beef price tracker

just do it

Jeez bob, I agree with you wholeheartedly for once!

sheebadog

bob charles wrote: »

but what they are doing in that video clip is an attack on the rest of society. How do the normal people of that city feel for some ignorant people come into town and fire sh*t everywhere. Imagine the shoe was on the other foot and say rubbish trucks started tipping waste all around Dublin, and knocking down the gates of Leinster house with a JCB. Throwing a couple of dead cattle at the butt of the gates is unfair on the animal to begin with and see these buffoons cheering it is in bad taste. Thats sort of crap doesnt do anything for public relations. Since I was knee high I have heard of French protestors firing sh*te about etc. I would like to know what they have achieved. Negotiation is nearly always the busy way to achieve something aslong as you have good negotiators on your side. There wasnt much sympathy for the ESB pre christmas when they were threatening to have power outages

Thing is they actually have the general population on their side. French like to say that they come from "Paysans" (peasants). It is not a derogatory term.
I totally agree with everything you say but they just get away with acting the langer.
It did backfire a bit there last year when someone (I think maybe a cop) got killed in the last blockade of Paris.

rancher

sheebadog wrote: »

Thing is they actually have the general population on their side. French like to say that they come from "Paysans" (peasants). It is not a derogatory term.
I totally agree with everything you say but they just get away with acting the langer.
It did backfire a bit there last year when someone (I think maybe a cop) got killed in the last blockade of Paris.

Was ata protest years ago in Brussels and the bangers were being left into post boxes along the way

hugo29

bob charles wrote: »

but what they are doing in that video clip is an attack on the rest of society. How do the normal people of that city feel for some ignorant people come into town and fire sh*t everywhere. Imagine the shoe was on the other foot and say rubbish trucks started tipping waste all around Dublin, and knocking down the gates of Leinster house with a JCB. Throwing a couple of dead cattle at the butt of the gates is unfair on the animal to begin with and see these buffoons cheering it is in bad taste. Thats sort of crap doesnt do anything for public relations. Since I was knee high I have heard of French protestors firing sh*te about etc. I would like to know what they have achieved. Negotiation is nearly always the busy way to achieve something aslong as you have good negotiators on your side. There wasnt much sympathy for the ESB pre christmas when they were threatening to have power outages

bob will ya run for MEP, as Paul O Connell would say ud make a good "go to man"

heavysteer

Farmer Pudsey wrote: »

What weight do you expect them to be dead weight

The cattle were killed some time back, 499 kgs; 2 Egrades, 9 U+ rest were also Us. Really annoyed that the factories are using the grid to reduce the price of poor quality cattle and not paying out on the good ones. There are supposed to be no weight restrictions on the grid payment system so this is not a valid excuse to refuse using it. Either the factory is paying on the grid or it isn't, it is a patent abuse of the system to refuse it to those who would benefit most by it and then use it to penalise those who stand to loose the most.

rancher

bob charles wrote: »

but what they are doing in that video clip is an attack on the rest of society. How do the normal people of that city feel for some ignorant people come into town and fire sh*t everywhere. Imagine the shoe was on the other foot and say rubbish trucks started tipping waste all around Dublin, and knocking down the gates of Leinster house with a JCB. Throwing a couple of dead cattle at the butt of the gates is unfair on the animal to begin with and see these buffoons cheering it is in bad taste. Thats sort of crap doesnt do anything for public relations. Since I was knee high I have heard of French protestors firing sh*te about etc. I would like to know what they have achieved. Negotiation is nearly always the busy way to achieve something aslong as you have good negotiators on your side. There wasnt much sympathy for the ESB pre christmas when they were threatening to have power outages

Any ideas on how to bring the meat industry in to negotiate.
While they're getting more than enough cattle at the price they want, they won't be getting into any negotiation.
We have to have a lever

bob charles

heavysteer wrote: »

The cattle were killed some time back, 499 kgs; 2 Egrades, 9 U+ rest were also Us. Really annoyed that the factories are using the grid to reduce the price of poor quality cattle and not paying out on the good ones. There are supposed to be no weight restrictions on the grid payment system so this is not a valid excuse to refuse using it. Either the factory is paying on the grid or it isn't, it is a patent abuse of the system to refuse it to those who would benefit most by it and then use it to penalise those who stand to loose the most.

dont know where you are but all plants around here will only kill on the grid. One major issue is the E's were never put on the grid or are they included in QA :mad: not that its a major concern to me but if the best animal isnt included is a bit of joke.

Did you try many factories, and did they all want to buy them flat?

Carcass weight is your issue. I have seen a big shift of large feeders that normally feed big cattle to small carcass animals as they just isnt a demand for the 500kg animal.

bob charles

rancher wrote: »

Any ideas on how to bring the meat industry in to negotiate.
While they're getting more than enough cattle at the price they want, they won't be getting into any negotiation.
We have to have a lever

Your protests are way too late as the English price is dropping like a stone. Time for protest was in late 2013. Factories now have a valid reason to say prices are lower due to lack of demand in the UK market.

Earlier you mentioned somewhere that there wasnt a big turnout for the protest last week. Was it intentional that the IFA didnt publicize it so that they can now say there isn't apathy for more protests because large crowds didnt show up.

rancher

bob charles wrote: »

Your protests are way too late as the English price is dropping like a stone. Time for protest was in late 2013. Factories now have a valid reason to say prices are lower due to lack of demand in the UK market.

Earlier you mentioned somewhere that there wasnt a big turnout for the protest last week. Was it intentional that the IFA didnt publicize it so that they can now say there isn't apathy for more protests because large crowds didnt show up.

Our office sent out over 100 texts to our county, I made 20 - 25 phone calls, as well as texts to a database of 60 contacts with cattle that I have on my phone, also over 120 attended our livestock meeting the night before and we had 12 from the county at the protest,

heavysteer

I know what the issue is, the factory aren't slow about telling me; but the principle is the same there are no weight restrictions on grid-pricing. Farmers wouldn't have agreed to sell their poorly grading cattle on the grid if they thought that the carrot of a good price for good stock would be only available at the whim of the factory. The implementation of an arbitrary weight limit at the factories discretion was not what the IFA or anyone else signed up for when grid-pricing was agreed. Surely the factory wouldn't have bought the cattle at all if they couldn't sell the beef and the issue of carcase weights being too heavy goes out the window when beef is in short supply and when the factory wants to advertise their buying power when buying heavy prize-winning cattle in show sales.

coolshannagh28

rancher wrote: »

Any ideas on how to bring the meat industry in to negotiate.
While they're getting more than enough cattle at the price they want, they won't be getting into any negotiation.
We have to have a lever

The ESB workers won in their dispute with the company you do need a lever and top class negotiators but the lever must create maximum impact a la France ,unfortunately Irish farmers are too diverse to come anyway close to the effectiveness of these groupings.

Greengrass1

Dropped off a few bullocks in slaney this evening. Never seen the place so empty, only one pen of bullocks there

dzer2

Greengrass1 wrote: »

Dropped off a few bullocks in slaney this evening. Never seen the place so empty, only one pen of bullocks there

Yeah only killing 2 days this week

rancher

coolshannagh28 wrote: »

The ESB workers won in their dispute with the company you do need a lever and top class negotiators but the lever must create maximum impact a la France ,unfortunately Irish farmers are too diverse to come anyway close to the effectiveness of these groupings.

Was involved in two ''negotiations'' in the last ten years and had to do serious harm before the opposition would come to the table in both of them.

bob charles

Greengrass1 wrote: »

Dropped off a few bullocks in slaney this evening. Never seen the place so empty, only one pen of bullocks there

different parts of the country, as last week around here the amount of cattle in lairages was like oct/nov. never seen it so busy in Feb:(

newholland mad

rancher wrote: »

Our office sent out over 100 texts to our county, I made 20 - 25 phone calls, as well as texts to a database of 60 contacts with cattle that I have on my phone, also over 120 attended our livestock meeting the night before and we had 12 from the county at the protest,

I was down in Dawn waterford and was surprised at the crowd 400+ (roughly)
about a mile of cars, i know because we got soaked getting back to our car afterwards

Robson99

What do ye guys see the base price being for Steers & Heifers in a month or two? I fear another 20 cent will be taken off

Base price

bob charles wrote: »

different parts of the country, as last week around here the amount of cattle in lairages was like oct/nov. never seen it so busy in Feb:(

It appears that location is the difference.
We were in two different factories last week, running late for both and worried about been in a queue - no issue and there wasn't even a wait for the wash.

Greengrass1

bob charles wrote: »

different parts of the country, as last week around here the amount of cattle in lairages was like oct/nov. never seen it so busy in Feb:(

Seemingly slaney has lost a big contract and has had to let a few emolyees GI. Don't know how true it us but we had to wait a week just to get a few in

Farmer Pudsey

hugo29 wrote: »

bob will ya run for MEP, as Paul O Connell would say ud make a good "go to man"

I see John Byrne has pulled out so I doubt if Bob will be going

heavysteer wrote: »

The cattle were killed some time back, 499 kgs; 2 Egrades, 9 U+ rest were also Us. Really annoyed that the factories are using the grid to reduce the price of poor quality cattle and not paying out on the good ones. There are supposed to be no weight restrictions on the grid payment system so this is not a valid excuse to refuse using it. Either the factory is paying on the grid or it isn't, it is a patent abuse of the system to refuse it to those who would benefit most by it and then use it to penalise those who stand to loose the most.

Totally unsuitable for the English Supermarket trade. These cattle are only suitable for the Continental market. The English trade is 5/kg the continental trade around 4/Kg. E and U cattle have too much Flesh on the hind quarter. This quarter is too large and cannot be Cut for supermarket/ ordinary consumer trade. the day of the heavy Carcass is gone. The meat that sell well is steak ( fillet, sirloin and stripoin nobody T-bone's any longer) and mince. Front quarter is more than suitable for mince. The real demand is for cattle from O+ to R+ from 280-380kgs. The better the quality animal the smaller the carcass they want. So in U and E grade animals they want them back below 350kgs however it is impossible to get the right at cover on them 2+-3.


[

just do it

Farmer Pudsey wrote: »

I see John Byrne has pulled out so I doubt if Bob will be going



Totally unsuitable for the English Supermarket trade. These cattle are only suitable for the Continental market. The English trade is 5/kg the continental trade around 4/Kg. E and U cattle have too much Flesh on the hind quarter. This quarter is too large and cannot be Cut for supermarket/ ordinary consumer trade. the day of the heavy Carcass is gone. The meat that sell well is steak ( fillet, sirloin and stripoin nobody T-bone's any longer) and mince. Front quarter is more than suitable for mince. The real demand is for cattle from O+ to R+ from 280-380kgs. The better the quality animal the smaller the carcass they want. So in U and E grade animals they want them back below 350kgs however it is impossible to get the right at cover on them 2+-3.


[

So for sucker farmers what should be their future breeding policy? For both animal produced and replacements?

blue5000

just do it wrote: »

So for sucker farmers what should be their future breeding policy? For both animal produced and replacements?

No point in answering that, for as soon as we start producing what they want today they'll want what we were producing last year.

ellewood

blue5000 wrote: »

No point in answering that, for as soon as we start producing what they want today they'll want what we were producing last year.

Exactly produce what urn producing as efficiently as you can

If you keep chopping and changing touit what factories want you will be going round in circles

just do it

When I was starting out I considered having two cow types: typical continental X and traditional X. Decided I didn't have scale for running two separate systems though.

Farmer Pudsey

just do it wrote: »

So for sucker farmers what should be their future breeding policy? For both animal produced and replacements?

In my opinion the animal that is required is a animal grading R and that will grow fast and kill 350kgs. This equates to about 670ish kgs LW. This is the requirement for the UK market. IF export markets for weanlings have different spec then you can target that.

The question is it profitable to produce same off suckler herd. If not what is the next most profitable to produce. The advantage that good Continental bred suckler have is feed efficency however to make it pay they need to be carried to heavy weights for to give a return to the suckler producer if finished in Ireland.

My opinion is that it is not profitable to produce this type off animal (350DW carcass) off a suckler herd @ 4/kg. It equates to an output per suckler unit of about 1300 euro and if stocked at 1.3 units/HA (approx 2.5LU/HA) and a o/p of 1700/HA.

It is when you sit down and do the figures that they look so stark. What sort of animal suits, A HE or AA off a LMXFR cow or a LM or CH calf Off aWH Or AAXFR cow. I do not think that this will be profitable in sucklers.

Sexed semen in the dairy system will change bref production however it is 6-8 years at least before calves will hit the ground in commercial numbers. We seemed to have hit an impasse as the margin taken by retailers is killing the producer. At present I see a few more new butcher shop opening this is a sign that meat processing is quite profitable. This is not flowing back to primary producer and supermarket spec is narrowing all the time so that cattle production will follow vegetable production into a small narrow spec that may make it unprofitable to farmers

freedominacup

Farmer Pudsey wrote: »

In my opinion the animal that is required is a animal grading R and that will grow fast and kill 350kgs. This equates to about 670ish kgs LW. This is the requirement for the UK market. IF export markets for weanlings have different spec then you can target that.

The question is it profitable to produce same off suckler herd. If not what is the next most profitable to produce. The advantage that good Continental bred suckler have is feed efficency however to make it pay they need to be carried to heavy weights for to give a return to the suckler producer if finished in Ireland.

My opinion is that it is not profitable to produce this type off animal (350DW carcass) off a suckler herd @ 4/kg. It equates to an output per suckler unit of about 1300 euro and if stocked at 1.3 units/HA (approx 2.5LU/HA) and a o/p of 1700/HA.

It is when you sit down and do the figures that they look so stark. What sort of animal suits, A HE or AA off a LMXFR cow or a LM or CH calf Off aWH Or AAXFR cow. I do not think that this will be profitable in sucklers.

Sexed semen in the dairy system will change bref production however it is 6-8 years at least before calves will hit the ground in commercial numbers. We seemed to have hit an impasse as the margin taken by retailers is killing the producer. At present I see a few more new butcher shop opening this is a sign that meat processing is quite profitable. This is not flowing back to primary producer and supermarket spec is narrowing all the time so that cattle production will follow vegetable production into a small narrow spec that may make it unprofitable to farmers

Why do you keep quoting a 6-8 year time frame for sexed semen to have an impact?

tanko

freedominacup wrote: »

Why do you keep quoting a 6-8 year time frame for sexed semen to have an impact?

Can anyone say what exactly is the difference in conception rates, if any, between frozen conventional and sexed semen at the moment?

Farmer Pudsey

freedominacup wrote: »

Why do you keep quoting a 6-8 year time frame for sexed semen to have an impact?

Was at a Teagasc meeting last November where there reccomendation to dairy farmers was that it was not yet a proven technology. Even if it was it would take 3-5 years for farmers to change and have confidance in it. There has been a few false dawns already. Even if farmers started to change this spring it will take 5ish years for it to be producing beef calf in commercial numbers to have an effect. I see no such change at present.

Gman1987

I got quoted 3.60euro/kg for bulls today for supply next week, all R/U grades. seams a bit low? got quoted 4euro/kg base for bullocks. What quotes have ye received for Bulls/Heifers/Bullocks for supply this week and next? Seams to be a lot of cattle coming out

tanko

370c/kg for 2 U grade 18 month old bulls killed last week 410kgs