Beef price tracker 2

Ah Bass, careful now. I see a simmental and a limousin amongst the vermin. Don't start getting big ideas about finishing fancy continental cattle 😉

They were April 21 cattleso year and a halves. THe sim were off Friesians the LM was a suckler on his first movement

Mats on the other side of the central passage. If there is ever a grant for them I will put them in to this side.

Its 70 or 80 euros per head over how ever many years you have them . So if you got 20 winters out of them it would be 4 euros per head

I don't think that is the problem. Of course a stronger calf is more attractive to an exporter it is the relative cost of getting him there.

A strong six to eight week old friesian will be attractive to a beef farmer as well

A lot of them could be off heifers. If it's a real easy calving bull they have poor enough genetic potential. They may have a lifetime gain of under 5-600 grams per day.

Milk powder is 60-70 euro a bag. If the calf is only 10-14 days he will need 1.5 bags at least.

I would not bet on it. More and more the better type AA &HE ate being bough privately by rearers direct from farms. No rearers will go back to places where there are poor genetic calves. Hard to spot them in a mart.

Exporters won’t take them bad calves as none of the clients want them, simple as that. Why do you think they are left here, agree what you are saying about scrub and subbing the poor quality calf is only for one end means the dairy man and certainly not the beef man. The beef man needs a good animal to work with and let it be a Fr, Aa, or what ever dairy cross but as you say can’t be scrub. The suckler mans stock always sell even in bad times.

Its not about hate its about economic reality. As I have posted here before there must be some amount of lads making money selling suckler farmers stuff from the way the farm organiations and the journal amoung other get so excited against giving farmers money to exit them. At present 70%ish of suckler calves are subsidised to the tune of 150/head, from this year on that will increase to 200+ yet they are still a extremely low margin system. I cannot understand the opposition to paying farmers to exit a system that is nobody business but there own.

You will carry 1.5 calf to beef unists easier than a suckler cow and 2+ if the suckler bred calf is being finished. You will carry 2+ store to beef units and 3 if the suckler bred animal is finished. Lads at the calf to beef system are hitting 500+ of a net margin per unit and store to beef man is 250+/head net. These systems are easily managed and if handling dairy bred stock herding is very easy against the average suckler cow that wean's 0.8 calves per year.

The amount of lads wanting to exit sucklers is sizeable, they are going to leave anyway......and the government were going to pay them until the farm organisations threw a tizzy along with the rag and the processors.

Whether we like it or not the amount of dairy bred stock is going to increase in this country, export of calves will reduce at best if not cease. You just have to look at lamb prices at present to see what happens when the processors get the upper hand similar to beef in 2018 here. Again the same lads as are aginst the suckler cow exit payment were not in our corner then either.

There will always be sucklers in this country, there will be a core of farms big and small along the west coast that have little choice. its makes much more sense for lads on better land types to look at other options.

in the words of the great John Shirley ''while it never pays to breed a bad one it often pays to buy one''

when you buy a friesian at 3 weeks old or 3 years old if you want a margin on him you carry him to the hook the mart is no place for friesians.. Even when finished they seldom make more in the mart than the factory. I saw a fine 730 kg FR bullock (34 months) make 1630 today in Castleisland on the hook he would have made 1880 euro. He had two moves seller laft 250 behind him IMO. Now I taught it was poor weight for him if the seller had bought him at about 11 months. If I bought him at that age I would have him hung at sub 30 months at 40-50 kgs lighters at most

So its ok to subsidize farmers for every other sort of thing. You could make the same excuse for the fodder schme, farmers were going to make fodder anyway. Why give payments to suckler farmers in the form of BEEP etc they are going to produce calves anyway. The IFA were very fast in 2019 and 2020 ( i think they were the years) to give finishers and suckler farmers a payment when the processors were acting the mick. Yet when the Government were coming with a wad for the beloved suckler cow there was consternation by a rabble and while I can see the processors reason I can see nobody's elses reason

You and a lot of other are being hypocritical. Are you afraid you will be the only one left with a suckler cow.

THere was a lad on here doing friesians from calves he was hanging them at about 360 kgs at 28 months. Lads are buying friesian calves 4 weeks old at sub 50 euro at present. That lad would have turned 1800/head last year. He feeds no meal the second winter. You have a mental block about production. There is a lot of us know its about keeping costs low. With friesians its a matter of not tying to finish over a winter. At that calf cost if prices hold this year that lad will have a net margin og 800+/head. If he can keep 1.5/ suckler unit he will have a comparable net margin of 1200 euro compared to a suckler farmer selling his calf as a weanling. How many sucklers average that for weanlings in the country I say I could count them on one hand.

I am not saying you are a hypocrite for staying in sucklers but you are for being against the suckler exit payment as were the FJ journalists and the farm organisations. Yes I took the payment just like I took what I got from the second BF payment, I had to pay back the first one as I only got 400 euro and I was unwlling to reduce by stocking level by 5%.

Other than as a calf I think he was feeding 1kg during the first winter and 3kgs 6-8 weeks pre finish probably sub 300 kgs.

Had my agent onto me over the weekend looking for bulls. It’s a good sign but has the price rise slowed down a bit this week?

I saw that too and was wondering was it a misprint. That would be a very bad price for Angus heifers at current base price unless they were very poor stock or from non QA farms.

Angus would generally average O+ killout. At €5.20 base that would be €5.08. Add 20 cent for QA and its €5.28. There’s minimum 20 cent and in some places up to 30 cent AA bonus so that would have you at €5.48 - €5.58 on the grid.