Factories acting the b****x

leg wax

Farmer Pudsey wrote: »

Lads do any of you read the articles in the Journal or Farming Indo about supermarket spec. Because alot of you seem to be caught up in a world of your own. Tou seem to want to produce what you want as opposed to what he market wants.

Yest there is more meat on a 400kgDW 'U' grade carcass. And even more on a E grade carcass. There is obly one issue nobody wants it. Nobody wants a lump of meat off the ar5e of a 450kg 'U' bullock (or for that matter 380kg) to roast, the striploins are too large and that makes them too expensive.

People want 2 steaks for 10 euro, 4 pork chops for a 5 euro, 500grams of mince for 4 euro. You no longer see round steak mince as supermarkets not mince the lower quality meat (they trim the fat) as very few buy stewing beef. They want chickens for a fiver, two salmon darns for 5 euro. We are competing against this with beef nobody is going to accept two striploins for 20 euro or two paper thin one crushed into a tray for 10 euro.

Because of super market spec cattle killing weights will have to drop. Forget about what you would like to happen rather think about what will happen. The biggest issue I see is the abandonment of Bull beef. This will come back to bite the industry in the nuts over the next few years.

I think that the factory's will try to force the suckler industry to finish this progney at under 16 months at 350kgs. I question the viability of this. Also a huge gap is going to be opened from December to february with the absence of dairy bred bulls. Loads of finishers will exit the market as the profitable sections and time are being removed.

supply and demand , one of the super markets in england last year made bigger trays,in america at the moment they are finishing the cattle at heaver weights than ever before,because theres not enough cattle to get enough meat off at lower weights, 2 years ago i sold cows to a factory and was paid as if they were heifers,i was very happy,but the next man who got the meat was conned ,they can pay what they want when they want,as soon as the cattle kill goes over 30k the irish paddy will be treated like trash, because he lets himself be treated that way.

F.D

leg wax wrote: »

supply and demand , one of the super markets in england last year made bigger trays,in america at the moment they are finishing the cattle at heaver weights than ever before,because theres not enough cattle to get enough meat off at lower weights, 2 years ago i sold cows to a factory and was paid as if they were heifers,i was very happy,but the next man who got the meat was conned ,they can pay what they want when they want,as soon as the cattle kill goes over 30k the irish paddy will be treated like trash, because he lets himself be treated that way.

What do you do when your cattle have reached the "ideal weight" and theres no market for them,
He can only get treated like trash because there is no where else to go

can you export finished cattle ?

all you can do is sit on your hands and loose money
or change the system, then the question is to what?

towzer2010

leg wax wrote: »

2 years ago i sold cows to a factory and was paid as if they were heifers,i was very happy,but the next man who got the meat was conned.

Totally agree with you on the factories.

Funny think is a French friend of mine reckons that cow meat is the best for flavour (or older steers). He also says all Irish flour is sh!t and we eat with our eyes so there you go.

Farmer Pudsey

F.D wrote: »

is the problem not bull beef in the first place, if you have steers finishing off grass are they not going to come near the target weight you talk about and will have the fat score to suit, i know its a slower system but its easier on the pocket, and if you get penalised for the wrong confirmation at least your not out of pocket as much as the intensive system, eg over weight not the right fat score etc

Most bulls are gone through the system now. You are left with some but not a huge amount. Finishers stoped feeding new bulls in general after Christmas. Grass is grand however if all cattle were finished off grass we would be back in a worst state. Grass costs money as well and most cattle need ration to finish off same. Also cattle go to heavier weights off grass to achiever fat score.

leg wax wrote: »

supply and demand , one of the super markets in england last year made bigger trays,in america at the moment they are finishing the cattle at heaver weights than ever before,because theres not enough cattle to get enough meat off at lower weights, 2 years ago i sold cows to a factory and was paid as if they were heifers,i was very happy,but the next man who got the meat was conned ,they can pay what they want when they want,as soon as the cattle kill goes over 30k the irish paddy will be treated like trash, because he lets himself be treated that way.

Customers still will not buy they will over look and chose pork or chicken instead. In the US most cattle were killed at 550kgs LW this is no where near 750kgs that most lads want to carrt suckler bred cattle to so as to justify cost of suckler cow. Yes I agree thwt supply is a good part of the issue, but IMO the real issue was the supermarkets stoped the meat factory's from subsidising beef going to the continent with the British Beef price. By doing this they have collapsed the British price. So we are caught with a double whammy it is the excess supply that was sold into Europe at a discount that id causing the collapse. This means that the excess supply is much larger that the 2K extra cattle being killed.

F.D wrote: »

What do you do when your cattle have reached the "ideal weight" and theres no market for them,
He can only get treated like trash because there is no where else to go

can you export finished cattle ?

all you can do is sit on your hands and loose money
or change the system, then the question is to what?

it is tied
Yes we could badly use an outlet for forward stores however it is tied up in red tape between access to boats and the title of nomadic beef.

Cavanjack

Farmer Pudsey wrote: »

Lads do any of you read the articles in the Journal or Farming Indo about supermarket spec. Because alot of you seem to be caught up in a world of your own. Tou seem to want to produce what you want as opposed to what he market wants.

Yest there is more meat on a 400kgDW 'U' grade carcass. And even more on a E grade carcass. There is obly one issue nobody wants it. Nobody wants a lump of meat off the ar5e of a 450kg 'U' bullock (or for that matter 380kg) to roast, the striploins are too large and that makes them too expensive.

People want 2 steaks for 10 euro, 4 pork chops for a 5 euro, 500grams of mince for 4 euro. You no longer see round steak mince as supermarkets not mince the lower quality meat (they trim the fat) as very few buy stewing beef. They want chickens for a fiver, two salmon darns for 5 euro. We are competing against this with beef nobody is going to accept two striploins for 20 euro or two paper thin one crushed into a tray for 10 euro.

Because of super market spec cattle killing weights will have to drop. Forget about what you would like to happen rather think about what will happen. The biggest issue I see is the abandonment of Bull beef. This will come back to bite the industry in the nuts over the next few years.

I think that the factory's will try to force the suckler industry to finish this progney at under 16 months at 350kgs. I question the viability of this. Also a huge gap is going to be opened from December to february with the absence of dairy bred bulls. Loads of finishers will exit the market as the profitable sections and time are being removed.

What is the point of the price grid? Was it not to have more yield on a carcass? If the ideal carcass is an R3 should this not be the animal that the most money is paid for and deductions for an E,U,O & P grades?

Farmer Pudsey

Cavanjack wrote: »

What is the point of the price grid? Was it not to have more yield on a carcass? If the ideal carcass is an R3 should this not be the animal that the most money is paid for and deductions for an E,U,O & P grades?

Since the grid was bought in thing have moved o. Even at its inception ''E'' garde cattle were excluded. And yes R garde cattle should be the best paid for cattle at present. As markets change the grid should change. I think that at present 'O' grade cattle are under priced expecially O- along with a 12c/kg gar over the R grade you get no bonus on O- cattle. The Hereford scheme pays the HE bonus on heifers. O- and even P+ well finished have a better chance ofbeing supermarket spec IMO than heavy U grade bigges issue is level of finish.

However the need of the suckler cow in Irish farming is paramount over market demand. The biggest issue is thatover the last 40 years since her inception she has never being an economic sucess. She has had to be supported by other sectors. Was this not the reason for not changing the present SFP so that finishers with large SFP would pay more for these calves. We now see the reality.

In Ireland it 6-24 months for market changes to feed through the system. When the old subsidity system was abandoned to the pesent SFP it took farmers about 5 years to change pricing structure.

farmernewbie

Farmer Pudsey wrote: »

Since the grid was bought in thing have moved o. Even at its inception ''E'' garde cattle were excluded. And yes R garde cattle should be the best paid for cattle at present. As markets change the grid should change. I think that at present 'O' grade cattle are under priced expecially O- along with a 12c/kg gar over the R grade you get no bonus on O- cattle. The Hereford scheme pays the HE bonus on heifers. O- and even P+ well finished have a better chance ofbeing supermarket spec IMO than heavy U grade bigges issue is level of finish.

However the need of the suckler cow in Irish farming is paramount over market demand. The biggest issue is thatover the last 40 years since her inception she has never being an economic sucess. She has had to be supported by other sectors. Was this not the reason for not changing the present SFP so that finishers with large SFP would pay more for these calves. We now see the reality.

In Ireland it 6-24 months for market changes to feed through the system. When the old subsidity system was abandoned to the pesent SFP it took farmers about 5 years to change pricing structure.

Are we moving back to smaller breed of cattle, whiteheads, aax etc? No more continentals.

Cavanjack

farmernewbie wrote: »

Are we moving back to smaller breed of cattle, whiteheads, aax etc? No more continentals.

Yeah. Until the steaks get too small for the packets. Then they'll want continentals again

farmernewbie

Cavanjack wrote: »

Yeah. Until the steaks get too small for the packets. Then they'll want continentals again

I'm buying soon, not sure whether to go continentals or whiteheads. Either way they seem to be bloody same price as last year. Crazy..

Farmer Pudsey

Cavanjack wrote: »

Yeah. Until the steaks get too small for the packets. Then they'll want continentals again

Did you ever kill a heifer 500kgs LW about 265DW, I would not call the striploins small. Nearly all striploins in Irish supermarkets come from heifers killed at under 280kgs and in butchers below 250kgsDW

Butcher Boy

Farmer Pudsey wrote: »

Did you ever kill a heifer 500kgs LW about 265DW, I would not call the striploins small. Nearly all striploins in Irish supermarkets come from heifers killed at under 280kgs and in butchers below 250kgsDW

ya we kill them from 200 to 220 kgsDW mostly AA ,

onyerbikepat

Have a look at these Bord Bia calf export figures.

http://www.bordbia.ie/industryservices/information/cattle/pages/livecattleexports.aspx

From Jan to 8 Marchg 2013, live calves exported = 14,240
Same period this year = 21,482

That's a 51% increase. What does that tell you?

Cavanjack

Farmer Pudsey wrote: »

Did you ever kill a heifer 500kgs LW about 265DW, I would not call the striploins small. Nearly all striploins in Irish supermarkets come from heifers killed at under 280kgs and in butchers below 250kgsDW

I haven't but when I killed a 26month bull
14 months ago and he killed out @550kg I got the same price for him as under age bullocks. Not a word about him being too heavy. All because finished cattle were scarce at the time. I also expect if finished cattle become scarce again they'll be happy to take whatever you have.

Farmer Pudsey

Cavanjack wrote: »

I haven't but when I killed a 26month bull
14 months ago and he killed out @550kg I got the same price for him as under age bullocks. Not a word about him being too heavy. All because finished cattle were scarce at the time. I also expect if finished cattle become scarce again they'll be happy to take whatever you have.

Our beef exports are split about 50/50 between the UK and mainland Europe. For 2013 we were ahead of the EU price and below the UK price. Did the EU importers pay more for Irish Beef than that from there own country, did there supermarkets. I do not think so. The Irish exporters took a hit on the EU and made there profit on the UK bound beef.

More than likely your 550kg bull was subsidized by my 330kg dairy born bulls. And yes factory's will take different spec cattle when supply os tight. However we have not seen a dramatic increase in supply rather we have seen a redirection of market focus. The factory's have been forced by the British supermarkets IMO to drop there prices to them this has limited there ability to pay over the market prices to non spec cattle.

The horse meat scandal forced the supermarkets to make sure the processors supplied what it says on the pack. The supply side is up by 2K cattle/week this is not a huge over supply. Rather the biggest issue is that the non spec cattle are too many and pulling the rest of the supply down.

In the last two years the profitable sectors in the beef industry have been eliminated. There were lads that supplied cattle at certain times of year when demand was low. The two time were Dec/Jan and May/June. The beef processors have used there feedlots to shut down the out of spec cattle last December and there feedlots are full for next May/June.

I used to but light 18-20 month old bulls and finish at 26-30 months off grass and ration, I used to feed bulls January every year. Both left a good margin. Now I am on the look out for something to replace these. The issue now is that factory's control supply by there feedlots the excess amount of cattle is not just the issue.

TITANIUM.

farmernewbie wrote: »

I'm buying soon, not sure whether to go continentals or whiteheads. Either way they seem to be bloody same price as last year. Crazy..

Your obviously not selling weanlings at the moment. Way back......

farmernewbie

TITANIUM. wrote: »

Your obviously not selling weanlings at the moment. Way back......

Trying to buy them, getting quotes they are back €40/€50 a head. Just from looking at farmingforum and mart prices they don't seem to be back that much.

What would you pay for a decent continental bullock 250 to 300kg?

TITANIUM.

farmernewbie wrote: »

Trying to buy them, getting quotes they are back €40/€50 a head. Just from looking at farmingforum and mart prices they don't seem to be back that much.

What would you pay for a decent continental bullock 250 to 300kg?

What id pay for the right type off animal?
Roughly 500 with the weight.

farmernewbie

TITANIUM. wrote: »

What id pay for the right type off animal?
Roughly 500 with the weight.

What did ya pay last year?

Farmer Pudsey

TITANIUM. wrote: »

What id pay for the right type off animal?
Roughly 500 with the weight.

You would pat 500+ there weight for 250-300kg continentals. They can only be carried to 700kgs lw max and killing at 55% will be 385DW so depending on price 1550-600 euro. that 800ish to put on 400-450 LW. easily know you are a seller.

With present market out look 2-2.2/kg....2.4 tops. So a 300kg animal 600-660 and 700 tops.

TITANIUM.

farmernewbie wrote: »

What did ya pay last year?

I didn't pay a penny as I don't finish anything. Sell as weanlings or forward stores. I've fine golden charolais bull weanlings 400kgs plus going to the mart next week. Last year they would easily clear 1100. They will be back 150 a head if I can even sell um.

dharn

Where are you going to get a 350 kg store for 700 euro

TITANIUM.

Farmer Pudsey wrote: »

You would pat 500+ there weight for 250-300kg continentals. They can only be carried to 700kgs lw max and killing at 55% will be 385DW so depending on price 1550-600 euro. that 800ish to put on 400-450 LW. easily know you are a seller.

With present market out look 2-2.2/kg....2.4 tops. So a 300kg animal 600-660 and 700 tops.

Did I say id finish um myself puds?
Theres more systems oit there then just the finisher/suckler man.

farmernewbie

Farmer Pudsey wrote: »

You would pat 500+ there weight for 250-300kg continentals. They can only be carried to 700kgs lw max and killing at 55% will be 385DW so depending on price 1550-600 euro. that 800ish to put on 400-450 LW. easily know you are a seller.

With present market out look 2-2.2/kg....2.4 tops. So a 300kg animal 600-660 and 700 tops.

Will keep this in mind, trying to buy this week and next. Don't want to go much over €700 as I can see myself struggling to get a €1000 for them next November and with Vet bills, feed etc it doesn't leave much.

TITANIUM.

dharn wrote: »

Where are you going to get a 350 kg store for 700 euro

I know. I wouldn't like to many pudseys round the ring on mart day.......

Farmer Pudsey

TITANIUM. wrote: »

I know. I wouldn't like to many pudseys round the ring on mart day.......

If I was selling I would not like me around the ring either. However when I sell into the factory the f@@kers I deal with are every bit as bad. Over last 15 months the really profitable section of the cattle I dealt in (bulls)are gone. It is a case of trying to not to back losers at present.

Lads paying some crazy money for cattle at present especially looking at the market outlook and hard to see margin at times
http://www.donedeal.ie/beefcattle-for-sale/20-angus-bullocks/6633528

Even if they are 270 kgs it is hard to see any money out of these.

micky mouse

Whats the story lads,as regards to be quality assured if your selling stores.Im i right in saying that if next owner has more than 70 days feeding on them it wont matter whether im quality assured or not,as long as their 70 days on farm before killed ,the finisher is covered as regards getting his qa bonus

TUBBY

Asking and getting are two different things Pudsey.

Actually, that would be a great thread. The good and the bad value on done deal. For the most part, I find that sellers on it are dreamers and must not go near marts at all.

On the other hand, when trying to sell - its like a lonely hearts club. Lads ringing purely for a chat about factory prices, what meal you feeding, how the weather is hash etc....

Anyway, sorry - that's off on a tangent.

Getting back to the factories thing - can anyone see much off a price rise between now and June as is the usual. I don't want to pessimistic but cant see it being much.

Farmer Pudsey

micky mouse wrote: »

Whats the story lads,as regards to be quality assured if your selling stores.Im i right in saying that if next owner has more than 70 days feeding on them it wont matter whether im quality assured or not,as long as their 70 days on farm before killed ,the finisher is covered as regards getting his qa bonus

It will not matter the lad that sells to the factory is the lads that has to be QA maybe dwon the line it will change but at present this is the situtation.

http://www.donedeal.ie/beefcattle-for-sale/weanlings-for-sale/6620725

If you bought for a euro/kg would they leave a profit as bullocks. They would be ideal to finish as bulls next December but that is risky.

biddy2013

oh went to duleek there with a few cows, texted to say there was a massive queue and would be ages, he was back in 20 minutes , as he had cows they let him skip the queue

Mad4simmental

I wonder would the Irish Competition Law have anything to say about these feedlots and having an affect on the market? Probably pi55ing into the wind but surely it can't be fully legal to influence the market like that.