[highhorse]

hi guys

is it worth breeding a specific type with a view to selling the youngsters on?

say highland, or belties or jersey or dexter?

does anyone have any suggestions on a hardy, docile, saleable breed?

thanks


x

[Cluckinggoodpoultry]

I would say belties out of those but that is just my opinion, the highlands limited market, jerseys only really dairy and the bull calves aren't worth rearing apparently (although I do love Jerseys). Dexters also a small breed although ideal for smallholders, it depends on whether you are going to sell privately, through rare breed sales or through the general cattle markets. I have belties as well as your typical beef breeds and they are lovely natured apart from sometimes when they have a calf at foot but that can happen with any breed as some are very protective. Very hardy can live out in the winter although mine are in and they are easily kept and maintained.

[shygirl]

does it have to be native?
simmental crosses? or AA? they do well around here as stores. find a couple of quiet cows and AI them to something decent.

[SallyintNorth]

Buy a couple of cows with calves at foot - they'll know their job and can teach you before you have calving and new calves to contend with !

Breed-wise, beef natives command a premium at the moment (bless you Morrisons  ) - 20ppk deadweight on Beef and Whitebred Shorthorns, 10ppk on all other native beef breeds.  The premium is paid on slaughter, and you won't be finishing, but because the buyers who finish know that they'll get the premium (provided you can supply the details of the pedigree bull who fathered the calves), they will pay that bit extra for the stores.   So prices for Angus, Hereford, Devon, Luing, etc, etc, are pretty healthy at the moment. 

(Note that the calves do not have to be pedigree; the cow can be a different breed, or no breed. So long as a pedigree registered bull of the appropriate breed was used, the premium will be payable.)

However, buyers take a lot of notice of who they are buying from, and it will take time to build up a reputation for producing quality stock that will grow on and finish well.


In terms of producing breeding stock, that's an even longer road.  BH has a good reputation, built over many decades, for producing excellent store beasts, but when we've tried offering females for breeding at our usual marts, we have found they fetch less than they would in the store ring. (Where, ironically, quite a few of our heifers are, we know, bought for breeding purposes.  )

Whether it's easier to get customers for the breeds popular with smallholders, I wouldn't know.  But if so, look at Dexters and Belties, yes, or some of the other colours of Galloways (more on this in a mo) or one of the very rare breeds.


Jersey females are bought by dairy farms only if they are bred on a dairy farm from milk-recorded mothers.  Whether there is a market for selling trained house cows to smallholders I will be finding out one of these years...   But whatever they fetch, it won't be a sensible return on the amount of work (and cake!) it will have taken to get the girl to that stage.


You could consider breeding one of the breeds at risk which are so rare there is a demand - Shetland, White Park, Irish Moiled, Northern Dairy Shorthorn... (alright, I don't know if there is a demand for NDS, but I want there to be as I want them to be rescued!  If I'd known about them when I started with house cows, I just might have started there.... but I'm well into me jerseys now )


Back to the Galloways... Belties are a separate breed now, and most people seem to think that the 'other' Galloways only come in black.  But in fact they come in a huge ranges of colours and markings, some of which are really cute and will, I predict, become as popular as Belties given a bit of appropriate marketing.    You can read up a bit about this on the South Yeo Farm website.