Certified Angus beef

I joined over 10 years ago now at the factory costs €150 if I remember right

On the Summer Grazing theme, possibly another thread, would Angus heifers bought in Feb/Mar & finishing off grass be an option? What age/LW would you want to be buying at?

I think this is the group below. they have been in business for over 20 years. worth giving a call and see how you get on. I believe there are some others offering premium as well with some factories

They must have averaged near 280 kgs DW. They were not your average run of the mill heifers. They would have been 540kgsLW. That is great weight for AA heifers. Teagasc green acte schemes are killing HE and AA heifers and they vary from 240-280 kgs. Trying to buy to finish is different to a farmer that is producing there own

Probably is not but beef is a low margin business. Assuming you slaughter at 20/21 months if they average 280 kgs you are looking at a daily LW gain of 800 grams/ day. This is above average for AA cattle. Allow for a winter period these cattle must hit over a kg/ day for a while. I find even when feeding ration AA seldom do any better than 600 grams/ day.

If heifer's hit 1200 average or above constantly most lads would be happy with them. You could nearly stock at a unit( yearling and calf) for the year. Only real issue to overcome is stocking level in the autumn. At a guess you be making 400/ head profit assuming a calf price of 160-180/ head.

TBH I have been saying for ages that beef farming is a part time job. A we'll set up 100 acre+ drystock enterprise can be managed in 15-20 hours a week. As well if set up right you can go to France for two weeks during the summer and to Lanzrote for a week during the winter. There is no fortune to be made but if you can collect 20k off a 50 acre farm between profit and payments what is wrong with it if you have another 40 k from a job and your spouse is works ag as well

It's much better than hanging around a mart 3-4 days a week trying to pick up a few cheap cattle to make your weeks pay

they were nice heifers, in fairness his cows/heifers would not be extreme holstein - probably some % of british Fr in them. He would also buy better type angus bulls... ie no KYA's

Nearly any Angus that you pay 400 euro for will not leave too much profit. An Angus has a virtual weight limit of 370 kgs. Assuming that they average 4.4/ kg Inc bonuses ( that about a base of 4.15/ kg you are looking at a gross price of 1600 euro.. if you slaughter over 50/ year you get another 10c/ kg or 35 euro.

General operatives in construction are on 30-35K/year as a basic wage now locally here. I know in the above example i gave 40K but that is before tax after tax its 617/week. I would not consider that outlandish money to be earning. In reality you need a second income to survive. Add a spouse earning 31K and they only have 500/week into there hand. That is an income of 1100/week coming into a house. In Dublin at present if you are a single person on 35K/year you are entitled to a level of rent supplement, there is a lot of single young people working in Dublin do not realize that. I know i am from near Limerick and the general run of may be higher than in some area's that are well away from larger towns and cities. But living costs are higher nearer larger urban area's as well. You can also assume that your travel costs would be higher as you would be travelling 10+ miles to work and maybe 20-30 miles.

I would not consider 40K to be an outlandish income to aim for. Most factories pay that now, you may have to work a bit of OT but not a whole lot. If you have any decent sort of qualification leaving college thestarting rate is 30+. None of mine started on any less than that, now my daughter was lucky as since starting teaching she had full hours/week.

As well remember the minute you go over 40K half is going back to the government

I've had Aax heifers kill out at everything from 240 to 328 and others will have seen bigger variation.

The 240 was one of the most profitable, strangely enough but that was last July, bought in December for 350.

The variety in the breed is ridiculous.

i would do a bit with pedigree as well and agree, lads selling bulls at these prices can't be making a bob. While the export has helped move some of the poorer female stock, it has probably created 2 unintended problems... the lads buying them think there is a lot of crap here and it has actually kept some cows alive (instead of culling her) who are breeding crap coz a lad can sell the heifer for a decent price even though she is poor.

personally my view is the beep scheme is actually a better one than genomic as the weighing can help identify cows who are not pitting weight on their calves

And as a some some trader if you are writing off 2/3's of a decent car, phone and mobile phone, electricity, pay wages to the children from 14 on etc you can shield a lot of the income.

The 20k could be the equivalent of 30k+ in real income for a couple who both have jobs. 38k is the median.woeking income in Ireland, more or less on the cusp of the high tax rate. Running a drystock farm as a business as opposed to a lifestyle choice can really change a lifestyles

Low labour input is often not about capital. It depends on land type. Fencing is one of the biggest way of decreasing labour. Paddocking and water and handling facilities after that. Make decent silage in late May/ early June. High DM silage is a super feedstuff. And if DM is high there is more feed per bale. That means less bales to feed for the winter.

Use contractors for slurry and silage. Keep cattle in as few bunches as possible. I have ran stores and yearlings as one bunch from May to September. Dairy cross cattle are easier to handle than suckler's at times. Online marts has really changed the buying of cattle in the last two years I bought over 55 of my stores on line out of 60. Forget about a big jeep and trailer. For bigger lots you buy and sell use hauliers. Selling finished cattle to a factory takes less time than sling cattle in the mart

I slaughter from early July until nearly Christmas. However 3/4 are gone by late September. Buy when you see value an animal that comes in right can go out wrong and leave a margin, if they come in wrong it's hard to make a margin on them no matter how right they get out.

Tractors and machinery add to workload and time. If farming doesn't make sense without them it will not make sense with them. However you will need a tractor. In a drystock enterprise you should really only need a tractor and loader, fertlizer spreader, sprayer, land roller, bale handler( front and rear) and a handy disc mower for topping and pre mowing. Contractor will cut silage with a mower conditioner.

A drystock farmers jobs is to buy cattle that will leave a margin, maximise there weight gain on cheap feed ( mainly grass and silage) with as low inputs as possible.

A farmers only friend is his pocket as happiness is a thing called profit( as opposed to margin, output, efficiency etc).

Beef, for most is a part time payer but often full time work.

As a part time job, it's near unbeatable, add in another part time job and you can do quite well.

A relative of mine was a great handler, he isn't anymore, average at best, works in a school as a Sna, 30k for it, out the door at 3pm. Makes as much from the farm, maximize schemes, doesn't try to squeeze output per acre, a reasonable target and that's it.

You get paid near enough the same on the land for 2 hours a day or 10 with beef.

He looked at the land as a big advantage and big earner as a part-time job. Doing it "right" would have seen him hand to mouth and the place fantastic and beef per acre to kick.

Sadly the stars are more important for those running the schemes.