Beef price tracker 2

Siamsa Sessions

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120077149#Comment_120077149

Scale is the issue in that scenario. And it costs to get set up too. You need concrete yards to store the beet, a chopper, and the cattle pen set up so that you can get in easily with the beet. For the grain, you need a decent sized meal bin (and dryer?).

I’ve looked into it, and have fed beet to ewes pre-lambing when I had the sheep, but it’s awkward and time-consuming. Having said that, beet is plentiful around me and I wouldn’t rule out “rooting” out a system to feed it to finish cattle in the shed next winter.

In the meantime, I bought a few bags of beet pulp yesterday and will mix it with the beef nuts and barley for this year’s cattle.

Bass Reeves

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120077472#Comment_120077472

Beetplup is a fiber source. If feeding it to stock with access to silage it's a waste of time as it's feed value is lower than barley or maize. Stick with the barley only added to the nuts or maize

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120077472#Comment_120077472

I’d say a lot of lads going in to organic beef will end up having to grow their own grain. Prices of organic ration are sky high.

Combi crop is supposed to be a good ration to grow in organics and you have the straw etc. The straw is supposed to have decent feed value as well. Maybe non organic lads could grow it but then you have the storage issue etc. I think chopped beet is a good feed but it is labour intensive and you need the chopper / storage area like you say.

The way things are going the lads left in beef will be either forced in to organics or else in to a non organic cost sensitive model where inputs are reduced.

893bet

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120077628#Comment_120077628

Average suckler farmer is small (16 cows I think I read recently).

Does the average suckler farmer finish his calves? I suspect not (but open to correction that they don’t).

Most suckler farmers won’t have the scale (or the land given they are mostly concentrated towards the west) to start growing and harvesting crops.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120077652#Comment_120077652

Even lads at that scale will need to do everything they can to keep costs down. Clovers, multi species swards etc. Most lads in sucklers are coming up in retirement anyway.

I’d say more and more dairy lads will have to finish their own beef as there will be fewer and fewer buyers of stock. This will drive efficiency.

manjou

I think going forward winter beef finishing will be all big feed lots because of scale needed to offset low margins. The other reason is there could be a lot of people thinking like me that to max out all subs only need .1 lu/ha that's 4 cows on 100 acres . This will give more flexibility to reduce or increase numbers of cattle depending on costs as l9ng as you stay above the .1 lu . Not saying going to drop down to that level of stocking rate but the option is there and not need to use subs to keep cattle. Ad for prices going forward good herdsman are increasing prices every week to max 6e/kg in May for organic cattle all in so work out c9nventional price of that

Bass Reeves

No point in reinventing the wheel. While beet is a good feed it's advantage is you can feed a certain quantity to increase intake above normal DM intake in cattle. However it's usually prices above Barley or maize per unit of energy. You have to buy it in truck loads so not applicable to average farmer.

Advice on winter finishing stay away from it as much as possible. Take it this year at present locally the premium at present over early October finished stock is at most 35c/ kg this week that is a out 100-150 euro on 325-350 kg carcass'es. It's not worth it.

June cattle will be 30-40c/ kg above NY prices most years. If you have a winter less than 130 days WTF would you WF. Ya you will always have a few every autumn that will be borderline as to whether to finish or not. However it's probably makes more sense let them go over age and kill next June.

Ya clover swards and MSS will have a place but early grass probably require a certain amount of N. MSS need a lot of P&K and saving are not as much as many think. They are unsuitable for silage making because the sward will not last. Red Clover is not the Mecca many think it is. There is an issue with replacing it continually it takes over swards as well and as RC content rises preservation issues arise.

Unless processors give forward prices/ contracts for WF cattle I will keep away as much as possible

I can’t see a scenario where more dairy lads won’t end up finishing their own.

Costs are on the up and the amount of labour in bucket rearing calves etc it won’t be long before there isn’t a market for those freshly born calves each spring.

893bet

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120080517#Comment_120080517

With the changing of the “banding” for N for dairy surely it’s less and less likely dairy lads will finish them?

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120080903#Comment_120080903

If no one will take them then they will have to

weatherbyfoxer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120077807#Comment_120077807

Alot depends on the stock too,like storing 500kg aa/he steers or heifers from November till spring can be pointless,especially if you are stocked at an sort of level and going on recent springs an early march turn out is near impossible in alot of cases,

take an store animal eating a bale of silage per month from November till mid possible late April at current silage costing around 30 per bale,..in that scenario a 3 month winter finishing period would surly make sense?,..Another thing is if you end up a month later on turn out you end up a month later on finish so instead of June finish date your heading towards a July date with a falling beef price and drought setting in on some farms

Siamsa Sessions

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120081200#Comment_120081200

I’d sell AA or HE cattle in Nov if they were 500kg. But I don’t know if many bucket-reared animals would be 500kg at that stage, would they?

weatherbyfoxer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120081316#Comment_120081316

We kill all our bucket reared heifers and steers from september-November at 18-20 months at 250-320kg carcass no problem once your on your game,usually buy 400-500kg stores to shed in November and fatten the heavier ones and store the lighter ones...probly better systems but I like the fact of having cash flow from factory cheques in febuary-march,june-july and september-november

jfh

We used to feed fodder beet a long time ago when at dairy, I'm running short of silage, is fodder beet an option? Can't really remember feeding it as I was young. I'd prefer to keep stores until March before selling rather than mid January.

We used to store it on concrete, covered with plastic, it was chopped already, remember a lot of rats!

Fine Day

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120082669#Comment_120082669

How long did the beet stay good for once chopped.

Fine Day

Anyone any quotes for the coming week.

jfh

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120082744#Comment_120082744

This is 30years ago so things have moved on, i think we got 10 days out of it, I remember we used to dump it on silage slab and cover it with straw and plastic, now that I recall it was pure slavery

Fine Day

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120082904#Comment_120082904

I suppose if you had a reasonable setup it wouldn't be so bad. I don't have a diet wagon but can the diet wagons chop up whole beet. Would be Handy if they did.

jaymla627

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120083082#Comment_120083082

Tub feeder will chop it, but you'll wreck the feeder if doing any amount got that t shirt here

charolais0153

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120081316#Comment_120081316

Majority of bullocks should be that Half of heifers should be touching it too I reckon

kk.man

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120082750#Comment_120082750

BIL got 5.30 all in for a load of heifers this week.

Fine Day

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120083249#Comment_120083249

What breed are they?? Have some not far off it. Be mainly Hereford and Angus heifers. Should have some fit later in the month hopefully. Hope they be over the €5.30 come then.😏

Fine Day

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120083193#Comment_120083193

A lesson learned so. We all have learned the expensive way.

kk.man

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120083465#Comment_120083465

I honestly have no idea of the breed. I was only talking to him for a brief second at a gathering and got distracted. I meant to ask him the same question. He does have Hereford from time to time so I'd say a few of them are in the mix. I'm not a heifer man.

older by the day

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120082669#Comment_120082669

I fed it long go too, make sure you have good head feed space if you have cows. They would kill each other getting at it. I used to pike it in to the chopper to keep it clean and stone free. I think there are other options to help your shortage of silage. At mart prices at the moment, I'd start there. Some thing like 2kg of maize meal with silage/straw.

trabpc

Cheap..... Not. That was typical for Roscrea last Friday!

Bass Reeves

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120081200#Comment_120081200

I find that the risk of just turning money for the sake of it can happen with winter finishing. Now you are rearing and it is applicable to consider slaughtering fit 1020 month cattle off grass.

However lads overestimate the cost of overwintering cattle. I have ever been only had a large amount of cattle I side by April. Normally average turnout is 20th March. I target grazing out silage ground first. Now stores limit my ability to WF. However I used to do it before when I bought calves and weanlings. However over time I found a few issues with it, it was putting me in derogation territory, you were often trying to replace cattle at an expensive to e to buy them springtime and the cost of WF was getting too expensive for the return involved.

This year costs have jumped to about 1.2/day on silage only. But 6kgs of ration is costing 2.5+/day.

Even running into July/August is usually not an issue the difference in carcass weight between an animal in mid August compared to Mid June is significant.

I never worry about cash flow it profitability. No point in cashflow for the sake of it

Fine Day

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120084005#Comment_120084005

I happened to be watching that on Friday evening. I assume they were fit for the hook.

Jjameson

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120084011#Comment_120084011

I would honestly say lad completely underestimate the costs of wintering Cattle. I persuade myself every year im doing it for x amount but I’m more than capable of codding myself!

Bass Reeves

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120084542#Comment_120084542

If you are using baled silage it's fairly easy to calculate. I have 58 stores using 12.5 bales a week. I have silage coated at 37/ bale. I am using a bag of minerals every 6-7 days costing 18/ bag that is leaving me 1-2c/ day below 1.2/ day.

When you add in ration it starts getting expensive. Using straights add a lot to the workload. If you are feeding a lot of cattle things like direct feeders have to be factored in. But a straigh silage system is easy enough to calculate if you are using bales