Mart Price Tracker

Any prices for heifers?

How exactly did they do you.

Ennis mart there now, big Char bullock, Nov 2020, 945Kg, made €2690.

Gortnalea 580 kg Comtinental heifers 1720 euro about 5.5/kg DW at a guess

It’s crazy

The next fella weighted 375 (that’s him in the image) and he made 1510.

and after buying they would say.....''that is the price of them''..... proudly. I have most of my buying done thank God. need to pick up 6-8 but we will manage that

Calves being the operative word

scales was right a weaned calf like that would lose less than 5%

The maths don’t work

what do you mean?

What about them?

The above bull could be capable of killing out near 500kg after 120 days feeding. At €5 a kg it’s €2500 less purchase price he is leaving 980 to feed him. I reckon it’d cost €650 to feed him after eating a tonne and a half of meal. That’d leave €300.

All that is best case scenario. A bigger finisher on a contract might get more or less than €5. He mightn’t do that thrive but he seems to be a good one so all going well he might. Many lads buying the likes of them young heavy bulls could have hundreds in sheds.

Good post I have to say.

There does be a lot of talk here about sucklers being unprofitable and for a lot of farmers maybe they are, but there are plenty of suckler farmers on top of their game and making good money from them. I know men that average €1,500 plus for their weanlings every year, don’t try anyone tell me they aren’t making money at them prices!

The biggest problem for a lot of lads when they see the mart prices is they don’t understand how cattle kill out so don’t know what the equivalent factory price would be.

A U= animal at €4.70 base price in the factory will come to €5.08 after qa and grade bonus. That same animal will kill out at 60% of their yard weight. Allowing for 8% weight loss on the way to the mart that’s up to 65% of mart weight. The €5.08 factory price now needs to be €3.30 per kg live weight price in the mart to match the factory price. A lot of lads are selling these at €2.70 - €2.90 per kg in the mart and think they’ve exceeded the factory price when really the man buying them is turning €200 plus per head on them in a very short time frame, sometimes in a 12 hour timeframe!

As you’ve said, the men buying these cattle in the marts are no fools, and while they aren’t making a fortune on them if they can make €100-€200 per head in a short timeframe then all they need is enough of heads to make money.

That is leaving a gross margin of 1k. March is six months away or 180days. The sums do not work for smaller producers as we cannot get ration/feeding costs at the prices these lads do. Add to that these producers are often getting 20-30c/kg above prices available to us.

However a bull like that makes no sense to me. If I finished him I be lucky to break even at substantial costs. Aside from finishing costs you have to look at other factors. The lad producing them probably needs tillage to defray nitrates. I will put 7 stores in for every three of them. I can put 16stores in a pen that will house 11-12 if them. I wound need better quality silage and to buy straw. It's cost cost cost.

Grant to say they will make 2.5k but I cannot see a margin on them in a small producer system

And there's also lads that went bust at the same game.