Yes the ring man makes a difference to the camera, but the man in gortalea makes the ring job hard turning the cattle around. The auctioneer in the mart is a good fellow at his job and gets on with it compared to the all day men up along the west coast.
Agree with what you’re saying, about the online bidding it has taken a lot of the shite out of around the ring. It’s all about watching the board for weight/ age and moves and owners name etc. in three of the marts we attended we have a chap looking at the cattle and telling the lots of heifers that suit our job if we don’t attend, the day of the dealer buying and showing cattle in another mart is nearly gone with the board name and number of moves and costs. It is only for the poor type of cattle and most try to buy on the land and sell in the mart.
Any prices this week?...i have a load going and Id like to have abit of info before the cheque is drawn up.....
Any chance of 4.70 for bullocks?
It a bit like the story of the scorpion and the frog.
It is simply in there nature.
And after the first couple of times they know your limit. If they can offload to a sucker at that price they will keep you from buying. If not they will bid you to that every time.
Stay at home and bid away and collect them after the mart
In that scenario ringside you need to have to have your wits about you! Have the price in your head that you won’t go over for that animal. Bid fast until you get there then stop, don’t get drawn into a battle with the dealers. They love to see a lad thinking about will he or won’t he bid again, they know you’re rattled then.
Bid fast, stop fast at your limit and after a few lots they’ll know you know what you want and what you’re doing and will probably leave you be to buy a few.
I've bought off the phone while sitting in the car at the mart before. It was 7-8 calves two years ago.
I bought 20 from ringside last year and got a doing off the dealers. One big heavy lad told me he'd buy them for me, and he'd get them cheaper. Nah, you're grand I said. A few other dealers then kept pushing on some of the calves when they saw me bidding.
I should have sat out in the car and fired up the LSL app again 😀
Only way to go, silent assassin 🥷
I do this in Ennis mart, sit up the back and click away. It's a big enough mart not to be noticed. I find seeing the cattle in the ring is better than bidding from home.
And diesel and a day wasted if you buy nothing. The way I look at LSL is it's a tool. You either adapt to it or ignore it. It's 15-20 euro to hook up the box take it and bring it home from a mart. If I have one or two bought I start hooking up the box.
There is nothing to fear but fear itself. As @Albert Johnson alluded to I have seldom arrived to be disappointed. One Thursday morning as I was loading out of Gortnalea the lad there asked what I paid and when I told him he said they were big cattle for that money.
Yes. Regularly bid ringside on phone.
Anyone going to the mart and bidding via LSL on their phone while there? Maybe the best of both worlds
I work in marts 5 days a week and I can honestly say since the online bidding started I've yet to hear anyone say that the beast they came to collect looked worse on camera. However I've heard the opposite dozens of times, granted some lad's wouldn't know the difference in a screw and something half decent either on or off screen but I wouldn't be happy buying solely off the camera.
I only buy small numbers at a time and if I end up with one hoor of a thing then it's enough to take the good out of the bundle. Buying them right the first day is half the battle in my experience and if you miss that then you're on the back foot straight away.
Personally if I went to the bother of going to look at them then I'd stay to bid for them. I can't understand how going home again and trying to watch for them going through is more efficient. You then have to sit back into you're vehicle and hit back for the mart to lift them and maybe only 1 or 2 bought.
I'd be looking at the phone every 5 minutes at home and I'd like to see what the trade was like and get my bearings. If I went at anything at home then I'd guarantee that I'd miss them going through, there'd be no internet or it would freeze when they'd be in the ring. Failing that I'd probably put whatever I was at to loss because I wasn't focusing on the job in hand but that's no ones fault only my own.
Not moving away completely, we will buy them early in the year. Most Friesians are February born now so you have a glut to get out in August. With the slaughter bonus coming in next year anyway it will put more pressure on the August downturn.
You are getting a lot of Friesians hanging at or under 300 kgsDW ( not Frx or Jex's but actuals FR's) so harder to buy the lads that will leave a few that will leave an 8-900 euro gross margin.
We will probably buy 20 ish at the start of the year when coloured yearlings are expensive. But we are buying coloured heifers and coloured rangy bulls for 2-2.2/ kg makes more sense than paying 1.8+/ kg for decent friesians or 1.6-1.8 for lighter ones
Mind me asking why you are moving away from the Friesans Bass ??
The reason we sometimes have only 2-3 coming home this year is we are buying coloured cattle not friesians. As we are changing cattle types we are a bit more cautious. We will fill loads quicker next year.
When I was working it was always relatively easy to get cattle drawn home. Even at that no need to take day off while some lands cannot ( trades people etc alot can spend there lunchtime buying or an hour here or there if WFH or even get someone else to buy them. Young lad buy them for a neighbour. If you cannot get them delivered hitch up the box and collect them. My Jad bought over half the cattle this year and he works full-time
Online has been the great equaliser. Dealers cannot intimidate or try to poll you as you can bid again next week.
@epfff &m @kk.man margins are too tight as well no dealer will hand you an animal he can make 2-300 reselling. The other risk is he will buy and land you with a friends cattle that were bid up. Finally buying yourself is very rewarding.
I have to disagree. Your eye trains itself very fast. Another help is a labtop as opposed to phone screen. If you have a good quality connection it helps as well. For most lads that cannot get in close to the ring it as good as being at the mart. Having said that certain marts better than others. There was a few where the ring man was not moving cattle around. Again like having a good auctioneer Mauty Hasan excellent ring man. By the end of a busy mart he must have 30k+ steps put up.
Remember lads you have a choice.....you can always see the problems but if you look hard enough it's easy to see the solutions.
If possible at all go look at them early in the morning in the pens & then bid online
It's not easy though to judge cattle from just looking at the camera mart....often find what looked good on camera was average in the pen
Just chatting to a friend who buys a lot of cattle last night and more or less same conversation. He was saying they are very few dealers who make it big. Most he knows haven't got penny behind the image. Like the gambler will always tell you about his winings.
With on line auctions now there should be no excuse for ppl to buy their own cattle. The dealers hate it as they don't know who's bidding and they can't intimate.
Don't fool yourself thinking anyone is getting them. They are the cattle they feed themselves or show in another mart. You are getting rest especially the dear ones.
Most dangerous you can fall out with around ring is someone spending someone else's money.
I regularly bring 1/2 home for local dealer as he wants whoever bought the rest of his load not to see them and everyone is happy they think they got everything he bought he gets his days wages from buyer and another from the cheep 1 I bring home when he shows later in week.
Often seen him putting cattle through next sale and getting 300+ profit after leaving them in my shed form Friday to Wednesday or reverse
Agree with everything u guys are saying but sometimes certain guys won't bid against other dealers and the auctioneers drop the hammer for them also quicker so maybe they can buy ur cattle a bit cheaper than u would urself.....
I cover 5 marts and can't think of anyone there that buys for others that I haven't seen pulling stroke.
I retract that
I know 1 guy. But he just buys the number of cattle you need on the day price is not important. His attitude is they were worth it to someone else and I don't get paid if I don't buy them. Often seen cattle fall 100 after he had his order filled.
Also I have yet to find a lad that is no good for himself capable of been any good to anyone else
Why would you let a lad buy cattle for you that you don’t trust,
Anyone that is that is getting someone else to buy for them isnt overly concerned about price or profit.
Margin is too tight to be cutting some luder into the deal that is too lazy to work and not smart enough to do anything else (like show cattle again or get job totally outside farming)
I get about 25% of my cattle bought for me and it's bigger job to watch the guys buying for me than to buy myself.
I always remember when I started first there was big fallout around the ring. One dealer/agent took everyone on and bought everysort of cattle 200 dearer than anywhere else all week.
After sale he was on phone around a corner in car park explaining how sale 'was on floor and he had 12 light cattle that would suit your job'. That was followed by 'i know you weren't going to buy for few weeks but I just thought of you and those will never be bought as cheep again'
Some poor sucker that worked hard all week or possibly all his life do the same dealer could pretend he had biggest mickey around ring.
I tried that a few years ago. Had one good man buying but they were coming too slow. Had a couple of other lads then that I just couldn’t trust.
The way forward for the man that doesn’t have time because of home life is to buy them online. If you are left with one or two most marts will get someone to drop them home.
Would that person ur talking about there that the wifes rearing up on dbk1 not be better getting a guy who goes to all the marts to do the buying for him if he let's him know wat he's after
I don’t dispute anything you’ve said there but I wonder did you reply to the wrong person because very little of your post has anything to do with my post you replied to?
My post was that lads buying in bigger amounts of cattle don’t like buying 2 or 3 at a time from small sales or they’d be on the road every day. That will be the case no matter what time of year it is or what the prices are.
Also a lot of beef farmers would be in full time jobs as well so wouldn’t have the freedom to come and go to marts at the drop of a hat so when they’re buying they’ll buy what they want in a short enough time frame and it’s another job off the list.
If a lad has to take half days from work to be trying to get his stock bought in with smaller loads he won’t be long using half his holidays up and the few euro he’ll save on the price of the stock isn’t worth it then. And maybe a wife/partner at home giving out that he’s never there with them or the kids! It’s not all about money sometimes
Box will carry 5-6 250-400kg stores. Will often have another 1-2 bought before I hit the mart. You will waste as much time hanging around a mart. Two and a half hours will go for collect and bring home a load. Depending on when you buy during the summer add 18-20kgs per month to weight before housing.
A June bought store is at least 80-100kgs heavier by November housing. You will buy lighter coloured stores at 2-2.2/kg. Bought 330-350kg friesians earlier in the summer for 1.6-1.8/kg.
Greater numbers do not necessarily mean greater profit. Too much competition for the more forward a store is with less room for margin. Cattle bought in the early mid part of one year and hung in the middle of the following year can leave a gross profit of 1k with very little ration fed.
That’s perfect for lads dealing in small numbers but any lad buying a selling any substantial amount would be on the road every day if only buying in 2’s and 3’s.
No running. Just use LSL after you have a couple bought hook up the box and head away for them.
