beef price tracker

Fireside Solicitor wrote: »

There is a businessman near us inherited the place off his father. It is a good farm with 20k sfp. Yer man if he looks at it once a week that’s it. He has 70 bullocks and tells me he doesn’t care if they make anything once they don’t cost him anything......he wouldn’t have clue what happens with them.He was joking with one of the lads that the farm was great for hiding expenses from the tax man. This man drives a 100k bmw. When the system treats him the same as me sure it will never be right

Your post wreeks of begrudgery. He is a businessman with a business head and you hold this against him? He has it sussed where the money is and runs his farm accordingly. Yes farming is good for tax writeoffs. The world and his mother knows this. It's deliberately done so. If the part time farmer gave up in the morning the whole economy would go wallop. It's given as a "sweetner." I always said there was money in farming, just not for the farmer.
The man may drive a flash beemer but you can be damn sure farming didn't pay for it!! And if it did, we all could do worse than listen to him.

White Clover wrote: »

There's no denying the blatant under grading of carcasses that has gone on since manual grading finished. You'd need an exceptionally good animal to grade R nowadays.

I'd be in no hurry to look for electronic grading of the lambs, farmers couldn't trust the human graders for beef. There's no doubt it's hard to understand the lamb grading some days but on average it's alright.
Grades are just a number, I've no doubt that if the electronic grader was less severe they'd just stop paying QA on Os

White Clover wrote: »

I have no problem with lamb grades but the cattle are so disappointing. If they stopped paying qa on O's, the little bit of credibility that the qa has would be lost completely.
Weren't the factories also looking for lighter carcasses for the supermarket trade....as a rule these will be dairy cross cattle..... It's heads the factories win and tails the farmer loses

Why were farmers giving out about the department graders, we haven't even dept graders grading our lambs but factory graders and we get along.
Wonder how many people that complain actually see their cattle hanging up.
Those talking about altering the grades might as well be accusing them of adjusting the scales.....

I wouldn't count dairy cross cattle as R grades, most haven't the front shoulder to pull it off....the bulls might though
Twenty years ago I was selling growthy charolais out of simmenthal cows and they were mostly Rs,
Granted they were young but grading wouldn't have changed much according to that

wrangler wrote: »

Why were farmers giving out about the department graders, we haven't even dept graders grading our lambs but factory graders and we get along.
Wonder how many people that complain actually see their cattle hanging up.
Those talking about altering the grades might as well be accusing them of adjusting the scales.....

I wouldn't count dairy cross cattle as R grades, most haven't the front shoulder to pull it off....the bulls might though
Twenty years ago I was selling growthy charolais out of simmenthal cows and they were mostly Rs,
Granted they were young but grading wouldn't have changed much according to that

I was with an agent in a shed with 70 fr,bb,he cattle off fr cows. He walked along by the barrier and lioked at the top line of all the cattle. Walked behind them aswell. They were fine cattle 24months old. 5 r's,10p's and the rest o's he said they would grade,

White Clover wrote: »

I wouldn't expect dairy cross cattle to be R's either wrangler. It's that too many of them fail to even make an O= heading for 30 months....and it's the carcass that they want. In other words, the farmer is penalised for giving them what they want. It comes back to the point I made in my post above.

Well you know my views on dairy bred cattle, I hate the sight of them, so I suppose I'm biased.
I can't understand guys giving what they give for calves

Grades weren't split into 3 sections when I was at it but I always considered mine to be the top end of the R grade.

wrangler wrote: »

Well you know my views on dairy bred cattle, I hate the sight of them, so I suppose I'm biased.
I can't understand guys giving what they give for calves

Grades weren't split into 3 sections when I was at it but I always considered mine to be the top end of the R grade.

We all like the fancy ones but the factories told us the carcasses were too big....the steaks wouldn't fit on the trays. We can't win when the goal posts keep moving...

White Clover wrote: »

We all like the fancy ones but the factories told us the carcasses were too big....the steaks wouldn't fit on the trays. We can't win when the goal posts keep moving...

Is there a maximum weight now on beef cattle same as sheep, I've been through Camolins cutting up plant and have seen them putting the chops on the trays and the need for small legs and portions in an effort to compete with pork and chicken. I always sold steers around 400kg and heifers around 370, but that's 20 years ago now and they didn't want them any heavier even then but they always took them and paid for them, it suited my system to sell them at 18 to 22 mths.
It's like the ram lambs, they're always complaining about them, and yet they take them, and TBH some of them taste like sh..e

oneten wrote: »

Manual grading still goes on, if the grader code on your kill docket is anything other than 001 then your cattle have been manually graded, and is definitely being used by one factory to downgrade carcasses.
I've been on the receiving end of this thievery.
I'm told you can request the still images from the grading machine and have them assessed by an
" independent " assessor with the IFA if you are a member. I don't know how true this is.

I doubt there's any thievery going on.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=11&v=4rGBkQ1zYhw
I wonder how far you have to go back in these cows breeding to get a f.....ng Holstein,.....are we not destroying the beef industry

Who2 wrote: »

I agree to a point. i seen cows being hung up recently. there were two batches. one batch of super continental cows with no feeding but fleshed. nearly all graded o. another batch of lesser quality cows but fed and nearly all graded r.
i think a lot of it has to do with rose tinted glasses, no different than lads thinking their best weanling is a super star, until they land in beside even better stock.
its pretty hard pull a u out of most dairy bred animals.

That was the point I was trying to make, it isn't until you'd see your stock hanging up on the line along side Os, Rs and Us that you see the difference.
I't take a very brave human grader that differentiate between -,=, and + grades by eye

wrangler wrote: »

Is there a maximum weight now on beef cattle same as sheep, I've been through Camolins cutting up plant and have seen them putting the chops on the trays and the need for small legs and portions in an effort to compete with pork and chicken. I always sold steers around 400kg and heifers around 370, but that's 20 years ago now and they didn't want them any heavier even then but they always took them and paid for them, it suited my system to sell them at 18 to 22 mths.
It's like the ram lambs, they're always complaining about them, and yet they take them, and TBH some of them taste like sh..e

Some plants say they are cutting on over 440kg but have yet to be cut on anything under 500kg.

Limestone Cowboy wrote: »

That is the finest herd of cows I have ever seen.

They are out on their own, they've had a few open days well worth seeing.

Last of my heifers gone tonight @3,80.

wrangler wrote: »

I doubt there's any thievery going on.

Who2 wrote: »

I agree to a point. i seen cows being hung up recently. there were two batches. one batch of super continental cows with no feeding but fleshed. nearly all graded o. another batch of lesser quality cows but fed and nearly all graded r.
i think a lot of it has to do with rose tinted glasses, no different than lads thinking their best weanling is a super star, until they land in beside even better stock.
its pretty hard pull a u out of most dairy bred animals.

R grade animals don't kill 58%

wrangler wrote: »

They are out on their own, they've had a few open days well worth seeing.

If you here of one coming up again you might let us know. I'd love to see them in the flesh.