Foster calf

[Louisa Gidney]

After all the gloom and doom on the sale threads, a bit of good news. I punted £85 on a B&W bull calf last Aug for a cow whose calf was still born. He went to Darlington Mart special suckled calf sale recently, aged 13 months, made £450 in the ring leaving £414 after deductions, luck money, hauliers fee etc. More than paid for himself, vet's bill for the cow and winter keep.
I'm now seriously thinking of going back into double-suckling but B&W rather than the Jerseys I used to do this with. In fact, if this cheque had arrived before York, I'd have been tempted by some of the unregistered cows with decent looking udders.

[Rob R]

That is certainly where the Dexter excels!

Completely unrelated to Dexters but we have a Hereford x steer calf, and we were thinking of putting it with the Dexter hereford x and taking them North to sell. Is the suckled calf sale a regular thing or have we missed the boat?

[Louisa Gidney]

Rob, I'd been following the mart pages in the Darlington & Stockton Times (which I believe is also online) as each mart has one big autumn suckled calf sale besides the weekly sales. Surely the marts nearer to you do something similar? Darlington is generally recommended by the local farmers, particularly for culls which tend to be bought by Cleveland Meat Co.

[Rob R]

Yes, we're looking at Skipton a week on Wednesday but I have to get a DNA test done on the Dexter cross to get a passport, so I was just thinking about other options if it doesn't come through in time. Marts further North seem to be a lot better for prices than anywhere nearby.

[Broomcroft]

Can I ask, how you go about double-suckling, get them started etc? Know nothing about it.

[Louisa Gidney]

Clive, it helps a great deal if the cow is used to being milked beforehand. The very first cow was somewhat of a learning curve but when her daughter had been brought up with a fosterling, she then accepted it as normal to have a second calf with her own when she calved. The cow has also got to have enough milk to feed two calves and needs to be fed for production. The Garratts did an article on this in the Ark about 1988.

[Broomcroft]

Thanks Louisa.