Mart Price Tracker

wrangler · 14-01-2021 06:13PM

Jjameson wrote: »

What they pay us on has nothing to do with the use of the label nor has bord bia any influence or control on the actual “bonus” payment.
And the fact the selling point is that the inspections are focused on producers rather than beef processors is laughable!
Given the precedence of the beef tribunal, and the horse meat scandal consumers can rest assured a bord bia label is infallible because of Mike from ballymacmuck with 40 cattle is one of the producers inspected as regularly as plant with a throughput of 400 cattle a day!

There's department personnel in the factories all the time, surely it's their responsibility.
As you say Bord Bia just certify the farm. the factory decide how to use it, movements has nothing to do with Bord Bia,
Nor age either

Anto_Meath · 14-01-2021 06:43PM

As a department inspector said to me one day once the animal passes the scales the factory will do what they like with it & before that they will do all they can to knock the farmer...

DBK1 · 14-01-2021 11:02PM

Bass Reeves wrote: »

For Non QA cattle he was another 380 ahead and that is if the processor was willing to pay same base for non QA cattle some processor's pay 10-20c lower base.

I not sure if these cattle would KO 58-60% off mart weight. The lighter ones would be 3-/= at best. The Gutty lad might only grade R-/=. He was probably dairy breeding nothing wrong with that as long as they have good weight gain.

O have seldom see a CH that would not carry more weight. However they can often be ok spec wise at 600kgs LW. There is no penalty for FS2+ when an animal is grading R- or better.

Neighbour took a pair of CH bullocks to the mart last September. They weighted 575kgs and were only making 1050. He refused to sell he was looking for 2/kg. He had a few.more as well heifers and Bullocks so fed them outside on 3kgs, silage and grass as long as they had it early December. The two he refused to sell killed around 360 and made 1430 net. The heifers netted about 1260 euro and an AA bullock made nearly 1300 euro. He slaughtered them before Christmas. He has another six to go yet

You're right about being offered 10 to 20 cent less than base price, and that would probably be after they’d leave you waiting a few weeks and then tell you they’re doing you a favour by taking them off you.

I was assuming they were r grades and based on the fact that Albert said they’ve been getting lots of nuts all winter I’d be very disappointed with anything less than a 58% killout on mart weights. Well fed r grades should kill very close to that on they’re fresh weight or I’d be heading for a different factory. Either way if you want to take that as best case scenario then anything less than that only makes the prices better compared to what would be got in the factory so definitely it would have to classed as a good days selling.

DBK1 · 14-01-2021 11:17PM

Albert Johnson wrote: »

I doubt if they'd kill out 58%-60% off mart weight either as they were only about 4 hours in the mart with an hours transport so they'd hardly be emptied out that much. The gutty lad was suckler bred but he was big in the middle and more like a cow than a bullock when it came to confirmation. Maybe I was being overly harsh on him but I'd still consider him the poorest quality of the bunch.

I agree that most CHx would be fit to take more feeding and oftentimes it's fit rather than fat that's the deciding factor. However imo this lad was a right sort of a bullock and I'd reckon you could feed him until June and he'd still be okay fat wise. Tbh I thought he'd have closed nearer to the €1700 given what the first bullock made but I still wasn't complaining.

Without seeing your neighbours bullocks that was poor money in September for them at that weight. I'm assuming they were still under age and had sufficient time left to slaughter? I'd consider €2 a kilo the minimum price for average continental stores at any time and I'd be hoping for another 10 or 15 cents with it.

It’s surprising what they will lose on a day in the mart, anything up to 8% of their weight.

A neighbour here brought stock to a fat stock sale in Tullamore last August, it was on a Thursday. He had weighed them all with his new scales the Saturday before and was already counting the money! He got an awful shock when they stood on the scales in the mart. A U+ grade limousine heifer was 650kgs in his yard and 605 at the mart, 2 R-/R+ Charlaois averaging 720 on the yard averaged 670 in the mart. He’d a few bullocks as well and the same story, 40 to 50 kgs less on them type of weights. About 7% of a weight loss. I’m not sure exactly how long they were standing around but it wasn’t a massive sale so I’d expect it wouldn’t have been any more than 5 or 6 hours.

Another man local here is in the process of looking for calibration certs for both a scales he rented to weigh his stock for the beam scheme and a scales where he sold his bulls as he can’t believe the difference in weights between the 2. Unfortunately that’s just the way it is, when you open the trailer at the mart the first thing you see is all the s**t on the floor, that had to come from somewhere!!

For anyone with a scales try it the next time your going to the mart or if you’re passing a co-op or somewhere on the way pull in and weigh the full load and weigh the empty on the way home and work it out. But only do it the once, otherwise you’ll just torment yourself thinking of the money you should have got!

wrangler · 14-01-2021 11:30PM

DBK1 wrote: »

It’s surprising what they will lose on a day in the mart, anything up to 8% of their weight.

A neighbour here brought stock to a fat stock sale in Tullamore last August, it was on a Thursday. He had weighed them all with his new scales the Saturday before and was already counting the money! He got an awful shock when they stood on the scales in the mart. A U+ grade limousine heifer was 650kgs in his yard and 605 at the mart, 2 R-/R+ Charlaois averaging 720 on the yard averaged 670 in the mart. He’d a few bullocks as well and the same story, 40 to 50 kgs less on them type of weights. About 7% of a weight loss. I’m not sure exactly how long they were standing around but it wasn’t a massive sale so I’d expect it wouldn’t have been any more than 5 or 6 hours.

Another man local here is in the process of looking for calibration certs for both a scales he rented to weigh his stock for the beam scheme and a scales where he sold his bulls as he can’t believe the difference in weights between the 2. Unfortunately that’s just the way it is, when you open the trailer at the mart the first thing you see is all the s**t on the floor, that had to come from somewhere!!

For anyone with a scales try it the next time your going to the mart or if you’re passing a co-op or somewhere on the way pull in and weigh the full load and weigh the empty on the way home and work it out. But only do it the once, otherwise you’ll just torment yourself thinking of the money you should have got!

We did it here with lambs, they lost between 1 and 4kgs in six hours, average 2 kgs, I just laugh when I hear guys giving out about scales in factories after weighing lambs full in the evening

DBK1 · 14-01-2021 11:49PM

wrangler wrote: »

We did it here with lambs, they lost between 1 and 4kgs in six hours, average 2 kgs, I just laugh when I hear guys giving out about scales in factories after weighing lambs full in the evening

What weight would the lambs have been in your yard, 40 to 45kgs? If so that’s anything from 2.5 to 10% loss or averaging about 5%.

It is frustrating for lads when they discover this is the case. It’s one of the reasons I’d be very slow to buy stock privately. Lads want top mart prices based on a yard weight, it makes stock very dear.

wrangler · 14-01-2021 11:53PM

DBK1 wrote: »

What weight would the lambs have been in your yard, 40 to 45kgs? If so that’s anything from 2.5 to 10% loss or averaging about 5%.

It is frustrating for lads when they discover this is the case. It’s one of the reasons I’d be very slow to buy stock privately. Lads want top mart prices based on a yard weight, it makes stock very dear.

We get bonuses based on grade and heavily penalised for being overweight.
So we leave the lambs in the yard for four or five hrs before weighing to get an accurate weight

wrangler · 15-01-2021 12:02AM

Jjameson wrote: »

You don’t get penalise, you just gift the ffckwrs free meat!

You don't have to sell them the heavy ones,

Albert Johnson · 15-01-2021 12:05AM

DBK1 wrote: »

It’s surprising what they will lose on a day in the mart, anything up to 8% of their weight.

A neighbour here brought stock to a fat stock sale in Tullamore last August, it was on a Thursday. He had weighed them all with his new scales the Saturday before and was already counting the money! He got an awful shock when they stood on the scales in the mart. A U+ grade limousine heifer was 650kgs in his yard and 605 at the mart, 2 R-/R+ Charlaois averaging 720 on the yard averaged 670 in the mart. He’d a few bullocks as well and the same story, 40 to 50 kgs less on them type of weights. About 7% of a weight loss. I’m not sure exactly how long they were standing around but it wasn’t a massive sale so I’d expect it wouldn’t have been any more than 5 or 6 hours.

Another man local here is in the process of looking for calibration certs for both a scales he rented to weigh his stock for the beam scheme and a scales where he sold his bulls as he can’t believe the difference in weights between the 2. Unfortunately that’s just the way it is, when you open the trailer at the mart the first thing you see is all the s**t on the floor, that had to come from somewhere!!

For anyone with a scales try it the next time your going to the mart or if you’re passing a co-op or somewhere on the way pull in and weigh the full load and weigh the empty on the way home and work it out. But only do it the once, otherwise you’ll just torment yourself thinking of the money you should have got!

I agree about what they can potentially loose from when weighed full at home to empty after a day at the mart. However I'd expect cattle sold in small sales this time of year to not suffer as much weight loss as those traded during the peak season. Those bullocks were only a few a hours in the mart and probably wouldn't have been packed as tight in the pens or mixed with other cattle as when dealing with a full yard of stock. Stress leads to weight loss and susceptibility to illness, take weanlings bought from big sales in the autumn as an example.

Scale calibration also has an impact. Take it that a mart scales in a busy sale could have several hundred animal's passing over it. During the course of the sale the scale will get dirtied, all this is extra weight and oftentimes the scales is set a bit light to counteract this. As you said above you'd be better not get too bogged down in all that or you'd only be annoying yourself wondering.

DBK1 · 15-01-2021 12:23AM

Albert Johnson wrote: »

I agree about what they can potentially loose from when weighed full at home to empty after a day at the mart. However I'd expect cattle sold in small sales this time of year to not suffer as much weight loss as those traded during the peak season. Those bullocks were only a few a hours in the mart and probably wouldn't have been packed as tight in the pens or mixed with other cattle as when dealing with a full yard of stock. Stress leads to weight loss and susceptibility to illness, take weanlings bought from big sales in the autumn as an example.

Scale calibration also has an impact. Take it that a mart scales in a busy sale could have several hundred animal's passing over it. During the course of the sale the scale will get dirtied, all this is extra weight and oftentimes the scales is set a bit light to counteract this. As you said above you'd be better not get too bogged down in all that or you'd only be annoying yourself wondering.

Yea agreed, it definitely wouldn’t have been as hard a day on them as a day in a busy mart in October would.

To get back to the starting point, I think your uncle should be happy enough, he definitely done a lot better than he would have in the factory.

Albert Johnson · 15-01-2021 12:37AM

DBK1 wrote: »

Yea agreed, it definitely wouldn’t have been as hard a day on them as a day in a busy mart in October would.

To get back to the starting point, I think your uncle should be happy enough, he definitely done a lot better than he would have in the factory.

All things considered I thought it was a successful day out. There was 6 bullocks in that group originally, 1 of them went as a reactor in September. The reactor was a comrade of the 3 lighter bullocks and would have weighed similar to them all along. He was valued at €1100 (somewhere around 480-500kg) and I thought it a fair price at the time so the remaining ones did well in the intervening 4 months.

Bass Reeves · 15-01-2021 01:33AM

Albert Johnson wrote: »

I doubt if they'd kill out 58%-60% off mart weight either as they were only about 4 hours in the mart with an hours transport so they'd hardly be emptied out that much. The gutty lad was suckler bred but he was big in the middle and more like a cow than a bullock when it came to confirmation. Maybe I was being overly harsh on him but I'd still consider him the poorest quality of the bunch.

I agree that most CHx would be fit to take more feeding and oftentimes it's fit rather than fat that's the deciding factor. However imo this lad was a right sort of a bullock and I'd reckon you could feed him until June and he'd still be okay fat wise. Tbh I thought he'd have closed nearer to the €1700 given what the first bullock made but I still wasn't complaining.

Without seeing your neighbours bullocks that was poor money in September for them at that weight. I'm assuming they were still under age and had sufficient time left to slaughter? I'd consider €2 a kilo the minimum price for average continental stores at any time and I'd be hoping for another 10 or 15 cents with it.

The agents buying heavy bullocks like that are often trying to get cattle into a price/kg to get them put on the market. What happens after that depends on demand. The cuts from heavy bullocks are not really suitable for the UK market. While you are right and the DW difference on them might not be reflected in the mart price the competition for them would not have been as strong as for the lighter cattle. Some if those lighter made the equivalent of up on 4.2/kg it a base of 4/kg.

The reason is that if they had enough flesh they were suitable for the UK market. Going back to the real heavy bullock he had one great attribute. In that he seemed to have a good daily weight gain. If you are operating a mainly grass based system daily weight Giannis where it is at. Grass is cheap

wrangler · 15-01-2021 12:34PM

Jjameson wrote: »

Small producers trying to get a batch of lambs together at near enough the full weight always end up gifting meat.

Rightly or wrongly i was just clarifying your point on the cartels lamb price specifications.

If they don't want a lot of heavy lambs they have to penalise

orm0nd · 17-01-2021 09:23AM

Any body see br fr type cows circa 700 to 740 kgs selling. Have a few here. Reckon they'd carry another 50 to 80 kgs to factory finish.

Big lengthy type so plenty of scope.

Sheep breeder · 18-01-2021 11:23PM

Was watching Carrigallen online tonight with springing heifers making crazy money for very shapely heifers. Is there something I am missing about the future of suckler cows going forward at the price of beef across Europe.

kk.man · 18-01-2021 11:41PM

Sheep breeder wrote: »

Was watching Carrigallen online tonight with springing heifers making crazy money for very shapely heifers. Is there something I am missing about the future of suckler cows going forward at the price of beef across Europe.

No nothing you are missing. IMO it's lock down savings. No money being spent on holidays cars etc.

Lady Haywire · 18-01-2021 11:47PM

Sheep breeder wrote: »

Was watching Carrigallen online tonight with springing heifers making crazy money for very shapely heifers. Is there something I am missing about the future of suckler cows going forward at the price of beef across Europe.

Was watching it too, there was a 6yr old cow (I think6 anyway?) with a strong bull calf at foot, thought her a grand price in comparison.
Didn't like many of the heifers, too heavy, too old. There was a wee BB born sept/Oct 18 that would have been the one I'd have taken.

Was only thinking there, if you were at that selling show heifers game & got all scanned before sale, would they be tempted to keep the ones incalf to heifers & sell the bulls????

Albert Johnson · 19-01-2021 12:08AM

Lady Haywire wrote: »

Was watching it too, there was a 6yr old cow (I think6 anyway?) with a strong bull calf at foot, thought her a grand price in comparison.
Didn't like many of the heifers, too heavy, too old. There was a wee BB born sept/Oct 18 that would have been the one I'd have taken.

Was only thinking there, if you were at that selling show heifers game & got all scanned before sale, would they be tempted to keep the ones incalf to heifers & sell the bulls????

I often noticed that a cow and calf would make similar money to a comparable springer. A lot of lads have a fixation with buying incalf heifers where as they wouldn't look at a cow and calf even though there often far better value especially when there's a strong calf at foot and maybe back incalf again.

As for keeping the heifers it would largely depend on whether you were prepared to keep the resulting calves for maybe the best part of 3 years before sale. A lot of fellas I see at the springer game buy strong heifers that are fit to bull straight away. At least this way your usually less than 12 months away from resale and hopefully a profit. Take it if you wanted to sell 50 springers a year and bought them as weanlings you'd have 100-150 cattle for most of the year (weanlings, maiden's and springers) and even more cattle if you bred them yourself. Also I'd imagine the first calf out of most show type heifers wouldn't be there greatest breeding potential as you'd be going for a less extreme easier calved bull compared to what you'd put on mature cows.

Lady Haywire · 19-01-2021 12:23AM

Albert Johnson wrote: »

I often noticed that a cow and calf would make similar money to a comparable springer. A lot of lads have a fixation with buying incalf heifers where as they wouldn't look at a cow and calf even though there often far better value especially when there's a strong calf at foot and maybe back incalf again.

As for keeping the heifers it would largely depend on whether you were prepared to keep the resulting calves for maybe the best part of 3 years before sale. A lot of fellas I see at the springer game buy strong heifers that are fit to bull straight away. At least this way your usually less than 12 months away from resale and hopefully a profit. Take it if you wanted to sell 50 springers a year and bought them as weanlings you'd have 100-150 cattle for most of the year (weanlings, maiden's and springers) and even more cattle if you bred them yourself. Also I'd imagine the first calf out of most show type heifers wouldn't be there greatest breeding potential as you'd be going for a less extreme easier calved bull compared to what you'd put on mature cows.

True, was just a fleeting thought that crossed my mind. Even if you were only getting middling heifer calves, that'd nearly have a bit of shape to them regardless off those sort of heifers.
Be a bad sort to do it, but there's plenty of those about. Lets say they had 50 to sell, scanned & kept 20 with heifers. Less worry at calving & then keep on the best heifer calves for breeding & others to sell at fatstock weanling sale or whatever.

I'm probably just raving, wouldn't be anything new!!:D

Sheep breeder · 19-01-2021 12:35AM

kk.man wrote: »

No nothing you are missing. IMO it's lock down savings. No money being spent on holidays cars etc.

Wonder will they have money left to pay the vet to open the door for the calf and buy the bags of milk replacer to feed the calf if a live, a good few of them were due in 3 weeks and no springing at all and fat as fools.

Albert Johnson · 19-01-2021 12:35AM

Lady Haywire wrote: »

True, was just a fleeting thought that crossed my mind. Even if you were only getting middling heifer calves, that'd nearly have a bit of shape to them regardless off those sort of heifers.
Be a bad sort to do it, but there's plenty of those about. Lets say they had 50 to sell, scanned & kept 20 with heifers. Less worry at calving & then keep on the best heifer calves for breeding & others to sell at fatstock weanling sale or whatever.

I'm probably just raving, wouldn't be anything new!!:D

I couldn't see why it wouldn't work as you've outlined although you'd soon be found out. Not that you were doing anything especially wrong but nothing stays secret for long in the cattle business.

I've often thought of doing something similar with ewes, scan them and only keep the doubles and cash in the singles and triplets. If you were cute enough to mark them in a way that didn't denote what they were carrying you'd probably do even better. A single and a triplet bearing ewe could be matched up and they'd still be carrying "4" lambs. You'd hopefully have the most productive and easiest managed sheep kept while getting a good price for the harder managed one's. There's a lot to be said for being busy and not having time to come up with get rich quick schemes.

Sheep breeder · 19-01-2021 12:39AM

Lady Haywire wrote: »

Was watching it too, there was a 6yr old cow (I think6 anyway?) with a strong bull calf at foot, thought her a grand price in comparison.
Didn't like many of the heifers, too heavy, too old. There was a wee BB born sept/Oct 18 that would have been the one I'd have taken.

Was only thinking there, if you were at that selling show heifers game & got all scanned before sale, would they be tempted to keep the ones incalf to heifers & sell the bulls????

And guaranteed 5 weeks incalf !!!!, didn’t seem to have a great udder to her. The auctioneer was very slow taking up to 5 minutes a lot to sell and all day dropping the hammer. What time would he have finished selling tonight.

charolais0153 · 19-01-2021 12:48AM

Know a fella that bought at Walter Brennan's sale , paid over 9000 for 2 heifers, one had a roan calf the other was red , both bulls .
Another man paid 1800 for a browny type with. A white splash on her head , one of the cheaper heifers, has one of the finest red roan heifers calf u cud ask for

Albert Johnson · 19-01-2021 12:50AM

Sheep breeder wrote: »

And guaranteed 5 weeks incalf !!!!, didn’t seem to have a great udder to her. The auctioneer was very slow taking up to 5 minutes a lot to sell and all day dropping the hammer. What time would he have finished selling tonight.

Was it MM selling I wonder? A complete gentleman and a very fair auctioneer but we always reckoned you could open a beast, go out for a p!ss and get a mineral from the canteen and still be back in time to get in before the fall of the hammer. He'd be rattling away and finally all set to hammer them and suddenly "nd bid nd bid nd bid €5" and he'd be off again. Seriously though a nicer and more approachable man for both buyer and seller you couldn't hope to meet.

Hard Knocks · 19-01-2021 10:34AM

Albert Johnson wrote: »

Was it MM selling I wonder? A complete gentleman and a very fair auctioneer but we always reckoned you could open a beast, go out for a p!ss and get a mineral from the canteen and still be back in time to get in before the fall of the hammer. He'd be rattling away and finally all set to hammer them and suddenly "nd bid nd bid nd bid €5" and he'd be off again. Seriously though a nicer and more approachable man for both buyer and seller you couldn't hope to meet.

Yea nice man
he aims for a fair start then down in €50’s and back up in €5’s
Listening for a few mins, it sounded like Gafney

Base price · 19-01-2021 05:49PM

Hard Knocks wrote: »

Yea nice man
he aims for a fair start then down in €50’s and back up in €5’s
Listening for a few mins, it sounded like Gafney

Yes, it was Gaffney and if I was the seller I think he did a fine job selling them. He held out to the last and gave everyone a chance to come back in. They wouldn't be the stock that I'd buy but beauty is in the eye of the beholder :rolleyes:

White Clover · 19-01-2021 05:53PM

Good trade for 500kg+ Angus cattle so far this week in southern marts. Equivalent of €4.30/kg being achieved easily.

Jb1989 · 19-01-2021 10:56PM

White Clover wrote: »

Good trade for 500kg+ Angus cattle so far this week in southern marts. Equivalent of €4.30/kg being achieved easily.

4.30 itself be within reach in factory atm with all bonuses included

20-01-2021 02:32PM

I see Tom mc carthys leaving Cork marts.

White Clover · 20-01-2021 05:12PM

White Clover wrote: »

Good trade for 500kg+ Angus cattle so far this week in southern marts. Equivalent of €4.30/kg being achieved easily.

A bit of a stretch to get there with O- or O= which would be what I'm talking about.

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