Blundering in Northland

Hi All,

My wife Su and myself bought a property with a large shed to house our truck and equipment. We mow lawns for a living, mostly bigger ones. With that we got 2.5 ha, most of that pasture of sorts. Somehow we had to keep the grass down, so we bought 8 weaner calves. I guess that was the first mistake among a few more. Little did we know that young calves need quite a bit of maintenance, like drenching. One fell victim to facial eczema. So, here we are about 1 1/2 years later and they have grown quite a bit. As we seem to have another draught we are now looking at selling 2 or 3 of them.

I should know something about animals, as my father was a vet, but all that has escaped me so far, so it's a steep learning curve. But you can ask me about lawn mowers...

Greetings from Glenbervie,
Peter.

Welcome to the forum.

Draught - did you mean drought? Was your FE case diagnosed for certain? I ask only because you're most likely to have Kikuyu pasture and FE isn't generally an issue. Eight on 2.5 ha could certainly be too many, depending on the fertility and pasture types on your block.

Replace your stock, when you need to, with good beef weaners, which are older and generally get a better start, so don't need nearly as much maintenance as younger dairy-cross weaners.

My partner's father was a vet too, and he doesn't know anything either. [] But he can build a good fence and neither of us cares much about lawns.

welcome. Choice spot youre in.

Thanks. Yes, we had a vet around and he diagnosed it. In the end its skin came off the face in big strips. I'd rather forget about this sad episode...

8 were ok when they were little and we would still be ok if we had a normal summer, but we've had very little rain in the last 2 months or so.

Made the mistake of buying calves off Trademe. Next spring we will follow advice we were given and buy yearlings via a stock agent the neighbour recommended.

We try to go and visit our families overseas every winter, so in autumn the cattle will be sold, although that may not be the best season for it (for value).

And yes, we love it where we live.

Regards,
Peter.

Beddhist;483679 wrote: ...We try to go and visit our families overseas every winter, so in autumn the cattle will be sold, although that may not be the best season for it (for value)....

In that case, if you only want small stock, you'll have to stick with dairy-cross; but get the best ones you can. A dairy farmer who has paid attention to getting a good clean-up bull will produce far better calves than one who threw any-old-bull out to do the job. Those ones rarely grow into anything useful fast. Ask about the bull used to produce the calves!

Hmm, I can ask, but I'm not sure I will be able to make sense of the answer. []

That's why you come back here and tell us the answer. []