II suspect that trade deal is an effort by trump to save his ass but with no substance, the UK won't let in hormone treated beef, and the traceability of us beef is horrendous plus a shortage of us beef, it's lowest level since 1950's.
The announcement seems to have been sprung on the UK.
IIndependent butchers that buy themselves generally Re looking for sub 500kg LW heifers. Most gave a few acres if they buy 2-3 together. Even at tgat most buy direct from farmers very few buy out of marts.
Anyway I never saw butchers overpay for cattle
I knew of a few butcher's that used to buy cattle about the mart but a lot of them are retired out of the business. There's 1 man that comes and buys maybe half a dozen at a time for direct slaughter as he doesn't farm but he's more the exception than the rule. Another man comes and buys a few strong weanlings or stores and finishes them himself. He often tells me that he doesn't know how the first lad that buys a bundle of fat ones to kill direct keeps going. Between the price of fat cattle and relying on them to kill out as expected, he swears that there's only one way to feed a beast for the butchering job and that's to do it yourself and you know what you have and no complaints across the counter after.
A lot of the butcher shop's around here buy carcasses off a wholesaler and only cut it up in house. There's very few small abattoirs left in this part of the world and less and less men with actual butchering experience, they'd cut up beef but wouldn't kill anything.
€7.50 base offered by one agent.
€7.80 base maybe by another, waiting on a call.
Mart is the other option, I'll see what prices are going in Thurles today and could aim for KK on Thursday.
Ya heard of a lad offered 7.45 heifers and 7.40 bullocks last week. He laughed at the agent who said he could book them in whenever. A phonecall later8 to another agent he was offered 7.60 but advised to hold until this week.
Unless the mart prices are different to what I am seeing at any offer at 7.7 or above I be going to the factory with HE and AA of you ate getting the 25c/30c bonus
Yea, if I can get 7.80 base and they'll pay me the full QA for the few overage I'll go with that.
Lmx and Chx, only 2 Hex
Same as that. I was told €7.70 by an agent over the weekend. If I was to get €8 flat or €7.80 base I’d let off a load.
€7.80 base should have you averaging around €8.
Not many finished cattle in Thurles today.
That's 8.30 flat for them Freisians and the buyer loses money of he was killing them straight away.
My maths is different to your I was giving them 51% of mart weight admittedly sone were light they varied from 6.6-7.6/ kg flat. At the upper end it better than factory price at the lower end it away worse.
Probably. I was dwelling on the lad 583 2250e.and 540 @ 1900e.
At 51% ko the 3 heaviest lots of fr were 7.56, 7.59 and 7,75 per kg the next heavy lot was 565 kg was 39 months and non qa anything lighter are grass cattle you can add another 20 cent to cover costs for the buyer and he might need profit or else he won't stay in business so now at minimum he has to be paid by a factory approx 7.80 to 8 euro for fr steers this week, the mart price for the last 2 weeks has in most cases been a long way ahead of the official prices
The 583 lad was 7.56/ kg@51%, the 540 one was 6.8/ kg dw@51%
It's hard to know at present what a processor is willing to kill when caught for numbers. Heard of one factory killing 480kg friesians 24 months,earlier this year.
I was only looking at what was put up on thre screenshot I replied to the price for the Friesians
Great insight there lads, fair play.
The only animal that made above factory price in the screenshot above is the first Angus. I’m guessing he was a suckler bred Angus considering he’s down as AA and not AAX but even still he made well above factory price.
The aax were probably just about equal to factory price, the friesians all left money behind them.
That 560kg was a 25m old purebred angus bull.
Just wondering what factory paid prices are you working off because it's nothing resembling the grid
Grid price for bullocks is €7.60 at the minute for the ordinary farmer, 20 cent qa and 30 cent aa bonus is €8.10. Average them as O= and you’re back to €7.92. Killout would be minimum 53% of mart weight and more likely 55. But even at a conservative 53% €7.92 factory price is €4.20 live weight in the mart. The aax in the screenshot made from €4.00 - €4.18.
Like I said, they just about made factory price although they probably would have made more in the factory. If they were in Gortatlea they’d need to be €4.35-€4.40 to match the factory as cattle weigh light down there. Birr is another mart the same too.
Add to that marts charge 30 euro minimum in sellers fees, compared to factory stoppages of 10 for ordinary cattle and 15/16 for HE/AA. Transport is variable after that
Problem for most lads is they get a bake over the animal that is over or under fat. Often they move when prices have increased and they think they have won. As well they see the top line and fail to see deductions or averages
I remember going through another farmers returns where he got a flat price( a few years ago) off a factory while he won on a few poorer animals he lost on the majority and big time on the 2-3 best. He paid 28 euro a head in haulage while it would be 10 or less locally. Having said that nearest processors is acting the maggot with base price at present
Best thing any lad could invest in is a scales. Weight you cattle and you know the facts where ever you go.
Base is 7.6 for heifers and 7.5 for bullocks. My advice to everyone is finish your cattle completely this year. It will really pay to feed them to FS4-/=
I was not at that mart but just looking at that screenshot those aa steers were only 550 kg approx so would be months away from going to a factory where I compare mart vs factory is for finished steers which will always be over 600 kg even if they were very small I'd rarely send steers dairy bred not sucklers to a factory under 650 kg and they would only be under 24 months, any heavy Angus in marts at the moment are freely 4.30 to 4.40 and I'm only making the point that in general the man with only a few to sell and they are finished will beat the 7.50 or 7.60 base easy
Offered €8 flat for a bunch, few overage but good cattle, they will kill out well.
Could only get 7.60 on the grid.
what type of cattle do you have?
What type of cattle continental or HE/AA
Mostly Continental
2 HEX
that is a base of 7.7-7.8 depending on quality of Continentals.
Should I push for more or head to the mart?
I'm undecided at the moment.
Good quality cattle.
To break even in the mart you woukd need 4.7/4.8 per kg live weight. That is not allowing for difference in transport depending on mart or factory.
The other option os feed away of on grass. If notits calculate off the mart returns
Yes, I might hit that with a few out of the bunch in the mart but definitely not all.
They're stuffed at the moment and starting to stagnate so if I can secure the €8 with a negotiation in transport I'll be happy enough.
send the best continental cattle to the mart if they are u grades and fit
that lads above are talking about dairy bred stock
just look up the mart reports from any mart over the last 2 weeks for similar type stock
Nenagh today was stone mad for heavy continental cattle. Fabulous stock on show.
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