poor prices for black cattle

lalababa

I'm in the south west and have been going to the local marts for the last couple of years. What I can't understand is the price difference between a black limx and a red one , say a 300kg bull weanling , with the black one €100less. Is this the same throughout the country?
Also AAs and AAxs with price differences of €200 or more to very similar white/beige /red contenental animals.
Another trend i've noticed is red limx heifers being favoured slightly over charx.

bbam

Up here in Cavan Ch and CHX are the only gig in town. It's frustrating but what can you do.

1chippy

shower of racists down the country.

6480

the only thing to think off is when they hang up dead there s not much in the value of both and more costs and time with getting the fancy CH fit enough to kill

Sharpshooter82

In the mart about a week ago and ch was the only animal making over 800

1chippy

In my ltd opinion a lot of blacks will not grade aswell as the coloured stock. a vast majority will have been bred through dairy cows i and those that arent will have a bit of angus. Neither will compete time and time again with a decent white ch or red lim. Not always the case i know but seems to be the vast majority.

Joe the Plumber

1chippy wrote: »

In my ltd opinion a lot of blacks will not grade aswell as the coloured stock. a vast majority will have been bred through dairy cows i and those that arent will have a bit of angus. Neither will compete time and time again with a decent white ch or red lim. Not always the case i know but seems to be the vast majority.

Interesting point by OP, have to say I see it myself and wondered.

Very good technical point chippy, I think you have hit the nail on the head.

The one thing that baffles me is that there is no doubt that Angus meat is the best, has been proved time and time.

Yet quantity wins over quality in the ring. Strange




.

6480

1chippy wrote: »

In my ltd opinion a lot of blacks will not grade aswell as the coloured stock. a vast majority will have been bred through dairy cows i and those that arent will have a bit of angus. Neither will compete time and time again with a decent white ch or red lim. Not always the case i know but seems to be the vast majority.

i dont want to disagree with ya because we dairy here all the way but my 2 cousins are in beef and i tell you what i see , one of them buys light ish store blacks in the october, november at handy enough money and just feeds them with silage and grass till he sells them in the following september in the mart as heavy bullocks within 6 - 8 weeks of
finishing he makes from 550 - 700 per head on them andwith feck all cost s .

the other cousin buys all ages of ch cattle and wouldn look at anything else and he says he can never get the huge purchase cost of them really back into good profit he seems to be going downhill all the time and i am looking at him for the last 20 years this way ,

the other lad with the plain cattle is doing alot better and keeping more cattle every year and i can see hes making money as hes always spending a few quid on the yard and the land

reilig

Sharpshooter82 wrote: »

In the mart about a week ago and ch was the only animal making over 800

We got 975 euro for a 375kg lm bull off a lm heifer this week. He made as much as any ch.

Sami23

reilig wrote: »

We got 975 euro for a 375kg lm bull off a lm heifer this week. He made as much as any ch.

But was he RED or BLACK

Sharpshooter82

reilig wrote: »

We got 975 euro for a 375kg lm bull off a lm heifer this week. He made as much as any ch.

Well the day I was in the mart in tullamore it was poor pricing for anything other than CH.
One man had a few black LIM heifers at 320kg and he was offered only 450 euro

pakalasa

I think in recent years too, there has been a big increase in the number of cattle finished as young bulls. This is a high input, high cost game so you really do need to be finishing them into high grades and high weights. The muscley types, that are passed over by the exporters are ones sought.
Farmers are always afraid of the holstein breeding in the black limousins so reds are a safer bet. Most experienced guys would know by looking at them anyway, what breeding was there.

20silkcut

I sold a ch heifer 320 kg with horns for 770 euro last April in the middle of the fodder crisis.

reilig

Sami23 wrote: »

But was he RED or BLACK

Black

But he was only 9 months and he was well made!
Bought by an exporter!

munkus

Joe the Plumber wrote: »

Interesting point by OP, have to say I see it myself and wondered.

Very good technical point chippy, I think you have hit the nail on the head.

The one thing that baffles me is that there is no doubt that Angus meat is the best, has been proved time and time.

Yet quantity wins over quality in the ring. Strange



.

Remember that 90% of our beef is exported. Those markets, France, Germany and Italy don't want angus.

reilig

munkus wrote: »

Remember that 90% of our beef is exported. Those markets, France, Germany and Italy don't want angus.

Here's an interesting figure for you.

In 2012, only 4% of animals born on suckler farms (excluding calves from dairy herds) were live exported out of Ireland. That's 4 out of every 100. So 96 out of every 100 weinlings off suckler cows sold in Irish marts are bought to be fed on Irish Farms. The irish beef in greatest demand for the domestic and UK markets is Angus and it is the beef that receives the highest price per kg on average because of the producer schemes.

With slaughtered beef exported by our factories, it doesn't matter what breed the animal is, so long as it makes the grade. France, Germany and Italy do not stipulate that they won't take Angus!

I understand that our biggest export market is to the UK with up to 50% of of beef in any 1 year being sold over there!!

Have to agree with Pakalasa on this one. It's the FR breeding in animals that is putting farmers off these cattle. They concieve that these cattle are harder to put flesh on. Experienced guys buying cattle can tell even if there is 1/4 FR breeding in a weinling!

bob charles

who buys animals by colour?

yellow50HX

have been looking to get more red lim's into the herd for this reason, getting more red calves each year and keeping the red heifers. the current bull and his predecessor were red limos and i have 12 heifers after caving down from the 1st red bull (6 more coming next year). of the 12 heifers calved only 4 (2 this year and 2 last year) are red, all the red ones have had red calves and of the 18 calves out of the heifers from this year and last i have had 13 red calves.

the rest of the herd are black limo and AAX and FR and some of them alway throw red calves. one of my FR's has thrown a red calf every year she was with a red bull, she has thrown 4 heifers and 1 bull and i have kept the 4 heifers. another of the AAX cows always throws a red calf too. a few more of them will throw a red maybe 25-30% of teh time while other always throw a black. of the top 5 bull calves 3 are black

we have had had 40 calves this year and there are about 15 red ones

pakalasa

I see in the dealer sectiion of this weeks journal, that Larry G has ordered a big load of cattle slats. Some to replace existing ones, but some for new sheds. His capacity now is 7,000 animals.

yellow50HX

bob charles wrote: »

who buys animals by colour?

lads in the ring it seems, i put through a group of 6 bull weanlings last year, all roughly the same size age and weight, 4 black 2 red. 4 lads came up to me in the ring wanting to buy the reds but not the blacks. i had another younger group of 3 and 2 and split them, the 2 reds made €100/head more then the 3 blacks even though the 3 blacks ave weight was heavier. i dont understand the logic either but there ya go

bob charles

pakalasa wrote: »

I see in the dealer sectiion of this weeks journal, that Larry G has ordered a big load of cattle slats. Some to replace existing ones, but some for new sheds. His capacity now is 7,000 animals.

paper never refused ink:rolleyes:, Nearly certain they dont have a 7k feedlot, through put of 7000 animals which is a very different thing

reilig

yellow50HX wrote: »

lads in the ring it seems, i put through a group of 6 bull weanlings last year, all roughly the same size age and weight, 4 black 2 red. 4 lads came up to me in the ring wanting to buy the reds but not the blacks. i had another younger group of 3 and 2 and split them, the 2 reds made €100/head more then the 3 blacks even though the 3 blacks ave weight was heavier. i dont understand the logic either but there ya go

Think of it this way. Why were the black weanlings black and why were the red ones red??? The buyer knows!

munkus

reilig wrote: »

Here's an interesting figure for you.

In 2012, only 4% of animals born on suckler farms (excluding calves from dairy herds) were live exported out of Ireland.

Thanks for the interesting figure. Strange how you pricked the figure for 2012 when the export of weanlings collapsed. What were the figures for 2010 and 2011?

reilig

munkus wrote: »

Thanks for the interesting figure. Strange how you pricked the figure for 2012 when the export of weanlings collapsed. What were the figures for 2010 and 2011?

Wasn't being cynical. I didn't pick 2012, it was just the information that I was given on a handout that was being used at a meeting that i was at. I asked about 2011 and 2010 and was told that 2013 exports levels are likely to be closest to 2012 levels and thus the 2011 and 2010 figures are irrelevant to the current value of weanlings at the marts. 2013 figures would be the most relevant figures, but we don't have those figures yet.

A bit of googleing and a calculator gives a figure of 8% in 2010, and 6% in 2011, however.

yellow50HX

reilig wrote: »

Think of it this way. Why were the black weanlings black and why were the red ones red??? The buyer knows!

well they all have the same daddy (red limo) so share half the same genes and the lad next to them.

the colour gene comes from both sides of the calf, both parents need to have the gene, i think the black is actually the dominant gene in cross breeds proabbly from the angus or fr background.

i was thinking about it the other day while herding, what is intresting is that some of the cows that had black calves last year have red ones this year and vice versa, same cow, same bull, same genes, different colour.

reilig

yellow50HX wrote: »

well they all have the same daddy (red limo) so share half the same genes and the lad next to them.

the colour gene comes from both sides of the calf, both parents need to have the gene, i think the black is actually the dominant gene in cross breeds proabbly from the angus or fr background.

i was thinking about it the other day while herding, what is intresting is that some of the cows that had black calves last year have red ones this year and vice versa, same cow, same bull, same genes, different colour.

In bold is the reason for price difference.

a good exercise would be to go on to ICBF and see your sale prices for these calves brothers + sisters for other years and determine if these cows constantly produce lower priced calves. i'm not saying that they do, but it would be interesting to know. I know that when i compared my calf prices year on year from the same cows, I learned an awful lot!

bogman_bass

So what everybody is saying is if you're buying the value is in limos at the mo

yellow50HX

reilig wrote: »

In bold is the reason for price difference.

a good exercise would be to go on to ICBF and see your sale prices for these calves brothers + sisters for other years and determine if these cows constantly produce lower priced calves. i'm not saying that they do, but it would be interesting to know. I know that when i compared my calf prices year on year from the same cows, I learned an awful lot!

i'm not disaggreing with you but i do notice that calves from the same parents are not always the same colour. like i said i have a FR cow that always throws red calves but i have only sold one of them. actually we have 5 FR cows and 2 of them them threw red calves this year.

i did that excrise on the calves earlier this year as i was looking at slecting which cows to cull and the majority of their off spring were very even. again it depnds on when they are born and then sold on but looking through the mart dockets there wasnt whole pile of difference in weight year on year. i dont finish the cattle so i wouldnt have grading or factory dockets for the kill out. can you get that info from the ICBF site? like you say it would be intresting to note if there is any significant difference in the weights and grades over the years

reilig

yellow50HX wrote: »

i'm not disaggreing with you but i do notice that calves from the same parents are not always the same colour. like i said i have a FR cow that always throws red calves but i have only sold one of them. actually we have 5 FR cows and 2 of them them threw red calves this year.

i did that excrise on the calves earlier this year as i was looking at slecting which cows to cull and the majority of their off spring were very even. again it depnds on when they are born and then sold on but looking through the mart dockets there wasnt whole pile of difference in weight year on year. i dont finish the cattle so i wouldnt have grading or factory dockets for the kill out. can you get that info from the ICBF site? like you say it would be intresting to note if there is any significant difference in the weights and grades over the years

Yes, all that info can be got from ICBF if you have paid membership.

It's not really the colour of the calf that will determine the value of the weanling, it's the breeding behind him. It's no coincidence that the op started this thread about poor prices for black cattle. Many go back to FR and AA in their breeding.

Has anyone gotten a poor price for a black calf off a LMxBB cow???

moy83

reilig wrote: »

Yes, all that info can be got from ICBF if you have paid membership.

It's not really the colour of the calf that will determine the value of the weanling, it's the breeding behind him. It's no coincidence that the op started this thread about poor prices for black cattle. Many go back to FR and AA in their breeding.

Has anyone gotten a poor price for a black calf off a LMxBB cow???

I have a few angus calves out of those types this year and id say they will be growthy , but at the end of the day they probably won't carry the extra weight before slaughter as the limo or ch breed thats why the blacks usually wont make the extra bit in the ring because thats what lads want for finishing

yellow50HX

reilig wrote: »

Yes, all that info can be got from ICBF if you have paid membership.

It's not really the colour of the calf that will determine the value of the weanling, it's the breeding behind him. It's no coincidence that the op started this thread about poor prices for black cattle. Many go back to FR and AA in their breeding.

Has anyone gotten a poor price for a black calf off a LMxBB cow???

Dont have the full membership on the ICBF site so thats proably why i cant see it so.

my limo calves tend to be one of 3 colours, the red, the black (usually from the AAX cows) and the brown.

You can spot the AAX ones as they are matt black and tend to be a bit hairy but size wise are no diffent to reds and browns. I also get the shiny ones these are black limo's but tend to have a shine on thier coats and are less hairy, over time their coat lightens and they turn brown. I'm trying to think if the brown ones fetch a higher price then the blacks.

Yepp have had a few calves from lim bull and BBX cows, (actually still have one AA/BB cow). great looking calves, proper muscley tend to be black and have always got the top price from my lot (higher then the red limos). Thing is getting them them out of the cow was the big problem. The BBX cows were the biggest cows we had but other then the one with AA blood in her (she is only 16% BB) the rest had huge issues calving. i know it was the combination with the bull we had at the time but wont be taking that chance again, if you gonna cross a BB cow with a limo bull you better make damm sure its an easy calving bull. the down shot of that is that the easy caving bull might not throw as good calves from other cows.

bogman_bass

yellow50HX wrote: »

Dont have the full membership on the ICBF site so thats proably why i cant see it so.

my limo calves tend to be one of 3 colours, the red, the black (usually from the AAX cows) and the brown.

You can spot the AAX ones as they are matt black and tend to be a bit hairy but size wise are no diffent to reds and browns. I also get the shiny ones these are black limo's but tend to have a shine on thier coats and are less hairy, over time their coat lightens and they turn brown. I'm trying to think if the brown ones fetch a higher price then the blacks.

Yepp have had a few calves from lim bull and BBX cows, (actually still have one AA/BB cow). great looking calves, proper muscley tend to be black and have always got the top price from my lot (higher then the red limos). Thing is getting them them out of the cow was the big problem. The BBX cows were the biggest cows we had but other then the one with AA blood in her (she is only 16% BB) the rest had huge issues calving. i know it was the combination with the bull we had at the time but wont be taking that chance again, if you gonna cross a BB cow with a limo bull you better make damm sure its an easy calving bull. the down shot of that is that the easy caving bull might not throw as good calves from other cows.

I agree that you need an easy calving bull on the blues but disagree that easy calving means poor quality. Finished a fl22 out of an Sri cow and probably got less than a bag of meal just due to the group he was with and still graded U+

grazeaway

is it the same with the charlaois? you can see white, grey and even brown ones. is there a higher price paid on the white CH?

Dozer1

I would say that the CH needs to be white or else you're almost in the same boat as the black LM, that's what its like down here at weanling sales anyway

Kovu

munkus wrote: »

Remember that 90% of our beef is exported. Those markets, France, Germany and Italy don't want angus.

Don't forget Cyprus, a lot of plain CH head there.

grazeaway wrote: »

is it the same with the charlaois? you can see white, grey and even brown ones. is there a higher price paid on the white CH?

Yup a dirty CH will be less. By dirty I mean a dark nosed off white.

tomieen jones

[mod] Content Deleted.

This type of racist humour is totally inappropriate.

Consider yourself warned![/mod]

[mod]I have been satisfied the deleted comment was innocent. It's ambiguity allowed for incorrect assumptions to be drawn.

Consequently, it remains deleted but of course can be posted later once re-worded.[/mod]

patsy_mccabe

I Clare, the Golden Charolais is the only show in town.

fepper

Maybe Ur were racist against the poor angus 😊 great cattle BTW

greysides

[mod]

Correction:

I have been satisfied the deleted comment was innocent. It's ambiguity allowed for incorrect assumptions to be drawn.

Consequently, it remains deleted but of course can be posted later once re-worded.

Mistakes all round. [/mod]

CloughCasey1

fepper wrote: »

Maybe Ur were racist against the poor angus 😊 great cattle BTW

Sure all farmers are racists.;-) We even call hex a whitehead when they are mostly black. Can't understand it to be honest. Many the black limo hung with a bigger heavier carcase than their red half siblings. the closer cattle get to finishing the less the colour matters. It's a case of price per kg dw and what % that given animal will finish. All for the fear of a bit of FR or AA in them. Seen a commercial bb calf win in local show with plenty on show that day whos mother was out of a British Fresian cow.

Limestone Cowboy

patsy_mccabe wrote: »

I Clare, the Golden Charolais is the only show in town.

Definitely, was in the local mart last week and 220kg Bulls were averaging 880-900!

Cavanjack

Limestone Cowboy wrote: »

Definitely, was in the local mart last week and 220kg Bulls were averaging 880-900!

The man selling him probably didn't make much on him after he keeps the cow for the year and the man buying him probably won't make much on him seeing he has to put at least 500kg on him.thank god for sfp

Limestone Cowboy

Cavanjack wrote: »

The man selling him probably didn't make much on him after he keeps the cow for the year and the man buying him probably won't make much on him seeing he has to put at least 500kg on him.thank god for sfp

Most of those were out of cows that spent the best part of last winter on the side of a mountain licking moss off of stones. More out of them than you would think for the lad selling them. Pensions, Sfp and egos buying them!