Beef price tracker 2

Aly Daly

Personally I cannot understand this thing of giving your cattle a day out in the mart & everyone coming home in the evening after travelling,probably getting a hiding,standing around all day to be repeated in the next fortnight & all of this in a particularly strong market,in summary I think he was mad not too leave them off only to be looking at them now on the back foot trying to regain lost condition but they are his property so he's the boss.

Dunedin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123046757#Comment_123046757

agree 1000%. But some lads just terrified that they’ll lose a fiver. Some many variations here between transport costs, set back on the cattle and maybe one get injured somewhere in the mix of loading, more silage and nuts at home……

But of course it’s a good story in the pub to tell the lads that he brought them home.

cute geoge

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123046530#Comment_123046530

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123046650#Comment_123046650

,Mautie was probably full to the gills ,it makes a good story but he just probably whispered in your mans ear ,'he had no buyer at that price and just bring them back the following week'

morphy87

I was talking to a man last night, his brother has 150 cattle to go between now and the end of February,all bullocks, over age, continentals out of British freisian cows and sucklers , he said that an agent called yesterday and asked that if he gave him 6.30 flat could he pick out 30 for Monday morning. Now I dont know is this true or not but that’s what he said, usually the way it works with him whoever gets the first lot of cattle gets the first chance at buying the rest of the cattle so maybe the agent thinks it will peak at 6.30 I don’t know

Dunedin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123046645#Comment_123046645

if you could hold them to March time for the grass buyers.

But it’s a crystal ball job if lads think price has peaked now.

Cavanjack

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123046913#Comment_123046913

Well the agents haven’t a clue when or at what price they’ll peak. In listening to them telling me they peaked this last 3 years.

Cavanjack

I wonder how much has beef increased at the tills this last year or two. Or has chicken, pork etc. increased too?
It looks to me that People have accepted that everything has risen in price and have carried on as normal.

GNWoodd

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123046800#Comment_123046800

Have to laugh at some of the posters here who don’t seem to grasp the bigger picture. Irish population is increasing at one of the fastest rates in the EU. All those additional mouths have to be fed and it won’t be with fake meat.
The number of cattle available for sale has decreased due to several factors so it’s a sellers market.
As for a man bringing cattle home unsold, maybe it shows a bit of balls . At the end of the day the profitability of the animals over their lifetime is what matters to him not entirely what the sale price is . Whatever he gets for them ,despite all of the work involved over two years , he still won’t have an annual income comparable to a very basic job. Surely he has the right to ask for a little more than that ???

morphy87

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123046933#Comment_123046933

you seem to know them too well!

GNWoodd

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123046364#Comment_123046364

The consumer has been fed with plenty of cheap food over the last fifty years, most of it sold at below the cost of production.
The percentage of disposable household income being spent on food is still low .

mr.stonewall

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123046645#Comment_123046645

The reason I said the next 3-4 weeks is it will be mainly cattle for feeding Vs grass cattle. The price they will give to restock the pens will help to give a bit of clarity on where the price is going or what the plans are for beef price

There is often a rush to get cattle moving in January for some, be it restore cashflow, dairy farmers offloading before calving or feeders going into a 2nd cycle of cattle.

You have 2 markets the shed men and the grass buyer. It just a decision do you have more margin left to hang onto them or do you cash out. Personally I would be leaning to finish them, but that's just me

WoozieWu

i think @GNWoodd is spot on here and lads need to relax a bit

beef price is shooting up in the uk

getting phone calls and texts from factory agents should say enough

it has been quite the turnaround on the suckler front from the dark days in 2018

culls and springers are worth a fortune now and a cost controlled stock replacement built into the herd, unprecedented and most welcome

i wonder would more dairy farmers be tempted to finish their own stock now

grass10

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123046286#Comment_123046286

You must be going to different factories to me and getting way higher ko % than I am, their is a few things I don't know about these heifers mainly what was their home weight, how much feeding was in them if they were finished or big framed forward stores, how long they were in the mart, how well conformed they were

All I know is their mart weight and all dams were fr or frx so no suckler bred stock from my experience killing Angus heifers from fr dams if the heifers were finished and not over fat heifers you'd be expecting between 275 to 285 kg that's working out to factory equivalent of 6.50 to 6.70 factory payment, most of the animals in that mart yesterday looked to be making well above current factory quotes

Bass Reeves

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123046530#Comment_123046530

If he is a dairy farmer and they are his own breeding he should be registered with one of the U24 month schemes. No way should he be even thinking of the mart. Those U24 month schemes give a weighted average base price.

Just say with such a scheme his base weighted was 5.75 not 5.85, he got QA, Breed bonus and 20c/ kg U24 month price so probably 60c/ kg in bonuses 6.35 before grid deductions. No in and out of marts hang the cattle in groups that suit you.

kk.man

Bought 2 little fillet hereford stakes in the supermarket weight 0.370 kg price 13.99e price per kg 37.81e.

893bet

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123047041#Comment_123047041

In organics so finishing not really an option due to cost as some of these have to be killed conventional (but fed organic nuts for finish).

Cavanjack

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123046984#Comment_123046984

Keep your enemies close I suppose.

DBK1

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123046882#Comment_123046882

This was Roscrea so nothing to do with Mautie.

valtra2

What would u24 month u grade lim heifers kill out at. What percentage. Suckler breed.

DBK1

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123047210#Comment_123047210

You’re working out your figures at 51-52%. That would be what they’ll killout based on yard weight, you’re forgetting to allow for weight loss from yard to mart ring. Allow a fairly modest 4% weight loss and it would probably have been more than that yesterday as it was a big mart with a show sale first, then they’d kill 290-295kgs or around 53% of mart weight.

mr.stonewall

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123047475#Comment_123047475

That's a tough break. Offloading id probably the best margin. Keeping an eye on the trade in 3-4 weeks time and make a plan then

grass10

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123048601#Comment_123048601

I'd do over 100 of these types every year and realistically your at 49 to in very exceptional circumstances 51% of yard weight for Angus heifers off fr cows, many times I've taken heifers to marts when factories are buying at marts and paying well above factory gate price cattle don't lose % losses they lose a set no of kg depending on how close the mart is and time spent there eg I've had as little as 10 kg loss to as much as 25 kg where they were a long time between leaving home and selling. A few times I've shown heavy 800 kg steers that have only lost 10 kg at nearby marts, if animals are really well finished they lose very little

Dunedin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123046963#Comment_123046963

Of course every farmer has the right to ask for a little more but that’s not mine (or others) point, it’s whether it will be financially beneficial for him to refuse what he was getting with a view to bringing them out again to factory or will he bring them back to the mart in another few weeks.

Anyways, each to their own.

DBK1

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123048888#Comment_123048888

I’ve never seen an Angus kill out below 50% here. A very few O- whiteheads will every year alright but they’d be the exception. Do you feed meal or just silage?

The factories never pay well above factory gate prices in the mart, they pay exactly the same at best because their buyers know how to work out the figures.

morphy87

I have weighed cattle from time to time and usually my fresians kill out 52% and I once weighed Herefords the day before they went, well fed out of British freisian cows,R grades and they killed out 54%,

kk.man

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123049025#Comment_123049025

If your a factory buyer it's coming out of your pocket, the factories never take the risk. You get your agent fee and a few cent above the going price. From time to time you could get a call from the factory to say they are shirt of xy or z type and the factory would give more. Saw a good few factory buyers in not great financial situations over the years. It's a hard gig with procurement managers shouting at you and you trying to keep the ring happy.

WoozieWu

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123048583#Comment_123048583

58-68 depending on how purebred they are and conformation

DBK1

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123049166#Comment_123049166

That’s exactly it, and it’s why they won’t overpay at the marts.

grass10

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123049025#Comment_123049025

Meals are fed to Angus heifers depending on their starting weight or size of animals starting on 2kg up to 6kg anywhere from 70 to 100 days, big continental steers are fed usually min 100 days up to 8 kg per day all stock on 70 + dmd silage

A few years ago I was killing good lot of Angus heifers 1 winter when the factories were in control and everything had to go on the grid I was getting all o= and o+ all 3+ or 4- fats when a leading factory sent their employees to marts to buy up Angus every week I was comparing what my stock were making in the factory to what was being paid live and I was 80 to 100 worse off in the factory, so then stared to sell some live until i day the factory decided that they were dropping their mart price so i refused to sell took the animals home kept them for 10 days they put on further weight sent to a factory not the factory that was buying in the mart and I dropped 80 euro per head from what I could have sold for in the ring lesson learned. I'd usually be selling heifers from 550 to 650 live

50HX

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123049453#Comment_123049453

That's great honesty in telling that, fair play