Do you believe him ?
The agent no, but then I was surprised to hear the same from a farmer.
I’ll see when my own agents get back to me. My thinking is they’ll talk about a price drop to keep lads happy when it just remains the same.
I actually squeezed 5.10 out of Larry last week for these 3....also 15c HEX breed bonus...
Ive another couple of loads going in a couple of weeks...so used that as abit of 'leverage'....
Forgive my ignorance, China spec ?
300 to 400 kg spec I imagine. Foyle donegal does give 10 cent bonus for them weights going out foreign
Wouldn’t think weight is a factor for the Chinese job. More so tb and number of movements and all that craic coz they are fussy eaters!!!
They are not buying steaks or roasts so weight’s are hardly as important. I could be wrong though.
Well you could be right. Can't remember what market Foyle meats were sending too tbh
U30
Herd 12 months tb free
Not feedlot
They mainly taking offal so carcass weight not a major consideration.
Also with the red sea issue probably very little going to China so lads shouldn't get too carried away with the hype as the farmer never gets any money for the offal anyway
I think in all the talk that there has been about China over the last few years they have actually taken very little beef, only a small bit of offal. The UK is our market & once it stays strong then prices here will stay strong. One of the UKs biggest issues is they haven’t got workers in the factories to process slaughtered cattle. Nor do they have vets to oversee the process so they need to import beef from here.
Britian has a population of 67 million in and area about 2.5 times the size of Ireland( 32 counties), it has a shorter growing season than us with less rain but more sunshine. England itself has a population of 56 million In an area 1.6 times the area of Ireland
They could never produce enough food on the island for there population, so they were always food importers. The vision the Brexiteers had was that they could access markets outside Europe to import cheap food but still export goods and mainly financial services to Europe.
They have ended up still importing food from the EU but there export market has tariffs added to it.
If food become too cheap in the UK there farmers will become bankrupt. The one agricultural product they had an excess of lamb is struggling bother here and in the uk
If I remember correctly the figure of 3200 tonnes exported to China in 2023 , was mentioned on the radio last week when the market was reopened
U30 months, tb free for 12 months and QA for life, essentially farmer cattle. All the china spec have to be slaughtered together and then the line and lairage washed down.only really suits to kill in larger plants on 1-2 days and kill first thing in the morning
They must be eager to move more than Offal or is it to be the first with a container
Surely the wash down happens before the kill? Not much point washing after….
Was asking about it last year in the lairage and they had to was down after. Keep only china spec cattle in the lairage and not allowed to mix with others. Serious amount of boxes to be ticked in the factories for this market.
I dropped off a good few for China.
Have to be kept separated from when they're unloaded and be in spec as above.
The best cattle I had all year went to China.
Wonder what they're paying for the Irish beef over there
Plus CCTV from moment cattle enter the premises and inspection of the cattle lorry/trailers ... alot of hoops
Friend of mine has supplied China spec stock to a factory since China market opened approx 5 or 6 years ago except when the market was shut for a couple of years. The factory always seem very anxious to get his stock to kill on china day and don't ever try to delay taking animals from him so it must be very profitable for the factory
Yea, definitely a contract they want to keep, I don't get any extra benefits from it unfortunately.
Might try push him for more money if he mentions China the next day, some chance of that
I’ve been quoted €5.55 flat price for hex from 3 different midlands factories for a rigid/tractor trailer load. 1 overage in the bunch.
Grid base price is €5.20 so a continental would have to be grading U= to be a better price than an O- whitehead at the minute.
That's about right imo.
Booked in for the morning so I'm going to put my money where my mouth is now and predict how I think they'll do.
The smallest will only kill around 240kgs and will only be an O- at best, I won't be too shocked if I see a P on the docket.
The overage will be the heaviest at around 320-325kgs.
The rest will be from 250-285/290kgs and should be a mix of all the O grades.
Overall they should average 270-275kgs so if I avoid the P grade then at €5.55 they should average close to €1,500.
How old are these cattle and when did you purchase them and are you feeding them?
22 months old, bought as suck calves. They’ve been getting 5kgs of hi maize on top of around 10kgs of beet since about the 25th of November.
What weight were they do you think before you started feeding them?
450-480kgs.
Wat weight are they now
That's the kill sheet, about what I was expecting so I'm happy with that for 21-23 month old (apart from 1 overage) bucket reared dairy stock.
The R+ is a 23 month old continental heifer I threw in because there was room for 1 more in the trailer, she was fat and her comrades won't be going for 3-4 more weeks, and also to prove a point as I don't like being called a liar! See below!
The smallest graded better than I expected, although it doesn't really matter what they grade on a flat price anyway. The overage was lighter than I expected at 304.8kgs but I suppose having meningitis as a calf surely stunts the system.
Leaving out the continental, the hex averaged 273kgs and €1515.93 before deductions and €1499.76 after deductions.
Hopefully the prices stay going in the right direction for a few more weeks until the rest are killed.
@Jjameson you went on a bit of a tirade here a few weeks back against myself and @KAMG and anyone else that tried to reason with you, telling us we were stuffing you, we are bullshit artists, we never dealt with factories before as the big 3 never buy flat rate etc...
Maybe the next time you've stock to sell you might listen to what obviously a lot more experienced people than you on here are telling you, and it might just work to your benefit and you won't have to be in the bookies listening to "them lads proclaiming winning."
The above sheet shows you a kill sheet from a prominent factory with flat pricing regardless of grades for hex where O grades are making 9 cent more than an R+ continental, never mind an R-, with no "chocolates" fed and there's no issue getting an answer from the procurement manager on such pricing.
That's how flat pricing works, and what you describe as flat pricing based on grading is more like on the grid pricing and you shouldn't accept that from your agent at times like this when cattle are scarce.
Great post DBK1.
At the end of the day, all we were trying to do was to let everyone else in this difficult business know what price is to be got, if you have the numbers and bargain hard. I myself am only a very small time beef farmer, sending my few bullocks to the factory off grass in the summer. So, I would not get the higher prices available in a particular week. But, you and others here, are bigger farmers and really have a feel for what can be got in the factory at a certain time and I always follow your posts with great interest.
I sent a few heifers this week also and got the same price...I wouldn't consider myself as a big player....the price is available to all just read the price quoted on her.
