Yeah was at a few Marts in the last week hardly any strong bullocks or heifers and thst ain’t going to change
There was literally a handful of bullocks in Thurles last week fit to kill. Can't vouch for the heifer or cow ring.
Saw cows selling today granted very well fed and good cows but you’d want to be getting 5:50 a kg for them to go to a factory so I’d presume this price pull is just factories doing what they normally do and messing with farmers and one thing for certain in another few weeks all the dairy man’s cattle will be gone so dig deep this is only a blip
I hope you are right, but I am a little optimistic on it. I know several people near me that will have stock fit over the next few weeks. Plenty of cattle to come out I'd say over the next month or so, and if not the factory will always pay what they want not what they are worth. Also worth noting supermarkets both here and across Europe are starting to drop prices for the consumer so that may influence prices too. Thankfully cattle this winter have been Abit cheaper to keep than last winter with the cut in meal, fertilizer, diesel prices etc.
Prices are unlikley to collapse. You would be crazy to sell underfinished cattle especially if they were fairly efficient to feed. Factories are waiting for cattle to start coming out of sheds as they hit 100 days feeding there feed efficiency declines.
Price will be decided by what contracts processors have in place. Unless they are over committed to contracts they will hold prices. Its unlikely that they will pull too hard, however if they taught 10-15c/kg pull would flush out cattle they will do that
Agree with you also if you notice in the marts for the last few weeks their have been big numbers of cows in particular the vast majority are going to the factory which puts the factory in control for last week and this week but this supply will dry up by next week as dairy farmers clear out surplus cattle every year in late jan/early feb
I’ve nothing ready at the minute it’ll be a month but if I see the agents number coming up on the phone this week to warn me that they are falling I’ll know they’ll rise in a week or so.
Around the midlands flat prices are harder got now and where they are available they’re back 15-20 cent for the smaller seller.
Base price is only back 5 cent though and if you push hard there’s an extra 5 cent to be got from the hex or aax bonus so anyone with a mix of O= to R- grade hex or aax will still be averaging around the €5.50-€5.55 that the flat prices were achieving the past few weeks.
The poorer quality O- to O=/O+ loads will be taking a hit this week alright.
I genuinely don't think there's enough cattle in the system for a number of reasons. The farmer winter finisher is a thing of the past coupled with the cost of meal/silage. People put cattle in sheds last autumn with the sole intention of storing them. Live exports for the last couple of years have been strong.
4 day week is helpful for factories this week but the kill is higher than this time last year , so the ball is in their court at the moment. I've fr bulls ready to go and the price isn't moving so I'll get some away, probably a lot more like me at this stage.
You are on the money. I just checked my trusty spreadsheet. Bullocks hit a base price of 5.25 on 1 Feb 2023. Stayed at that for 3 weeks. They dropped 5 cent in the last week of Feb 23. Stayed at that price for all of March 23. Up 5 cent again then to 5.25, where they stayed until early May 23.
They started dropping then, all the way down to 4.60 in late August 23.
In relation to price this week, yes, they do seem to be back alright. And the famous flat price seems to have vanished for now. So, do farmers hold tight and see are the factories bluffing, or do they do what they always tend to do, and start selling under finished cattle, in a bit of a panic, cos 'prices are dropping'. Time will tell.
They ways seem to do in in the run up to 4 day weeks, its a stalling tactic
They tried the same trick this time last year or maybe toward the end of February. Dropped the price for a week to see if they could cause panic, they were back up the following week.
Oh they are lighter... IMHO if u weren't in a hurry to kill let them factories off on their tangent.
UK cattle moved up a notch this week that's the barometer not some procurement manager who's being told to hold tight.
5.10 and 5.15 is all I can get for bullocks and heifers this week from two different factories. Both telling me there is good numbers coming out. I am sure there is a lot of factory talk there. No flat prices available. From what I am seen in what I have gone so far and chatting neighbors that cattle are killing out lighter this year. Has anyone else experienced the same??
These are flat prices.
Base price seems to be 5.20 this week for bullocks. So, if using grid price, a bord bia AAX, grading O+, would get 5.48, if 20 cent AA bonus. Maybe even more.
So, I reckon 5.55 would be the flat price this week.
Where in the country are you getting these 5.40-5.55 rates? If I'm reading that right that's over 30c /kg more than what I'm getting for my AAX bullocks.
You done very well, is it all heifers you buy? What kind of a price do you think hex and aax heifer Calfs will make this year?
Find kepak if you deal with them regularly they get to know your type of cattle and will deal no problems directly, no problem getting a flat price for a long number of years, well done with your cattle with great performance for there age,
Thanks for being open and honest about what can be attained from factories. The information is greatly appreciated for someone like me fattening a out 40-50 cattle a year.
My neighbour got 5.40 flat on 19 December for AAX bullocks.
DBK1 got 5.55 flat for HEX on the 24 January.
That's effectively 25 cent of an increase in the 5 weeks which is exactly the same as my spreadsheet of the base prices quoted from the IFA website on Wednesdays for my regular factory.
No one from the factory either looked at my stock or asked how square they were so if they were O- the price would have still been the same.
€5.40 was the price being quoted the week before Christmas, you were the only one that mentioned €5.50 when on your rant, and that was for Angus. Hex would be 10 cent behind Angus so they’d have been €5.30 the same week. If I had Angus to go this week they’d have been €5.65.
If I’d moved last week there was one factory where I’d have got €5.60 for the hex or €5.70 for Angus but they pulled their price back this week to match the rest.
Anyway I’ve proved my point, and the point of all the other posters you were berating too, so I’m leaving it at that now. Best of luck with any more you have to kill in the future.
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.
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.
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.
Wat weight are they now
450-480kgs.
What weight were they do you think before you started 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.
How old are these cattle and when did you purchase them and are you feeding them?
