Calf price chitchat

Bass Reeves

At present if you have cattle to sell you should be offloading as fast as possible. Export to Turkey under pressure after Trump as Turkish lira has fallen in value. It is my opinion that as the year progresses there will be less and less buyers. I think a lot of spring born calves will be bought sub there weight this Autumn and I am not just speaking about Friesians.

whelan2

What about fresh born calf prices?

mahoney_j

Bass Reeves wrote: »

At present if you have cattle to sell you should be offloading as fast as possible. Export to Turkey under pressure after Trump as Turkish lira has fallen in value. It is my opinion that as the year progresses there will be less and less buyers. I think a lot of spring born calves will be bought sub there weight this Autumn and I am not just speaking about Friesians.

Started already seen nice 400 kg white heads fail to get bids down cracking 440 kg br fr bullocks sell for 490 this week ,dairy bred weanling will in all likelihood go for very small money for rest of year ,trump the .......

Dakota Dan

mahoney_j wrote: »

Spring fr bull calves circa 200 kg going for 250 around here and doing well to get it have 15 as bulls holding out for 300 but doubt I’ll getvit

Probably better to cut your losses.

Henwin

aw sugar, we have 16 spring born calves-11 friesian and 5 jersey cross but unfortunately we are locked up and cant sell them until we get clear, we have the final test in the middle of september. with all the silage and feed they are eating i doubt they will leave much profit especially the jerseys.

visatorro

whelan2 wrote:

What about fresh born calf prices?

160 for Hereford bulls in mart

Dakota Dan

visatorro wrote: »

160 for Hereford bulls in mart

What age?

visatorro

Dakota Dan wrote:

What age?

August born

atlantic mist

whelan2 wrote: »

What about fresh born calf prices?

50 euro for 3 week old fr calves
115 euro for 6 week old fr calves
new ross last week

Cavanjack

visatorro wrote: »

160 for Hereford bulls in mart

You'd want To be getting calves for nothing if You can get 200kg friesians for less than €300

Dakota Dan

atlantic mist wrote: »

50 euro for 3 week old fr calves
115 euro for 6 week old fr calves
new ross last week

At that rate it would be better to get rid of them at 10 days old.

Buford T. Justice XIX

Dakota Dan wrote: »

At that rate it would be better to get rid of them at 10 days old.

14 days next spring, iirc, Dan.

whelan2

Buford T. Justice V wrote: »

14 days next spring, iirc, Dan.

Most exporters won't take them unless they are 14 days anyway

Dakota Dan

whelan2 wrote: »

Most exporters won't take them unless they are 14 days anyway

I know a man that used to put his cows out in a field to calve and he had a buyer lined up to take the calves as soon as they were born, a lazy fecker that couldn’t be arsed watching cows calving or get colostrum into the calves.

Bass Reeves

Cavanjack wrote: »

You'd want To be getting calves for nothing if You can get 200kg friesians for less than €300

And you want to be getting the 200kg friesians for there weight or less when you can buy year and a half stores 400kg for 500 euro.

Base price

Buford T. Justice V wrote: »

14 days next spring, iirc, Dan.

I thought the same but the legislation (mart sales) stipulates 10 day old.

See page 6 point (l) "a calf that has not attained the age of ten days", and also point (h) "new-born livestock in which the navel has not completely healed,"
Maybe the is other legislation for farm to farm sales but I cannot find any.

http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/2018/si/128/made/en/pdf

stanflt

I know a man that bought smashing Hereford bullocks weighting 450 for 420 avg

I'll be busy this winter as I'll have to keep as I couldn't let animals go that cheap

mahoney_j

stanflt wrote: »

I know a man that bought smashing Hereford bullocks weighting 450 for 420 avg

I'll be busy this winter as I'll have to keep as I couldn't let animals go that cheap

The question I’m asking myself is will it pay me to put my fr and angus weanlings thru the winter even tho I’ll be just about ok for silage .i honestly don’t think it will and I’m better off selling at least the fr now for 250/270 and just take my beating on them .

Mooooo

mahoney_j wrote: »

The question I’m asking myself is will it pay me to put my fr and angus weanlings thru the winter even tho I’ll be just about ok for silage .i honestly don’t think it will and I’m better off selling at least the fr now for 250/270 and just take my beating on them .

That's it, risk has to be managed hoping for a good spring in order to make it thru is foolish, better to be safe than sorry and looking for silage next spring when most I imagine won't sell any even if spare till late spring at least given the way all soil types have gotten caught this year

freedominacup

mahoney_j wrote: »

The question I’m asking myself is will it pay me to put my fr and angus weanlings thru the winter even tho I’ll be just about ok for silage .i honestly don’t think it will and I’m better off selling at least the fr now for 250/270 and just take my beating on them .

You have the bones of €1200 to work with to get them to finish next June at 375kg dead. Assuming they're still bulls. Good silage and 6-7kg of high starch concentrate will go a long way on them. You know what good silage is. 2 tonnes per head would be max. There's always a good return out of cattle like that. You're starting with such a cheap animal that it's not too hard to make a few quid.

Bass Reeves

mahoney_j wrote: »

The question I’m asking myself is will it pay me to put my fr and angus weanlings thru the winter even tho I’ll be just about ok for silage .i honestly don’t think it will and I’m better off selling at least the fr now for 250/270 and just take my beating on them .

I have to agree with you. I have only 50% of required silage at present. The ground was reclosed and fertlized sine end of July and expect it to only average 5ish Bales/acre by the 20ish Sept. That is if I do not have to graze some. This will add only about 10-15% to my silage stock. 4 acres of rape set August bank holiday some still not fully germinated. Will not buy any more stores until I see how the fodder pans out. Normally I would be tight with silage and but either ration or silage after Christmas if I was short. Neither are an option this year.

With the shortage of grass it is much more valuable resource this year. From now to mid March because of costs and scarcity of fodder(as well as value of it) it will cost 1.2-1.4/day to carry weanalings and 1.5-2/day to carry 4-500kg stores. So a weanling will cost 250 euro until next March and a store will cost 350-400 to get to next Spring. Prices may not be hectic next spring either as lads will need to build up silage reserves so they may not be on the hunt for as much stock as a normal year. As well dairy farmers may be offloading more yearling to rebuild silage reserves

Bass Reeves

freedominacup wrote: »

You have the bones of €1200 to work with to get them to finish next June at 375kg dead. Assuming they're still bulls. Good silage and 6-7kg of high starch concentrate will go a long way on them. You know what good silage is. 2 tonnes per head would be max. There's always a good return out of cattle like that. You're starting with such a cheap animal that it's not too hard to make a few quid.

You would have to get them to 750kgs liveweight at around 16 months. These are weanlings bulls. Most lads killing sub 16 months are only hitting 270-280 DW and these lads are the best at it. As for costs 7kgs of a high starch ration will be over 2 euro, silage will be 50c/day. From here to mid June is 290 days. If the cost 2 euro/day on average it will be 580 to finish. If they cost 2.5/day it 725 to finish. Killing 275kgs at 4/kg brings them into 1100 euro. If you kill them sub 16 months and have the right FS and a base of 4.2 they will hit 1150 if they are good quality.

Never wrestle with pigs

Really don't understand why any dairy farmers would keep these types of cattle to start with. Most of the time ye are busy enough keeping the dairy side going and growing grass. Not getting at anyone.

Run a nice easy calving lim bull and get €350/400 as a suck calf all day long. No further work required. The few extra days in the oven not only gives the cows an extra weeks brake but the price more than compensates the milk lost for a week or two and no milking.

I'd even say that an easy calved lim is far easier to calve than most he bulls. More time and grass to put into the main enterprise too.

Buford T. Justice XIX

Never wrestle with pigs wrote: »

Really don't understand why any dairy farmers would keep these types of cattle to start with. Most of the time ye are busy enough keeping the dairy side going and growing grass. Not getting at anyone.

Run a nice easy calving lim bull and get €350/400 as a suck calf all day long. No further work required. The few extra days in the oven not only gives the cows an extra weeks brake but the price more than compensates the milk lost for a week or two and no milking.

I'd even say that an easy calved lim is far easier to calve than most he bulls. More time and grass to put into the main enterprise too.

Unless you're split calving, you're losing days in milk from your cow and making it more likely she will be culled for not being in calf next year. Easy calving short gestation AI beef bull will leave you more cows and milk and a calf and cow not destroyed after calving.

patsy_mccabe

The difference in gestation between a Herdford and a Limousin is only 2.2 days (3.82-1.61). Hard data from ICBF. Limousins are that bit hardier too, so less mortality. 0.1%......:D

charolais0153

patsy_mccabe wrote: »

The difference in gestation between a Herdford and a Limousin is only 2.2 days (3.82-1.61). Hard data from ICBF. Limousins are that bit hardier too, so less mortality. 0.1%......:D

Kzp easy calving he bull from dovea. 283 gestation.2.1%calf diff. Eby easy calving lim 288 days .3.7% calf diff.

freedominacup

Bass Reeves wrote: »

You would have to get them to 750kgs liveweight at around 16 months. These are weanlings bulls. Most lads killing sub 16 months are only hitting 270-280 DW and these lads are the best at it. As for costs 7kgs of a high starch ration will be over 2 euro, silage will be 50c/day. From here to mid June is 290 days. If the cost 2 euro/day on average it will be 580 to finish. If they cost 2.5/day it 725 to finish. Killing 275kgs at 4/kg brings them into 1100 euro. If you kill them sub 16 months and have the right FS and a base of 4.2 they will hit 1150 if they are good quality.

Not 16. Very hard to get ho to finish at that age. 18-20 months. Finish from next June. 750kg lw no bother at all. 375-400 dw. Be aiming at 3.90/kg.

Bass Reeves

I think Wrestle with Pigs point is that with the extra workload why would dairy farmers keep calves beyond 2-4 weeks. It immaterial what bull you use but if using a beef bull and bull calves making 300 euro plus why would you keep them. Even good Friesian bulls will make 80-100 euro.

It just goes to show that with the price of dairy bred weanling's, calves are due a price corrections. This happened to an extent last spring where HE bulls dropped to the 220-250 mark at one stage but lads buying direct from yard still pay'ed 300+ at the same time.

However I cannot understand dairy farmers considering workload holding onto calves to sell in the autumn or as stores at 10-20 months of age. Any bit of a downturn and you are not making money

Mooooo

Any that do generally it's due to farm fragmentation, or at a stage where the facilities for more cows instead of beef aren't there. If it wasn't for tb ours would all be gone pre 6 weeks, a pain in the hole having them around tbh

patsy_mccabe

charolais0153 wrote: »

Kzp easy calving he bull from dovea. 283 gestation.2.1%calf diff. Eby easy calving lim 288 days .3.7% calf diff.

KZP carcass weight of -2Kg, EBY carcass weight of +20kg. So 22kg more. It's a shame that both industries can't work together, to the benefit of both.