Cows. What's the deal?

[NanLaew]

Mrs NL was talking with a lady out in the 'burbs of Udon who was saying that there's some cash to be made in cows. We're broadly familiar with the buffalo business, exploring the ins and outs of that a few years back with one of her aunties who was looking for someone to share the investment but it didn't go anywhere.

 

These are the cows in question and honestly seeking some advice on how this places as a 'nice little earner' as they say back home?

 

Thanks!

NL

 

[khwaibah]

Check out this thread and you will see.  

 

[khwaibah]

Also check out this thread which is mine and the project is  going strong. This project is backed and sponsored by the Department of Livestock Development. 

 

[NanLaew]

Thanks for those links, much appreciated. I like farmers, always up at the crack of dawn!

[roo860]

Thanks for those links, much appreciated. I like farmers, always up at the crack of dawn!

Dawn's happy with that!

Sent from my SM-G920F using Thailand Forum - Thaivisa mobile app

[Dumbastheycome]

Research it. Not in here  too much. At least  not in open forum, you will  get .... ! There is a massive  amount  of potential at this  time in beef raising if  you  do it  with care. Build it. Your pictured  breed is  maybe not  ideal for best potential, only popular generic. Consistent qualityfeed source is paramount.

Discard  most of any experience  with buffalo. Not an equivalent animal .

Good  luck.

[dotpoom]

12 hours ago, roo860 said:

Dawn's happy with that!

Sent from my SM-G920F using Thailand Forum - Thaivisa mobile app
 

Blast!...you took the words right out of my mouth, 555

[kickstart]

12 hours ago, NanLaew said:

Thanks for those links, much appreciated. I like farmers, always up at the crack of dawn!

As Khwaibah said look at the threads he mentioned, any further questions, come back here.

The years I have been here I have heard a good few times Mr/Mrs. Som talking to Mr/Mrs Chie saying they is money in whatever it was, 9 times out of 10 they is not a stang to be made.

Looking at the pitchers of the two cows no one is going to get fat rearing them, and that includes those too animals. Remember this is Thailand  if they were money in it  every man and his dog would be doing it ,do you see a lot of cattle rearing farms,not the big company ones ,our friend Somchie doing it most ,answers are no ,main problem is cash flow, from birth too saluter is about 2 1/2-3 years most Thai's just do not have the money for such a long-term investment .

Dumbastheycome 

                         You can research it ,then try it in practice, not the same  look at the price of your quality feed not cheap ,8-10 baht /kg for a good high energy feed ,you are right on breeds ,you would need a Charolais or Angus, or Simmatile, if you can find the stock again not cheap, the only way to  make money,  as I have said a good few times is to grow good quality grass, grass is a cheap feed ,it can be done,not easy management has to be good ,if you think just feed a concentrate feed and watch them grow and sell them at the end and make money, you would be well wrong .

Beef price has been high for a good few years now, now it is on the way down 90-100 baht/kg last time I asked, in my area, we have Foot and Mouth disease, you can not give cattle away at this time, no one is buying cattle.

Again as Khwaibar said read the cattle threads on here, they are some good papers on the net about rearing cattle in a tropical climate.    

 

[thoongfoned]

On 12/27/2018 at 9:09 PM, kickstart said:

As Khwaibah said look at the threads he mentioned, any further questions, come back here.

The years I have been here I have heard a good few times Mr/Mrs. Som talking to Mr/Mrs Chie saying they is money in whatever it was, 9 times out of 10 they is not a stang to be made.

Looking at the pitchers of the two cows no one is going to get fat rearing them, and that includes those too animals. Remember this is Thailand  if they were money in it  every man and his dog would be doing it ,do you see a lot of cattle rearing farms,not the big company ones ,our friend Somchie doing it most ,answers are no ,main problem is cash flow, from birth too saluter is about 2 1/2-3 years most Thai's just do not have the money for such a long-term investment .

Dumbastheycome 

                         You can research it ,then try it in practice, not the same  look at the price of your quality feed not cheap ,8-10 baht /kg for a good high energy feed ,you are right on breeds ,you would need a Charolais or Angus, or Simmatile, if you can find the stock again not cheap, the only way to  make money,  as I have said a good few times is to grow good quality grass, grass is a cheap feed ,it can be done,not easy management has to be good ,if you think just feed a concentrate feed and watch them grow and sell them at the end and make money, you would be well wrong .

Beef price has been high for a good few years now, now it is on the way down 90-100 baht/kg last time I asked, in my area, we have Foot and Mouth disease, you can not give cattle away at this time, no one is buying cattle.

Again as Khwaibar said read the cattle threads on here, they are some good papers on the net about rearing cattle in a tropical climate.    

 

the wife says that foot and mouth is also around/in udon thani province (14/15 villages already) she was at some government livstock thing this past week... local beef is still from 280 kg going up to around 320/330 kg at the road side/markets. shop i was at the other day was very busy, so was the one next door...

in the past 2/3 months local cattle farmers have been saying the live price is dropping, if they sold then/now they would be taking a loss. we still have people come and hand cut the grass around the farm for their cattle, 3 or 4 teams aday, everyday.

this year i see small lorries carting the rice bales about, never seen this before. also a good few kabuta bailers on the backs of tractors.

[kickstart]

Beef at our local market is still around 240-260 baht/kg, as toognfoned said beef on the hoof is dropping, middlemen making money again, I would still like to know how New Cowboys buyer makes his money he pays top book for stock, he must have his own shops etc to sell his beef.

Foot and mouth could be an influence, only yesterday I was on a friend's farm, he had a very nice 75% Brahman 25% Friesian  bull 320 kg 2year old he said back in August/September he was offered 35 000 baht he said no wait a bit longer for it to grow ,with F/M he would only get 20-25000 baht,we are the same .we have a bull and a heifer we wanted  to sell back in the summer we where offered 50 000 baht we said no, we had grass, plus Gratin, the tree legume, ample silage cheap feed, not a lot of feeding expense, knowing they would still grow, now we might get 30 000 baht .

Foot and mouth in Thailand can be bad, they is very little prevention, no foot baths on most  farms, I know of 2 farms that make you dip your boots before you can go on the farm, dogs have been known to spread F/M  and we all know how they just run all over the place .

Around here it is a relatively new strain, most strains are  O or A, now they are O Lopburi and O Sakon Nakon, farmers, mainly dairy were vaccinating using strain  A or O, vaccinating twice a year and they cattle where still geting infected,  the new vaccine O Lopburi is now available, our local vet said now vaccinate every 4 months. , the vaccine is produced at the DLD labs near Pack Chon, Korat in this area it is normale spread by beef cattle very few are vaccinated, no one has any handling fertilities for stroppy beef cattle so they do not get done.

[thoongfoned]

12 hours ago, kickstart said:

Beef at our local market is still around 240-260 baht/kg, as toognfoned said beef on the hoof is dropping, middlemen making money again, I would still like to know how New Cowboys buyer makes his money he pays top book for stock, he must have his own shops etc to sell his beef.

Foot and mouth could be an influence, only yesterday I was on a friend's farm, he had a very nice 75% Brahman 25% Friesian  bull 320 kg 2year old he said back in August/September he was offered 35 000 baht he said no wait a bit longer for it to grow ,with F/M he would only get 20-25000 baht,we are the same .we have a bull and a heifer we wanted  to sell back in the summer we where offered 50 000 baht we said no, we had grass, plus Gratin, the tree legume, ample silage cheap feed, not a lot of feeding expense, knowing they would still grow, now we might get 30 000 baht .

Foot and mouth in Thailand can be bad, they is very little prevention, no foot baths on most  farms, I know of 2 farms that make you dip your boots before you can go on the farm, dogs have been known to spread F/M  and we all know how they just run all over the place .

Around here it is a relatively new strain, most strains are  O or A, now they are O Lopburi and O Sakon Nakon, farmers, mainly dairy were vaccinating using strain  A or O, vaccinating twice a year and they cattle where still geting infected,  the new vaccine O Lopburi is now available, our local vet said now vaccinate every 4 months. , the vaccine is produced at the DLD labs near Pack Chon, Korat in this area it is normale spread by beef cattle very few are vaccinated, no one has any handling fertilities for stroppy beef cattle so they do not get done.

putting my pig head on again, with the vaccine it makes sense to do a dose say of fmd every 3/4 months and if you ues other vaccines do in between with say 30/40 days between doses, this is how the pigs are done, (sows) (but with finishers its just 30 days between doses)but now they do 2 vaccines on the same day, example fmd and sfv say today then 30/40 days rabbies vaccine, then start again with with min 40/50 days with differnt strain of the fmd and sfv.... but of course it all comes at a cost and labor with difficult animals... with fmd i have seen people spread a white powder around the perimiter of the farm/roads, dont know what its called (lost in translation) but told its not expensive.

birds must also be a problem with transporting diseases? after the new year we have to upgrade some bird defense system we have in place for the front of the farm (evap pad)

[kickstart]

On 12/30/2018 at 10:29 AM, thoongfoned said:

putting my pig head on again, with the vaccine it makes sense to do a dose say of fmd every 3/4 months and if you ues other vaccines do in between with say 30/40 days between doses, this is how the pigs are done, (sows) (but with finishers its just 30 days between doses)but now they do 2 vaccines on the same day, example fmd and sfv say today then 30/40 days rabbies vaccine, then start again with with min 40/50 days with differnt strain of the fmd and sfv.... but of course it all comes at a cost and labor with difficult animals... with fmd i have seen people spread a white powder around the perimiter of the farm/roads, dont know what its called (lost in translation) but told its not expensive.

birds must also be a problem with transporting diseases? after the new year we have to upgrade some bird defense system we have in place for the front of the farm (evap pad)

That white powder is lime, or Phoon-Khow in Thai, about as much use as a chocolate teapot, the idea is a vehicle runs over the lime and it kills the virus, but what about the occupants of that vehicle, they could well be carriers , they would just get get of the vehicle and walk away and the local dog population would hardly walk on your lime as they come on to your farm .

Birds can spread the disease, mainly Pidgins, but nearly, all Thais do not realize this, lime is cheap about 20-25 baht/bag.

The UK and a lot of other countries have a compulsive slaughter policy as the shear  problem and logistics of having to vaccinate for F/M disease makes it cheaper in the long run ,as one farmer in the UK said after the last  big outbreak how some farm with his stroppy sucker cows and calves, that spend half their life on a Welsh mountain can be restrained 2-3 times a year to inject the vaccine, with limited help ,when I use to milk 150 cows TB testing was  bad enough every 2 years, having to vaccinate F/M vaccine 2-3 times a year not easy. Also, compulsive slaughter helps protect the very valuable export market of beef and dairy products.

I did not know you  use a rabies vaccine no pigs, dumb question, is it necessary or company policy, would have thought pigs would not be exposed to risk of rabies ,you use different stains of F/M vaccine, with cattle used to be 2 strain in one dose ,now they are more strains and farmers are told to vaccinate twice in 2 weeks ,using different strains 

F/M vaccine that must be free from the DLD?, rabies, that cannot be cheap.

[thoongfoned]

that sounds about right with the white powder, i can remmember the head guy saying its costs more to have it trucked in then buy the stuff, hence the company did not bother buying any...

all the vaccines that are used on the pigs are bought through the company, can not see them getting millions of doses free? from what i understand the dose vs diliutant is very important and does differ with different brands/manufactures. rabbies has been a full time part of the program for 3/4 years now, some years 2 dose some 3 dose depends on the time frame. yes i think it has to be done, gmp guy said to me years ago about it having to be done, this was the first time i had heard of it in thailand, coz i said thailand does not have a problem with rabbies.... but he was very firm saying that it was a problem here, this was 6/7 years ago. then it was only 1 dose per year. cost, well it just has to be done. so im told.  we have to check in and out the needles for vaccine, company do the shot, we just check and make sure paper work is done right, it does  all get checked by company in bkk and also the other inspectors that come. every pig has an id card that also gets checked 2/3 times a year, if not up to date we loose money...

my idea with the cows in the field would be to have a kinda stall in place(cement pad with a metel frame, front and back doors) herd them over to it.... i am sure it aint easy trying to inject or AI one of them...

on that ad3e injection, they upped the dose back in october from 3ml to between 7/10ml per sow that was due to be weaned. since then i can see that the sows are coming into heat quicker (on average 40/50 sow per month) by 1.5 ish days... still have the infertilitiy problem with gilts and parity 1, put im told this is ok,normal at the mo from the gilt pool in our area.