Mart Price Tracker

Hard Knocks

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118711883#Comment_118711883

Are you one of the 2 Kerry men who stretched the penny to make copper wire

🤫

Cavanjack

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118711035#Comment_118711035

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118711035#Comment_118711035

Maybe being outlier’s they might do well for you but it’s a big investment with no certainty what beef price will be in the back end. If they all kill at 380kg In September you’ll be doing very well. For them to come into €1800 you’ll need €4.73 a kg and you still won’t have much out of them when all is paid for.

What else to buy to eat grass that is value is the problem.

StevenToast

Its always abit of a gamble...just this year it looks even more risky....

DBK1

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118711680#Comment_118711680

It’s all well and good talking about the price of a dinner off one calf that was sold, it’s a different story when it’s a full load of heavy cattle. A neighbour here weighed all his cattle the day before a fat stock sale in Tullamore 2 years ago. All 650kgs plus. The following day at the sale the best was 50kgs lighter and the worst a 730kg heifer that weighed 85kgs less the following day. It sounds a lot in kgs but it’s still only 8 - 11% of their live weight. If SevenToast is buying a load of maybe 12 or 14 animals at 500-600kgs and they all lose 8% of their fresh weight your talking 45 kgs an animal at €2.50-€2.80/kg so averaging €115 an animal. Put that over 14 animals and that’s €1,600 on the load.

Now I don’t know what you eat for dinner every day but I’d like to be invited around for dinner with you some time if it costs that money.

Cattle bought from fresh weights need to be bought at minimum 10% less than mart prices or else forget about them and just go to the mart. The problem with lads selling their own cattle in their own yard is they think no-one else has cattle like them and the lad buying them should be honoured to be allowed buy them even though they want U grade prices for R grade stock. Normally the reality is they’d get a rude awakening if they brought them to the mart.

Bass Reeves

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118713951#Comment_118713951

You could not have put it better. Its the harsh reality. Mart is a much better option than buying privately and paying by weight.

Hard Knocks

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118713951#Comment_118713951

How much weight does your stock lose when leaving your farm to when their killed?

DBK1

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118714306#Comment_118714306

I’m not trying to be smart but I honestly don’t know. I’ve never brought the scales to the factory to weigh them going up the line and I don’t know of any factory that provide live weights. It was talked about as a service that would be provided at the time of the beef protests but there’s none of the factories around the midlands that brought it in anyway.

Either way that’s irrelevant to over paying someone for stock bought as weanlings/stores etc.

I can tell you to within a few kgs what every one of my animals will weigh dead weight based on their live weight in the yard before leaving as I’ve been weighing them for years. I can also tell you 4 different dead weights they will have from the 4 factories around me that I’ve dealt with since I started weighing and it would frighten you the difference between the best and worst results.

Hard Knocks

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118714535#Comment_118714535

Heard of a farmer who doesn’t feed from midday the day before they’re killed as he says everything eaten after that time is skittered enroute

Bass Reeves

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118714306#Comment_118714306

Processors deduct 2% from the scales weight to compensate the difference between hot and cold weight. Any finisher will tell you that cattle that travel a distance will weight less. I would want 15c/kg to move from my nearest couple of processors to take cattle 50 to 60 miles away to allow for weight loss and transport costs. Gave up going to one factory in particular as agent used to use a haulier that was collecting cattle at 4-5pm in the evening before slaughter.

DBK1

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118714965#Comment_118714965

I’d be fairly strict with the hauliers here too, nothing goes the evening before. A fresh kill straight in off the lorry is the best job. They start killing around 6 in the mornings and the haulier has often been here at half 3 or 4 for loading and the whole process would be finished before daylight!

StevenToast

Some useful food for thought here.....

Thank you...

Danzy

Any softening of prices.

Cavanjack

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118714789#Comment_118714789

We take meal off them the night before they go but it’s more to try and quieten them down.

Hate sending cattle at night time. More so for the cattle’s sake than the weight they may loose. Usually load at 5-6am and hope they’ll be hanging in a couple of hours.

Anto_Meath

There is nothing worse than at lad with average cattle thinking they are all U grade trying to sell them at home. 2 years ago, lad beside where I have land rented had a few lovely red lm bull weanling. Nice R grade stock.. I spotted them on DD one evening, talking to him a few days later, he was giving out about lads coming insulting his cattle. He was convinced they were 400kg U grade cattle & worth €1,000 each told me he wouldn't take a penny less.. I told him I hadn't looked to tight at them so wouldn't know. About 3 weeks later he had them in the Mart in around 350kgs and all sold for around €800. If he was more realistic he could have got a little more for a lad in the yard.

amacca

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118716640#Comment_118716640

It can go the other way too...I had an agent call out to me a couple of years ago to look at a bunch of 12 15 mth outliers just at the end of the winter...I had them out on redstart and average silage in a paddock I was refreshing....Id call them middling stock but they had nice healthy coats and I knew the majority of them would take off when they hit any sort of grass, they were never going to be fantastic (hex/simx/and bbx with the bbx being the least attractive - more dairy than blue) and the pair of simx looked more like a blocky hex tbh but honest animals, not monsters but not runts either ...to my eye I thought around 400kg ......anyway he offered a price per kg that would bring them to aroud 650-700 max, weigh them in the mart.....which was a critical error on his part...I said **** that to myself if I have to go to the mart I might as well chance them in it so I matched them up into 2 lots of 4and 2 lots of 2 and sent them through.....prices ranged from 910 to 890 on the day ...all same buyer looking for that product....

If you are not happy and you are not overstocked then don't give them to the first lad that comes calling with the calculator imo.

patsy_mccabe

I see a lot of FRX calves sold today in Ennis Mart for €5. Boys oh boys. Don't know who I feel more sorry for, the buyer or the seller.

mr.stonewall

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118717044#Comment_118717044

The buyer all day on these. We are starting to see the negative value that stock with jex breeding have in them, the true value. At least the seller has the potential of milk value for the year. They buyer has to look at a low carcase weight and poor grading for the next 24-36 months. And what hurts more is he/ she has got stung with paying the mart fees as well

amacca

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118717044#Comment_118717044

Definitely the buyer...well, if he's going mixing the milk replacer himself.

Anto_Meath

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118717160#Comment_118717160

Exactly, it was written in the Journal a few years back that €100 should be given with those type of calves to anyone willing to take them. It's probably the only statement ever written in the Journal that I fully agree with. These calves will eat a lot more than the lad costing €100, will kill out 50 -100 KGS less, so anyone feeding them is on a looser. See a few AA bullock out of JEx yesterday in the mart, poor stock that will never come into anything really.

Western Pomise

What has fed cull cows so dear at the moment?......was chatting to a man who would be in a few marts a week as he oftens brings cattle and sheep to sell for neighbours who farm P/T and can't get time off to show stock themselves....he's not a dealer,just gets a few pound for helping neighbours. A straight operator and good judge of the price folks can expect for their stock. He was saying that he realised he would have a fair bit of spare Silage a few months back if he didnt buy something to eat it.... bought ten middling forward cull cows not at mad money....fed avg quality silage and a shake of nuts a day since, He sold them all last week and from best to worst they gained 300 euro on avg for the few months.....not a bad turn!....he was pleasantly surprised at how they did.

Bass Reeves

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118717044#Comment_118717044

When you can by Friesians for 50-100 euro or maybe less then most Frx are not worth that. Having said that I have bought coloured like friesians at 12-18 months sub 300kgs and seen them kill 300ish kgs 12-14 months later. The Friesian coloured ones will nearly all grade.

8-10 years ago I used to buy at 4-8 months and finish as bulls at 20-22 months. At the time O bulls would make 3.90-4.1/kg before Christmas. They would kill 280-310kgs and make 1100-1250 euro. They eat about a ton of ration between the first winters and finishing stage. Ration was 220/ton and Barley 180/ton in bags. They used to eat a nice bit of silage.

If the government bring in the 100 euro slaughter premium and you can kill as bulls under 24 months they could turn a few bob. Cheap way to get into cattle. Easier to finish as bulls than Friesians. Friesians still better value especially if you intend to finish as bullocks.

Bass Reeves

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118717326#Comment_118717326

Grass. Was watch those culls from late November to early February. You could buy Friesians up to 500kgs for a euro/kg. Real hungry ones for less. While a lot of these would have to be held until August at beef prices back then they would come into 11-1200 euro.

It not beyond the bounds of possibilities that mid summer P/O culls will be 4/kg or over. A 330-350kg cull 13-1400 euro

patsy_mccabe

Years ago, we used to finish Friesian bullocks at 30 months off the grass. We'd buy them at 18 months and never fed any meal. I remember one year we had only 2 O's in about 30 of them. All the others graded R. We'd have a lot going over 700ks live too.

DBK1

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118718936#Comment_118718936

Would have been the same here but unfortunately they don’t make them like they used to. An R grade friesian would be a rarity now.

Base price

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118717981#Comment_118717981

Apparently some factories are already giving over €4/kg for p's and €4.10 for o's.

I was watching online the cull cow rings in both Bally'duff and Granard earlier today. Store FR cows 550kgs up were easily making €400+ with their weight and anything 650kgs or above were €500+ with some making €2+/kg.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118718936#Comment_118718936

Did Yee buy them in Clare patsy?

patsy_mccabe

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118722457#Comment_118722457

Ya. this is going back a good bit. It got harder and harder to get them though as the years went on. The holstein breeding ruined that game.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118722467#Comment_118722467

Ya my old man used buy them too, they were nearly extinct by the time I started. There was a good few from kilrush if I remember rightly. The softness in them compared to the cork fresians.

kk.man

The Kilkenny British Fr is still there to a degree probably more prevalent than in other parts.

orm0nd

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118722810#Comment_118722810

Yep still a few herds of quality stock in North Tipp as well but very scarcer each year.

A pity.