Mart Price Tracker

Average housing here is 3rd week of October and average turnout would be 1st week of May.

You'll get the odd exception to that but that would be the norm around here.

The suckler cows i keep would average 850Kg at turnout, you can't let them out until ground is right or you're chasing grass the rest of the year.

Talking to a suckler farmer a few weeks ago. He hung most his cows last year. They averaged over 2K each. I think he slaughter over 15 of them. He kept all his heifers and bulled them.

I can’t speak for them as calves but as weanlings I’d be seeing the very same thing as you are.

I could have a pen of bucket reared hex beside a pen of suckler bred continentals. The hex would be averaging 200-230 kgs and the continentals 300kgs and the same amount in each pen. Every day without fail the hex will have their silage ate and be standing at the barrier roaring for more when they see you. The continentals will have silage left in front of them and they’ll all be lying down chewing their cud and happy out.

Dairy beef stock without doubt consume far more feed than continentals.

ive been moving back to bigger framed cows after falling victim to listening to too much of the Teagasc crap.small cows are a disaster if you’re suckling. A well framed cow carrying condition going into the shed, feed her hay until a week or forthright pre calving and then onto silage and stay on that until she goes back to grass. Her body condition follows what she requires once it’s timed right and you have something of value that has the ability to produce top end animals and not always have to be worrying about calving.

the day of half dairy bred sucklers or even middle of the road types is over.750kg minimum cow weight is what I’m moving back to.

Wonder what the buffalo trade is like this year?

I base it on seeing them eat and amount of fodder consumed. I find a dry suckler cow calving in the Springtime can be quite low maintenance once they’ve been dried off before housing and have a bit of cover

Milk quantity is overrated, vastly.

The right breeding beats bags of milk in a suckler cow every day of the week and twice on Sunday's.

I see neighbours here messing with first cross dairy stock producing O grade weanlings and the only thing propping them up when they are sold is they can be bought cheap and the buyer has a nice twist out of them, that's why there is demand for that kind of stock.

If that's the route you want to go down you need to be going out 3-4 generations from the dairy cow at least.

I would say you’re way too high in your silage prediction. Unless silage is very poor quality about half that should do them and even less when getting 5kgs of meal.

I had 52 stores in one shed, a mix of continentals and hex, and earlier in the winter when they would have been averaging around 450kgs and on silage only they were eating around 10 bales a week.

They’re getting closer to finishing stage now and they’re getting about 8kgs of fodder beet, and 2kgs of a home grown barley, HiPro soya and mineral mix and they’re only eating 6 bales of silage a week now.

Valuing my silage at €30 like you are that’s costing me just €1.85 per day in total. I’ll be weighing stock again in a couple of weeks so I’ll know for sure but I’d be expecting them to be gaining around 1kg per day at that feeding which at current mart prices is worth €2.70 - €3.30 per day.

I have my silage cost calculated at €40 per bale so in my circumstances what I’m currently feeding is costing me €2 per day.

28 stores are getting two days comfortably out of a bale with no mealls being fed. most in the pen would be friesians

Sat through Enniscorthy calf sales for the past few weeks and noticed that most of these jobbers come across as arseholes to say the least.

At the beginning of the sale they are shouting and roaring at each other during the first number of calves then they settle down and then the flashing the wads of cash at each other and then the phase turns to the nudge one another and have a quite few words and they no longer bid against one another as if quotas have to be achieved, auctioneer is having a good old laugh with them as they are filling the ringside while farmer joe is over to one side standing up with his arm in the air trying to bid on a BB heifer and the auctioneer never bothers his arse to look for anyone other than the jobbers (although I have NO proof I've see it a a few times with the same auctioneer in Enniscorthy , there are two of them, but one NEVER seems to look away from the boys whether it's a ploy to get them cheaper calves or what but it looks stinking).

Can you bid online? You could do this even sitting ringside.