Bought 12 Cows have limited knowledge

[JungleBiker]

On 8/31/2018 at 12:48 AM, New Cowboy said: I am taking note of all advice given on feed stuffs here..... Especially this cutting Nappier grass at 45 to 50 days...I need some data or evidence or  person the FiL will understand so he can also  understand the benefits or science behind it...And that's a hard call..

 

If you google these 4 words: forage age protein fibre

You will find lots of web pages explaining how protein levels fall and fibre levels increase as the forage gets older. 

Alternatively, you could get your FIL to submit samples of young and old grass to a laboratory to have the crude protein and fibre levels measured.  

[JungleBiker]

On 8/31/2018 at 12:48 AM, New Cowboy said:

 

 

I am taking note of all advice given on feed stuffs here..... Especially this cutting Nappier grass at 45 to 50 days...I need some data or evidence or  person the FiL will understand so he can also  understand the benefits or science behind it...And that's a hard call..

 

[I messed up the editing of the quote just now]

 

If you google these 4 words: forage age protein fibre

You will find lots of web pages explaining how protein levels fall and fibre levels increase as the forage gets older. 

Alternatively, you could get your FIL to submit samples of young and old grass to a laboratory to have the crude protein and fibre levels measured.  

 

 

 

[joedee]

2 hours ago, JungleBiker said:

[I messed up the editing of the quote just now]

 

If you google these 4 words: forage age protein fibre

You will find lots of web pages explaining how protein levels fall and fibre levels increase as the forage gets older. 

Alternatively, you could get your FIL to submit samples of young and old grass to a laboratory to have the crude protein and fibre levels measured.  

 

 

 

Thank you,  I am on to it now Rgds Joe

[joedee]

16 hours ago, thoongfoned said:

get some/or buy mostly female cows and breed em, long term it will be a winner.

as you say having only one buyer is not great, but its better then having none, at least you know they will take the animal and then pay you....

Yes, I think it's time to vary from just fattening Bulls.... FiL can handle birthing having done several over the years. I will get the process going soon... Thanks for the advice... Joe

[kickstart]

19 hours ago, thoongfoned said:

get some/or buy mostly female cows and breed em, long term it will be a winner.

 

 

Yes and no, I take you would fatten the progeny from the breeding cows? that is what we do, but we sell progeny at about 12-15-month-old, the guy who buys them will take them to killing weight.

The yes part is that you have control of the whole job, no buying in cattle you have no records of, not certain on age and sometimes breed .and you can choose which breeds to use.

The no part is the cost of the breeding cow, when you sell progeny from her you have the cost of rearing that animal, and then the cost of a breeding cow to take out of the equation, that breeding cow has to be costed somewhere.

Rearing the breeding cow, you could do it the Thai way, graze them on roadside verges, low investment, then put the progeny in a yard and fatten them, but you would only get a calf to say every 18-24 months, not a good turn over of stock, and  the cows will not be fertile, hardly a high-profit enterprise.

Or you could feed the cows well and get a calf a year to rear/ fatten, higher investment but you will have a good turn over of stock.

Then at the end of it all, you are not certain of your selling price, to make this work feeding has got to be good, especially the forage.

[thoongfoned]

3 hours ago, kickstart said:

Yes and no, I take you would fatten the progeny from the breeding cows? that is what we do, but we sell progeny at about 12-15-month-old, the guy who buys them will take them to killing weight.

The yes part is that you have control of the whole job, no buying in cattle you have no records of, not certain on age and sometimes breed .and you can choose which breeds to use.

The no part is the cost of the breeding cow, when you sell progeny from her you have the cost of rearing that animal, and then the cost of a breeding cow to take out of the equation, that breeding cow has to be costed somewhere.

Rearing the breeding cow, you could do it the Thai way, graze them on roadside verges, low investment, then put the progeny in a yard and fatten them, but you would only get a calf to say every 18-24 months, not a good turn over of stock, and  the cows will not be fertile, hardly a high-profit enterprise.

Or you could feed the cows well and get a calf a year to rear/ fatten, higher investment but you will have a good turn over of stock.

Then at the end of it all, you are not certain of your selling price, to make this work feeding has got to be good, especially the forage.

my thinking is feed mum well in gestation then into lactation, better birth weight/condition? mum quicker back into heat for re breeding. new born then  better/quicker growth onto say 100/200kg then onto breeding or finishing quicker?. so my qestion would be if shop bought feed plus grass grazing would/could this produce a quicker/better growing animal then say the thai way of walk it and feed what ever and dont count the days? (applying my pig knowledge again...5555) edit. another question. will a well feed mum  produce more/better milk ?then the average bag of bones you see about, makes sense to me that it would.

Edited September 3, 2018 by thoongfoned

[473geo]

My wife has covered all the bases in that we have a little grazing, planted grass to cut and feed, home produced rice straw, and hand feed twice a day. Mostly my wife is trying to feed grass or graze and she seems to juggle the two on our small plot very well, as the grass is eaten up more rice straw for a while is used to tide the cattle over until times of plenty arrive again.

We are going the self breed process and I only have one piece of advice that I gave to my wife also.........

If you must tend and feed animals, a poor animal will always produce poor quality, better start with good quality, same feed, same work, quality results.

Our plan is to accommodate no more than 4 maybe 5 quality breeding cows, Counting new dropped calves, heifers coming on, could be feeding as many as 12 - 14 animals at peak times.

The milk question above, can be a bit of a conundrum, we have a thin Brahman that has been gushing milk for the calf, hence my wife now separates the calf to drink twice a day, as the calf is now on dry feed, hopefully the cow will pick up a bit in condition and think about taking the bull again.

[kickstart]

21 hours ago, thoongfoned said:

my thinking is feed mum well in gestation then into lactation, better birth weight/condition? mum quicker back into heat for re breeding. new born then  better/quicker growth onto say 100/200kg then onto breeding or finishing quicker?. so my qestion would be if shop bought feed plus grass grazing would/could this produce a quicker/better growing animal then say the thai way of walk it and feed what ever and dont count the days? (applying my pig knowledge again...5555) edit. another question. will a well feed mum  produce more/better milk ?then the average bag of bones you see about, makes sense to me that it would.

Your pig thinking would be correct, feeding in gestation, does produce a better calf, and better quality milk and this applies  especially to dairy farmers, for now, some milk payment is based on milk quality, but it can also produce a big calf, if the cow is a small animal you could have calving difficulties, and especially  if the calf is of a large breed, ie Charolais. 

Again you are right, a cow calving in good condition will come on heat quicker, and will be more fertile, and have more chances of getting her back in calf, to get a calf a year from a cow, she needs to be back in calf by 90 after calving.

Also, when a cow calves she will lose weight, a natural thing (are pigs the same?),if the cow was feed well before calving, that weight loss will be minimal, and she will come on heat at 45-60 after calving ,but if she was thin at calving and loses weight she will not come on heat and well might  well have a fertility problem( main reason is small non-functioning ovaries).

A bull/heifer that is well grown when weaned off will carry on growing well, so reaching target weight quicker, as opposed to an animal that is thin and needs the initial feed just to get some condition on, before it can actually put weight on.

But, as the op is finding out the beef price is dropping, all this feeding is ok but you have to think of a profit as well, and you have to draw a fine line between feeding for condition, and feeding so they is a profit margin at the end of the day.

[473geo]

Thought you guys might be interested

Here is my wifes first home grown bull calf, angus cross from first calving heifer, (I must admit expected a black calf)

Mother born and bred on the farm

It is a long cycle but of course hopefully will be almost annual production from here on in

You can also see the grass my wife planted out in a small paddock from our pond surround, she now cuts almost every day for the cattle, although cattle are out on occasion to graze as our little grazing plot replenishes

Great credit due to my wife had difficulty getting the calf to drink with the mother kicking it off, but all is good now.

 

 

[kickstart]

On 7/3/2018 at 9:08 AM, thoongfoned said:

funny that you should mention treating infertility with an ADE3 application..... only last week i was moaning about the infertility in younger sows and was told to up the dose of ADE3 from the company "vet" i will get them to give it a go and see if it works, he was very sure that this is the way to go..... most of the info we get from said guys seems to do the trick as the info is passed on by people high up in the company with actual experience/knowledge... time will tell...

Hi thoongfoned 

                      I was in our local feed shop, a guy come in and brought a bottle of AD3E, and I thought of your pigs, do you think upping the dose of AD3E has done any good or is everything the same as before, and your sausage man is still busy.

[thoongfoned]

18 hours ago, kickstart said:

Hi thoongfoned 

                      I was in our local feed shop, a guy come in and brought a bottle of AD3E, and I thought of your pigs, do you think upping the dose of AD3E has done any good or is everything the same as before, and your sausage man is still busy.

funny you should say about this i was only taking about this last week.... No,from what i have seen over the last few months no change can be seen from the extra dose of AD3E.

over the past month the wifes farm has had the BIG six month audit, (every 6 months another audit on top of the monthly ones) so i have been able to talk to different company vets, one not long out of uni and one been practicing for 15 or so years.  both recommend the use of AD3E in the way we have been using it but have uped the basic dose to 1ml per 10/15kg. so... even with the extra dose i was told to use we still were not using enough.... (in the past 3 or so months). this morning the eldest gave 2 different sows 15ml each, before we would have only used 3ml each with and extra 6/7ml if no AI in the next 5/7 days...

i also picked there brains about using lutalyse in slow or infertile animals,  this we have been using correctly according to them, but for me if the animal dont want to come into heat it wont just coz of this booster injection of AD3E or lutalyse.... in the farm we have around 400,000 bahts worth of gilts that will soon be on the way to the sausage man (that dont include the feed costs for are farm) the more experenced vet said you are doing all that can be done....., while the new vet was very alarmed at the propect of all those gilts to be wasted....

[kickstart]

Thanks for the reply ,to me it sounds like the dairy cattle world, I do not know what brand of AD3E you use ,but our dairy farmers use no more than 10 ccs on a 450-500 kg cow, and one imported brand known as ADE 500, because it has 500 k units of vitamin A, the recommendations are ( I think)are 3-5 cc /animal .but nearly all farmers use 10 cc.

With cows especially 1st calving heifers small non-functioning overies area problem  giveing  you a big infertility problem, some do not come on heat at all, or the cycle is 28-30 days or 15-18 days, when a normal heat cycle is 19-21 days ,our local vets always give an injection of AD3E,they say it supposes to make the ovary's  more fertile ,but in in 90 %? of cases, it does not work, about as much use as a chocolate teapot, the problem being, diet shot of energy, due to poor quality forage.

And the problem is most acute in  1st calving heifers, as they have to be feed for growth as well as for production ,and as I said Thai farmers cannot get the quality forage, for the cows, and I have had my doubts about the quality of the concentrate, it says 16% protein on the bag, which I think it is ,but the important measurement is the enagey, which they do not produce figures for, and a high  energy feed is expensive to produce ,CP are producing a 16% dairy concentrate, which seems to be a good feed ,cows seem to do well on it ,but at 10-12 baht/kg not cheap ,and dairy farmers are reciving about 18-18.50 baht /kg for they milk.

As for giving your pigs 15 ccs of ADE sounds to me if they are clutching at straws as what to do ,the older vet  said you are doing all that can be done, or we have been doing it this way for the past 20 years ( just like our local vets ),the younger  vet was alarmed at the prospect of all those gilts going for the crop ,he could be the one to work with

Have you tried Estramate, in the cow world you do not always get good results with Lutasys,

Is they a way you can get some blood tests done, if ,if , they can be done they will show up any problems, animals,  short of minerals, low  protein /energy levels in the diet .have a word with the new vet see what he has to say 

I think I said this before, the problem is with gilts more so than sows, it sounds like our heifer problem, not enough enagey in the feed ??to allow for production, and growth, and to keep the gilts fertile, you said the feed is ok, is they such a thing as an independent  lab that can check the quality of the feed,  one of  our local feed mill can check the protein of a feed ,but I think not the ME/ TDN, meusuments of energy, many years ago in a past life, I had some cattle  feed analyzed in a UK feed lab, a 16% feed was 16% , but the energy, ME was way down, compared to UK concentrate feed .

[thoongfoned]

the AD3E we use is imported from belgium (most meds we use are import from europe) is vitamine ad3e 300/100/50. in the past 6 plus years we have been told 3ml per animal, like it says on the bottle, but now its been upped by company..... i dont see a problem with the meds. blood test are done at the farm every month 5/7 random animals, all gilts are blood tested before delivery, feed is checked at every batch/order number, stool (poo) samples are also taken randomly most months. all checked by the company labs, then checked again at 6 month audit. paper work trail is long and deep..... only meds that are given by the company can be used in contract farms, this also makes sense to me. contracts will be cancelled if alian meds are seen in farm, this is also checked for.

for me the problem with the infertility is with the prep the animals have not had (these also come from contracted farms) i asked both vets at what age do they think first AI should be then also when they should have farrowed for the first time, both answered with what i would have answered, then i told them the age of the animlas that come to us then the average first farrowing, both just looked at me and did not say anymore.  the reason being that by the tme the gilts enter are farm they are too old already to meet basic standards of first AI (220 days old ish) and/or then farrowed by 1 year old..... every province seems to run indepened from each other, different ways of doing thing/time frames and over years this seems to get changed from one boss to another so to speak... i have always said that the large business that it is seems to be very fragmented......

(the lactation feed is also 16 percent protien)

the older vet said that all farms have problems with the gilts, ie infertility (i know this coz i look at data from 20 plus farms daily, online) its not just are farm, why do i moan so much? because its a very big problem? you company loose alot of money? yes he said..... 

oh well, just deliver us another load of gilts once or twice a month, yes he says....

all we can do is just plod along, at the end of the day it aint my money being wasted, having said that they still make the money on the feed movements so all is not lost, maybe they only care about feed sales?

[thoongfoned]

15 hours ago, kickstart said:

Thanks for the reply ,to me it sounds like the dairy cattle world, I do not know what brand of AD3E you use ,but our dairy farmers use no more than 10 ccs on a 450-500 kg cow, and one imported brand known as ADE 500, because it has 500 k units of vitamin A, the recommendations are ( I think)are 3-5 cc /animal .but nearly all farmers use 10 cc.

With cows especially 1st calving heifers small non-functioning overies area problem  giveing  you a big infertility problem, some do not come on heat at all, or the cycle is 28-30 days or 15-18 days, when a normal heat cycle is 19-21 days ,our local vets always give an injection of AD3E,they say it supposes to make the ovary's  more fertile ,but in in 90 %? of cases, it does not work, about as much use as a chocolate teapot, the problem being, diet shot of energy, due to poor quality forage.

And the problem is most acute in  1st calving heifers, as they have to be feed for growth as well as for production ,and as I said Thai farmers cannot get the quality forage, for the cows, and I have had my doubts about the quality of the concentrate, it says 16% protein on the bag, which I think it is ,but the important measurement is the enagey, which they do not produce figures for, and a high  energy feed is expensive to produce ,CP are producing a 16% dairy concentrate, which seems to be a good feed ,cows seem to do well on it ,but at 10-12 baht/kg not cheap ,and dairy farmers are reciving about 18-18.50 baht /kg for they milk.

As for giving your pigs 15 ccs of ADE sounds to me if they are clutching at straws as what to do ,the older vet  said you are doing all that can be done, or we have been doing it this way for the past 20 years ( just like our local vets ),the younger  vet was alarmed at the prospect of all those gilts going for the crop ,he could be the one to work with

Have you tried Estramate, in the cow world you do not always get good results with Lutasys,

Is they a way you can get some blood tests done, if ,if , they can be done they will show up any problems, animals,  short of minerals, low  protein /energy levels in the diet .have a word with the new vet see what he has to say 

I think I said this before, the problem is with gilts more so than sows, it sounds like our heifer problem, not enough enagey in the feed ??to allow for production, and growth, and to keep the gilts fertile, you said the feed is ok, is they such a thing as an independent  lab that can check the quality of the feed,  one of  our local feed mill can check the protein of a feed ,but I think not the ME/ TDN, meusuments of energy, many years ago in a past life, I had some cattle  feed analyzed in a UK feed lab, a 16% feed was 16% , but the energy, ME was way down, compared to UK concentrate feed .

just re read your post. with regard to the older vet saying we are doing all we can, he means the lighting/environment stuff he can see and test in the farm. our daily management of the animals ie heat checking ect AI ect is down to us and he has to take our word on what and how we say gets done everyday. the older guy is the main man for 3 plus provinces and also told me he has spent years working in the company sow farms, 2000,3000 plus head barns. the younger uni graduate only comes to inspect the barns and mainly focuses on animal warefare and the paper work side of things.... she did agree to look at the gilt pool of the province where are gilts come from as she says her boss has never heard or a problem like this before? 5555 i said i have been moaning for more than 3 years....

yes the main problem is with the gilts and parity 1 animals, slow/or not into heat. we run on a tight time frame, as avery day = food/money for the animals. a normal mum will farrow 2.5 times a year, year in year out, to get all to run like this is difficult because how long can/do you give them to rest between AI while of course maintaining health and good body condition.

an example of the last 30 day work/production in the farm.  50 mums farrowed average weaned 10.9 per mum. total days used 7442. feed per animal av per day 2.7kg just under 700 bags. (days used 274 open/empty days plus 318 cull days.) so that leaves good days @ 6850 / 50 (mum) = 137 days from AI to AI. so 365/137 = 2.66 which is about normal for farrowing if you discount the empty ect days. as you can see its very quick.... so the true psy for that month will be 2.44 x 10.9 = 26.596 that is good to normal for us, are target for the year is to wean over 27 per mum.

thats why i keep a check on all those empty gilt/ p1 days, it soon adds up. 700 bags is not cheap for a month...... on a very bad month you could loose 1000 plus days to being empty/culling.... the main culling is all the gilts/p1 

once they get past the p2 stage they tend to come into heat quicker/more regular.

[kickstart]

An intreatsting report, I have just found an old bottle of AD3E, the same brand, as you said for pigs 2-3 cc/animal, every 3-6 months, some dairy farmers will inject weekly.

So, they do blood tests ,any idea what they check for, sounds, if it is for disease, more than, a metabolic profile, I am beging to see where you are going, with your gilts coming to you, not up to standered, and to old at 1st service, sounds if a good management sort out is needed,you said get them past p2 they come on heat quicker more regular, and then easier to get in pig , is it  like cows get them past 3 calving they become easier to get in calf, by then the cow has grown to her full size and is using all the diet for production not growing, and as a rule easier to get in calf .

Does make you wonder if they are more interested in feed sales, with the pork prices going up and down all the time, they could make more money selling feed, but a lot of raw ingredients are imported, with currencies fluctuating, makes you wonder.

[thoongfoned]

12 hours ago, kickstart said:

An intreatsting report, I have just found an old bottle of AD3E, the same brand, as you said for pigs 2-3 cc/animal, every 3-6 months, some dairy farmers will inject weekly.

So, they do blood tests ,any idea what they check for, sounds, if it is for disease, more than, a metabolic profile, I am beging to see where you are going, with your gilts coming to you, not up to standered, and to old at 1st service, sounds if a good management sort out is needed,you said get them past p2 they come on heat quicker more regular, and then easier to get in pig , is it  like cows get them past 3 calving they become easier to get in calf, by then the cow has grown to her full size and is using all the diet for production not growing, and as a rule easier to get in calf .

Does make you wonder if they are more interested in feed sales, with the pork prices going up and down all the time, they could make more money selling feed, but a lot of raw ingredients are imported, with currencies fluctuating, makes you wonder.

i will try and find some of the blood test results, the wife has a folder in the "office" somewhere. 

with the management people get moved all the time from one province to another, in the past 6/7 years i have seen 5/6 different area bosses let alone the doctors or other staff.. most people like to come in and change things......555

with the gilts they come in to the farrow farms with alot of paper work, stating 1,2,3 heat detection, vaccine, parent stock ect... this is one of my moans because i see that most if not all heat dates have just been plucked out of the air... if our farm paper work is out even my a digit on say a dose of sperm used we loose money.... 

even at parity 10 plus the sow will and can be growing, its all about giving enough feed not over feeding, over feeding can course all sorts of other proplems tooooo... 

the way i see the contract set up is like this. every province will have a self made budjet, they have chicken, fish,prawns and pigs. they buy the feed from the company at a "good" price (i have seen invoices) then buy or produce the parent stock in contract farms or buy in from the "master" province.  this then goes to people like my wife who are part of the chain.   so the feed is always moving and the parent stock being reproduced ect.... money is always coming in, even if there are problems down the line.from first hand experince i have seen farms pigs/fish contracts cancelled because they are running at a lose all the time. for me the contract farm set up is the way to go for both parties, cheap labor for the company and money for the farmer every month. i would never have let my wife get into pigs if it were not how she farms now. working for someone will always have +/-

over the years "we" have invested in this or that trying to pinch a bit from farming the land here, it bloody hard work trying to even make beer money every month let alone pay the school fee's.........

my wife and her friends who contract farm would never speak to the company in the way i do... thats why they all try and get me to go the seminars so they can have a good laugth at the crazy person....

[thoongfoned]

blood tests are for fmd,sfv,ad ect.... europe/usa strains.... also found swap tests, saliva samples, water samples (we pay for) and the poo samples, mainly just positive or negative against e coli, samlmonella and some other stuff i have never heard of, then more results are all equations........

like i said the paper work is endlessssssss

[Prairieboy]

On 12/12/2017 at 4:16 PM, New Cowboy said:

male cows

An oxymoron!  The female of the species is called a cow.  The male of the species is called a bull.  A neutered bull is called a steer.

[Prairieboy]

On 12/12/2017 at 4:16 PM, New Cowboy said:

male cows

An oxymoron!  The female of the species is called a cow.  The male of the species is called a bull.  A neutered bull is called a steer.

[grollies]

On 12/27/2018 at 7:34 AM, Prairieboy said:

An oxymoron!  The female of the species is called a cow.  The male of the species is called a bull.  A neutered bull is called a steer.

Or a bullock.

Edited December 28, 2018 by grollies

[BJM1950]

No, a bullock is a young bull, a neutered bull is an ox or maybe a the Yanks say, a steer.

 

[CLW]

I wonder how's the cow business of the OP going?

I'm still fantasising about getting into the cattle beef business but still struggling at the point where it comes to selling the hopefully high quality meat cows to someone that appreciates this quality?
If you are ending up on the regular wholesale market or at worst as meatball or hamburger supplier, there no point in it IMHO.

[kickstart]

Hi CLW.

          As you know I am in central Thailand, and what I hear the beef price in Issan is dropping, it has around here, Foot and Mouth did not help ,I can remember saying  a long time ago Thai cattle market is very volatile .we had to give up on rearing dairy heifers market prices too volatile, the classic buying at the top of the market, and selling as the price was dropping .

We sold 1 16-month-old beef  bull and 2  beef heifers  about 16-18-month-old,one was all legs and ears ,some Indo blood from Grandfather found its way in to her the other a fat Brangus ,we got 95 000 baht, happy with that, as I said considering we had Foot and Mouth ,the bull was going for breeding the 2 heifers for the chop.

Beef here in Thailand is all to do with breed  you have the Thai French company, they cattle are Charolais X Brahman, about 60-40 mix, they do command a premium price Wague cattle will, but they are all cross breeds, the rest will just command local prices ,and with the Thai price structure, your nice looking fat animal will only make a few baht more than your very average animal .

We have a Beefmaster bull calf, he would make a good animal, when we sell him our local buyer will buy him, probably for breeding, I would say in the right circle/market he would make some money for beef, but not around here.

If you want to get into cattle you could go for breeding, breed some good quality cattle like red Brahman, Beefmaster, and sell the progeny,  some guy was selling a very nice red Brangus heifer  18 months old on the internet last year 35k, or suckler cows using good breeds on the cows and sell the progeny on .

A dairy farmer near me keeps all his bull calves and sells them for beef at about 2 years, the doses all right.  

As for the OP he had a good buyer paid over the odds ,if he drops his price he will struggle to make anything, and paying farther -in law 10k /month to look after a dozen head of cattle does not help with his margins ,and what are the odds he is still feeding Nappier grass well past it useful feed valve. 

[IsaanAussie]

I am a pig farmer so excuse my ignorance on cows. But I read your statement about heating in winter and have to ask, are you building this barn in Thailand? 

[IsaanAussie]

I  didn't catch the Ozzie company bit in his post. But I dont know of a village in Thailand that cannot build shelters for cows in an afternoon. I was trying to be nice.

 

[KiChakayan]

I have one question. You feed only male cows because their value is bound to go up? Like any other rare commodity?