help offset the cost of keeping the cow. 👍
Brilliant very interesting
nice video, and what breeds do you recon like continental and the natives?
super vid, and agree with you 100%. What r your thoughts on dairy beef versus suckler beef? thanks
Thank you. 👍 I think suckler beef produces a higher quality product as a rule. The positive of dairy beef is you can carry more stock because your not carrying the cows. I have never ran a dairy beef enterprise but from what I’ve heard people like to specialise is a certain part of the process eg calf rearing, grazing or finishing. I just can’t get as excited about it as I can suckler cows 😂
Interesting vid James, just wondered if there's any benefit using a Stabilizer bull on an exciting herd of continental x cows? As the norm seems to be having to buy in Stabilizer heifers or cows with calves at foot, plus a bull which is an expensive change over & will take years to build up a herd of stabilizers. Thanks Graham.
So in theory, you could just buy a bull (or use AI) to serve your cows, retain the heifers from there and put them back to the bull and so on to ‘breed up’ the stabiliser into your herd. It would be a great way of breeding fertility into a herd or reducing cow size for example. They are also easy calving so that could be a huge bonus if that’s ever an issue.
I personally wouldn’t be again doing it with something like an Angus or Hereford. I just like the data and transparency behind the stabilisers.
Happy new year
Happy new year mark 👍
Do you see any price difference on the smaller framed calves vs larger framed calves at harvest? Does your market want the larger framed animals?
Not really. Charolais might be a little heavier but also don’t yield quite so well so once on the rail, there’s very little difference. The only thing we do tend to see if the Charolais is leaner than the stabiliser, which is to be expected.
Found this very interesting used to work on a dairy farm where we grew our own replacement heifers and the bulls were turned into bull beef and we had Friesian x char or limousine and Belgian blue they were big animals and as uncut beast could turn quite nasty if not handled properly. But found it interesting thank you.
Couple of points a. We have saler cross Friesian cows or 3/4 saler cows b. We use Belgian blue and Charolais bulls c. We have had AA , Hereford, stabilizer and limousine cross cows and used them as bulls as well. Basically we buy in some heifer calves every year and put our heifers in calf to a salers bull . Our cows weigh in at about 650 kilograms and they calve every 374 days ( obviously not including barren cows) so I agree that cow size is very important we have a replacement rate of 15 percent and a weaning rate of 97 percent ( anyone who doesn’t rear a calf is an automatic cull) basically we have had to become very focused on the bottom line and cannot carry any passengers. We kill our bulls at under 16 months and the heifers go at less than 24 . We are pretty efficient and still we can’t get past the point where we have a cash surplus to reinvest so two years ago we bought 50 bull calves all out of Friesian cows by a mixture of beef bulls we reared them as steers and are finishing them now for the under 30 month market. It has been a very big reality check for us! We are looking like we are going to double our profit per acre by not keeping any cows , frankly I don’t think we are going to have any cows on this farm in a few years time. My father is completely stunned by how well the bullocks have done and at how much our output per acre has the potential to be, based on what he has seen so far. We are looking forward to seeing how these cattle will do at slaughter but we have already decided to buy in 100 this spring and not to buy any replacement heifer calves. It is a massive decision for us to change our whole system of farming but in the current climate and the cost involved in keeping a cow just to have an rear a calf ( regardless of the quality of that calf) is becoming more and more untenable in my opinion. Has anyone else out there come to a similar conclusion?
This is actually the story for many farmers. In my experience there are 2 main draw backs to suckler cows farmer. Firstly, most farmers (ourselves included) have far too many overheads. Labour, machinery etc. and the price of modern day kits saps the profit out of the job. The other issue is that on the whole most farms aren’t then big enough to expand to a size that makes the profit margins stack up. Dairy beef type enterprises are become more common as it provides a more regular and reliable income.
Agree with your analysis and story. The economics of keeping cows is killing the traditional suckler farmer, (in Ireland anyway) As outlined in this video, minimising cost of keeping a cow is key.
Rearing calves from dairy cows does look attractive. Suckler farming could die out, and we could become an extension of dairy farming. If that makes sense.
How much profit would you say you're making out of the dairy beef it is something I have looked at but I'm working on 250 for the calf with milk powder creep and meal straw up to 10 months I was working around 600 with purchase price worth 200 less to kill than suckler bred beef so 800 quid I'd keep a cow for less than that, a lot of work rearing those calves hear a lot who do buy dairy beef complaining they loose a lot of calves don't get colostrum early enough even know of one farmer who sold all his sucklers to go into dairy beef has now gone back into keeping cows
@@thomasevans5491 ok there’s a lot in this, I can’t give you an exact number for the profit margin per acre on the calf to beef operation yet as we have not killed any of them but we weighed them on the 13th of December and they were on average 643kg at 776 days old we put them on their finishing ration on that day and expect them to be somewhere between 750 and 800 kg and fit well before any of them hit the 910 days, they are for the most part limousine and blue crosses with 2 sims and a black white head , we collected them at 35 to 42 days old from a local dairy man and gave a good price for them as the heavy lifting of the rearing was done. We gave them a bag 20kg of milk replacer and all the meals they would eat up to march when we let them out to good grass and gave them 2 kg a day up to the beginning of June then they were reduced to a kg a day.basically they were stocked at 5 calves per acre for the first year housed in November on good silage and got a kg a day, out in April ( bad weather) and stocked at c. 2 per acre on grass only and no meal , probably housed a bit late in November on good silage and 3 kg of beet with 2 kg of meal building up to 7 kg of beet and 10 kg of meal total meal will be somewhere between 1.5 and 1. 75 tonnes in their lifetime at a cost of €380 per ton and milk replacer at €52 per bag straw as calves probably half a bale per head ( that’s what we have decided to use for the sums) vet and med €50 and silage cost of €150 per head in their lifetime ( don’t actually eat that much in the first winter and the same applies for the second one as they are getting a lot of meals) we estimate that the total cost of keeping them for the c.34 months including all sorts of other bits and pieces was €967 they cost us €330 as calves and we still have 50 ( touch wood) so our total investment is c.€1300 and the production of at most 30 acres for two years allowing that they kill on average O+ 4+ which seems reasonable looking at them and we get c.€5.30 a kg and they kill out around 380 they should come into €2000 each so 700 by 50 is 35000 divided by 2 is €17500 divide by 30 is c.580 per acre per year . Even allowing that these figures are provisional and not all based on real results it’s a long way better than we are seeing from the suckler to beef system we have now. I have also heard of calf mortality rates in the close to 50 percent category but I would think that this is a very much outlier situation however we bought our calves from the same farm picked them up weekly for a couple of weeks and have agreed the same deal again for 100 calves this time they have 400 cows calving from throughout the winter and early spring they have sold their first 60 beef calves to another person but have agreed that we can get the next 100 bull calves they are expecting 320 beef calves as they only use sexed semen for their replacements and have c. 80 incalf to that. Hope that answers some of your questions, truthfully I don’t know if we are mad or not but we have to do something and if we don’t do this our next best option would be to lease the place altogether because that would bring in way more than we are currently making out of what we have been doing as far as I can tell one could replace a 100 cow suckler to beef system with a 400 head calf to beef system and have way more wiggle room and instead of selling 110 odd cattle a year you would be selling 400 or to put it bluntly in these times of falling subsidies instead of the profit on a beast each per week it’s the profit on 4 ! Maybe we are wrong but I don’t think so based on what we have seen so far.
Sounds like you are doing well 👏 can I ask you how many sucklers were you running we calve 120 cows here outside end of April on for 8 weeks and to be fair quite hassle free few vaccine for the calves in summer and that's it we run 2000 ewes and feel the cows fit in well with the sheep feel the dairy beef would create a lot more work when we are busy on the sheep
Excellent video, I agree with everything you said.
The future for livestock farmers in Britain is feeding homegrown forage to native breeds in a 3 way cross perhaps Aberdeen Angus x Hereford x Devon Poll.
Those Pedigree farmers feeding barley to finish their stock will go bust!
Great video James after all profit is the 3rd most important thing after animal welfare and the environment.too many people think about the end price not what it cost.these video are really useful to us young farmers thanks 👍
No profit is number 1 because that pays for everything you need for animal welfare from vet to vaccines to best housing to enough straw bedding etc. Secondly you can't look after the environment unless you have money to pay for those costs and more than anything else without profit farmers will cease to be there. You earn money no doubt from your job whatever it is so why should a farmer that keeps you alive work for free?
Fantastic video James. Exactly the point at the end. Add in the lost Charolais calves at birth, the cows buggered by a hard calving and countless hours putting stubborn Charolais calves to suck makes the difference even greater. Last year I calved 1 Stabiliser and that calf was coming backwards but it lived. I rarely put a calf to suck now as they are up on their feet in minutes and sucking soon after. But I'm seriously impressed by your 2kg/day you must have damm good silage but how much corn? Guess the beans and good silage is giving them more protien than me? Definitely need to visit you before calving time if that's OK?
Would like to see a comparison against limousin i could see them being the same if not better in the break downs that you are using. The cows we have here are on average silage not loosing condition while rearing calf , a lot of problems quoted may be down to breeding issues but no matter what breed all have some issues
Yes that true. As I said, there will always be exceptions. Trouble with most breeds is that they have been bred to meet a market that is impressed by pub yields and not profitable performance and it’s easy to get brainwashed by it all.
The market these days are far away from pub yields. You have to produce to the specs required to meet all the bonus available 30 years commercial breeding with lim. One breed doesn’t suit all farms or all men as regards to native breeds lighter carcasses less kg output per acre
The stabiliser walks all over the lim Trust me we had lims for near on 30 years got fed up of them smashing fences everywhere some had no calving issues some were sunroof jobs the more pure the poorer the mother no milk, if we look at the rest of the world all the best beef is angus and Hereford we totally lost our way in the uk in the 80s
We have just starting changing to this smaller cows 550-625kg area from big 8-1000kg cows
We are also doing daily moves and still haven’t brought a cow in
We plan to add more bales to the fields to exstend this as winter grass is nearly gone
I’ve not used a tractor since cows coming to home farm in November you no that cost saving
We are hoping to increase heads over time and keep more money in the bank from writing checks out to pay bills
This is my second winter but first winter on full herd
Few things we are going to change going forward but not many
Aim is 100 cows plus followers all for own butchery
We also use no ferts or chemicals
We do have summer grazing away from farm and we do stockpile grass rather than cut and bale
Totally more relaxing on the farm now
Enjoy your videos well done
Sounds awesome! There’s so many factors that can help with profitability and reducing overheads is probably the main one. Sounds like your smashing it to me.
We’ve still got a lot of changes to make but we’re getting there slowly, big changes around the corner though.
@@baldysfarm I’ll be watching with interest but think we have some exciting times ahead this winter is a real test
The funny thing is everyone thinks I’m stupid and believe corn barns big cows is the only way to make profit I just feel by looking at the books it’s the way for me to loose the farm I’m a first generation farmer and have probably more to contend with than some so must get it right
It’s all horses for courses , if you are in the uplands of Scotland wales and England , then your best with a hardy native breed that can out winter and calve easy , saying that some of the continental breeds are just as hardy , one of the best and not yet used much in the uk is the Gascon , my own favourite for easy calving docility and first class beef is the Longhorn , with the Hereford a close second , and this coming from a Scotsman 😊
What are your thoughts on a native-based herd of cows, with continental bulls used as terminal sires? Best of both worlds possibly. There's a demonstration farm in Ireland (Newford Farm) that's worth looking up. Very profit oriented. All cows are AA or HE crosses from the dairy herd, 100% AI with continental sires, and aiming to finish all calves on farm at 18-20 months off of grass.
As terminal sires I think they are great. Especially if your selling into the store trade as they seem to make a bit more through the markets.
We use easy calving, hit growth Charolais as terminal sires now and they work well. They suffer with their feet but produce good stock for the finishing trade. 👍
Not even a farmer, but I found this interesting.
You are right but 20 or 50 cows would take another shed which could cost 40k extra
You also get more marbled meat with continental whilst native breeds can be turned out fresh grass will grade a lot less when killed out because of the yellow fat on the carcass
Yeh that’s true but you would have the option of outwintering (not always possible I know) with a native animal. Also, if you look at modern day natives vs continental statics like what’s available through the National beef evaluation, you’ll find that on average native breeds actually offer more intramuscular fats that continentals.
The native breeds (AA and HE at least) consistently score higher on taste tests with the end consumer because of that marbling.
When are the charolais bulls going to be replaced
Makes totally sense.
Farming for profit .
Problem here is that in the mart if they are not chaorley or lim they don't want to pay for them
Yeh completely agree, and that’s always gonna be hard to change. It’s easy for the buyers in the mart though because they are only concerned with fattening. Cow performance means nothing to them.
I totally understand what you were saying, the only thing I would of liked you to cover which I don’t think you did was buying in costs, yes you can run more native breeds and get more calves, but that means you have to buy more native breeds to start with, if you understand what I’m saying
Yes completely get what your saying Stephen. My plan is to do more of these videos because it seems to have got a great reaction. I’ve recently done a 3 day ranching for profit course in farm finances and costing etc which has given really clear ways to structure coatings. I hope to be able to run my own figures to get to grips with the process and then help people get to grips with how it’s done. 👍
good video but you are comparing the stabilizer cow to a 50% dairy cow. The Stabilizer probably does suit your system better though. Also 900kg is a bit extreme as an average weight of a continental cow. i would say closer to 700/750kg
I get what your saying but we have in the past ran blonde cattle and Lims so I think it’s far to make some of the comparisons.
I actually don’t think 900kg is too much. We weigh our cows regularly and we have some old Angus cows that weight 700kg and they are no way near the size a continental animal would be. You might be able to find Lim cows at 750kgs but they would come with a different set of challenges. 😂
Trouble is the gap is closer to £200 than £100. Char bulls looked a foot longer too. Extra cows to produce the same money also need extra wormer, vaccination costs etc.
In theory you would use any more wormers etc if they are administered correctly as they are used based on weight so more smaller cows would use the same as less cows of the same total weight.
Regarding the price difference. At 120 cows your young stock could be £150 less to achieve the same value. Obviously an increase in numbers on that would increase the difference however there would also be a feed advantage over the smaller cow so theoretically could find your other £50 or more over a 12 month period.
Granted however, there’s always a lot more to consider.
Interesting video. Not sure if the stabiliser would b worth mutch as stores at 12 mths. More of a animal to keep until fat
Agreed. The store market doesn’t really appreciate what a stabiliser can do. Arguably you’d be better with something like an Angus/ Hereford type animals to sell as stores, especially through a market ring.
@baldysfarm we have gone for polled limousin in the last few years. Not the same muscle or size as the horned lim but still some shape. Stabiliser probably more docile. 👍
I'm not shure how you can call stabiliser native breed because they are made up from 2 native breed and 2. contenental breeds. Stabiliser cattle have been specially and contnuasly bread to exhibit a package of traits that make them the most efficient and profitable suckler animal today.
Your right they are a composite breed, but are classed as a native breed due to the fact they maternally perform like a native animal.
@@baldysfarm I agree with a lot you said I think smaller cow for me mature cow 700kg easyer to maintain, better longevity, less replacements. If you were selling as store cattle I think native cow x continental bull. But if finashing cattle native cattle are easyer and need less inputs to finish. Both native and continentals have their own traits when killing out. But every butcher iv talked to that own their own shop prefere native cattle.
Not being a farmer. I understood probably about 80% of that but it was really good 👍
Thanks for watching anyway. I probably should clarify some of the terms I use more often for people like yourself.
Nah. You're pretty good at explaining stuff😊. That's why I watch. Same for Charlotte, Joe,only and others. Makes me look stuff up.👍👍
The complexities of farm costings....how about money out vs money in ??
I’m hoping to do some more videos on a lot of this types of stuff. Might have to start whiteboard Wednesdays 😂
Thanks for reply ...costings on a farm are very complex ..i used to work with the dairy industry , mostly at processing end . I do recall seeingfarms being sold n N Zealand quoting of milk solids per hectare . @@baldysfarm
Ive used nothing but stabiliser since 2014 they do exactly what they meant to do easy calving vigorous easily kept excellent mother's good temperament, but stabiliser company needs to do a lot more in regards to marketing the beef we should at least get the same bonus as the angus boys the grid will eventually change to suit us but not for a while, get a black bull though the jean pool is much bigger they are even better than the red ones
Didn't think there was a difference between red and black. I thought the theory was that Stabiliser company selected bulls based on performance data only, irrespective of colour?
@@yeracj2799 they do but in the states black cattle fetch a bit of a premium so most stabiliser in the states are black the red ones were bought in to the UK to look like some continental types if the black ones would have come most people would just say its just a angus
but you must take into account the heavier cull cow price and with cows making €5.40 kg it comes to a lot of money
Yes true, but in that case you must also consider the cost of getting the cow to cull. Increased cost to feed, not just for the cull period but the lifetime of the cow in the herd. Because the difference isn’t the food consumed from decision to cull and the animal being culled. It’s the food consumed from the day it entered the herd, right through to the day it left. That would mean you cull cow would need to be astronomically more money. Likely many thousands.
I also think that some of today's native breeds have cought up in weight with the continental breeds but both will have different trairs when it comes to killing out. I personally think if you are selling as store cattle continental cross is best. But if you are finashing I think native cattle are best. I prefer a 750kg cow to breed from like you say just easyer cow to maintain, better longevity, less replacements.
Your probably right. Especially when selling through a ring, you have to be aware of what the buyer wants. If you have a private buyer, your are better equipped when selling native animals. We found that kill out percentages between stabiliser and Charolais where very similar, both in grading and carcass weight but something like an Angus would likely have a faster days to slaughter ratio, but at a lower slaughter weight.
Stabiliser herd here in Ireland since 2016. Only thing I disagree with is that charolais will grade better in general. Agree with absolutely everything else. If you are selling weanlings, in ireland anyway, buyers will pay way more for charolais even if the animal is same size and grade/shape. Lads are just charolais mad. But wouldn't go back to charolais now.
Finnegans Farm have them , but I'm not sure if they fatten them.
I actually said that they graded very much the same in my experience. Both killed out as mainly U grades with some R’s. I have a couple of heifers for slaughter that may be different but we’ll see when we come to it. 👍
I have nothing against native breeds we have a few ourselves but the continentals definitely do alot better at slaughter both in weight grading and of course the price but its up to everyone what the wish to keep on their farm as the saying goes everyone's different
Exactly Paul. So people might enjoy the showing side to certain breeds or rely on the income for selling bulls due to having a smaller farm etc. it’s not for me to tell anyone how they should farm.
Maternal Stabiliser cows to terminal charolais bulls is perfect for the commercial man selling stores, small fertile easy calving cows with the salability of the charolais store.
But if you finish your own pure works best, eat less and grow the same, bulls are easy handled, in demand by prossesor and paid at prime price not bull price because st bulls are consistently 350 to 390dw at 14mnth with good fat cover and marbling rather than been over 400dw spec, too lean and been penilised on ppkg. The heifers will finish at 18mnth before a second winter on good grass or silage and cull cows are still returning £1300 but saved £200 a year in feed costs. Income is not profit.
That’s a really good idea. I had though that myself for cattle that we aren’t looking to breed replacements from. Throw a Charolais bull is and see what happens.
We had a couple of stabiliser heifer not get in calf so chucked them in the fattening yard and they have put weight on like nobodies business.
Complete nonsese the charolais are 1/4 dairy
The comparison is completely buyest compairy a purebread beef animal to a animal that originally come from a dairy line
Fair point. I don’t have the resources to buy a pure bred animal to do the comparison with. Also, you would find a few differences in the figure but if the National beef evaluations are to be believed, the end results would be pretty much the same.
Is it not just trying tom maximize margin on the farm however it is done...there will be limiting factors such as sheds , acres , time etc....3 batches of stores might be more profitable than one batch of fine graders...??@@baldysfarm
You must be on stabiliser society's payroll, I've not heard anyone have as one sided favourable opinion of them , mixed reports at best
Well it’s pretty one sided for a reason. I thought I made it fairly clear that it was based upon my own experience running them on a particular system.
They aren’t gonna be for everyone but I’m only interested in running commercial systems with maximum utilisation of grass.
@@baldysfarm you did and im not having a go, I just hear mixed reports on them
It’s completely and blatantly obvious you must have a financial interest with in the stabiliser society the amount you push the stabilisers if the stabilisers were that good they be selling bulls at substantial money fit to compete with the big breeds like charolais and limousines.
Or, he's just saying it as he finds it, after having worked with both.
The only thing I’ve ever had from The Stabiliser Cattle Company is a free hat. I’m not a multiplier, stake holder or have any other connection. The reason why Stabiliser bulls aren’t selling for huge prices is because the breed society set the prices based on the animals EBV’s. For example top 5% bulls will all be £7500 (I believe). That both creates fairness for the breeders and transparency for the buyer.