Calf price chitchat

kevthegaff wrote: »

Sold wh and aa calves just 10 days old between 60 and 100 euros

Sold 6 aa heifer calves 10 to 16 days old €100

Say my name wrote: »

Sold 2 fr bull calves today. 5 weeks of age. €125 each.

Boom is back

GrasstoMilk wrote: »

they cost 3€ per day to rear. Just saying.....

How do you get 3?

6litres/day is €2.
Free if I'm dumping it.

GrasstoMilk wrote: »

they cost 3€ per day to rear. Just saying.....

I know. Strong fr calves making 50/60 for export out of the yard.

whelan2 wrote: »

Meal, labour, bedding.... These are not free. Was at calf sale a few weeks ago with 2 to 3 week old calves. I did OK. Friend had near 6 week old calves while he did well with them I asked what did it cost to get them to that age.

Ah they wouldn't be getting meal.

And sure labour and bedding costs nothing.

It's only those big time dairy farmers come out with howlers about costs about rearing bull calves.
Slippery slope after that.

A lot of fr bull calves dumped at sh1t money mid to late march , A couple weeks milk would have paid far better than giving to co op .

orm0nd wrote: »

A lot of fr bull calves dumped at sh1t money mid to late march , A couple weeks milk would have paid far better than giving to co op .

Sold a mix of angus and Hereford calves in nenagh on Tuesday ranging from a set of light twins 12 days old to 23 days old average price 141 euro.twins made 60 euro and fine Hereford bull made 245 euro .was well chuffed

visatorro wrote: »

I more or less gave away calves here in March. No regrets either. Closer to a half man show here this spring than one man! Sold to a repeat customer. Got good money for calves in previous years. Sometimes you have to just play the ball that's in front of you! Good money for calves now. I wouldn't begrudge lads that could hold onto calves for better money, I couldn't.

well put, no increase in calf value will pay for the extra accomodation, feed ,bedding labour and risk involved imo

Anto_Meath wrote: »

Bought 5 FR bull calves the other evening off a lad over the road, €80 each (1 of them is only 3 weeks the others are 5 weeks) he wanted them gone and didn't want the hassle of bringing them to the mart encase he missed 1 and afraid of what he would bring home with him. I think they are far better value than HEx, i have bought at €250 (3 for 1) and when killing them in 2 years time the HEx will probably grade an O+ FRs probably O=. So based on current base price Hex killing 370 kgs would come into €1,406 (inc Bonus) and the FR killing 340 kgs would come into €1,272 difference €134 difference at purchases €170. But what I can see from the factory kill sheets lately the O grade covers a multitude.

I would expect that friesian's will match hereford's kg for kg in weight gain if done the same. Later friesian's tend to be of slightly poorer quality rather than early season ones. However if you are buying 3-6 weeks old friesian's compared to 3 week old hereford's the friesian's will be 10-15 kgs ahead as well as o!der. If both continue with the same weight gain at slaughter I expect the gap to be closer than that. I would expect the friesian's to kill at 355 kgs. However the temptation is to feed the hereford's a bit the second winter and ignore the extra cost. With the hereford's killing 370 kgs@ O+/= not all will make the HE bonus using a 3.9 base they should averages they should gross 1470 euro. The friesian's killing 355 kgs (2/3'O= and 1/3 O-) would!d hit about 1340 euro. A 130 euro difference.
The variable's would be maybe a few friesian's falling into P's and a few HE falling into O-. The big thing is as Fr quality IMO is increasing He and especially AA quality is disimproving. Very few calf to beef men are doing friesian's as bullock's most kill as sub 24 month bulls. As well most calf to beef men kill sub 24 months to increase output. At present the game is loaded against 26-30 month finish but it is where lads are going. The last thing is most friesian's would tend to get a harder doing that hereford's as they're considered to be of less value

GrasstoMilk wrote: »

You tell the tax man that your milk cheque is all profit so
I'm.sure Bertie didn't give ye the straw for nothing and someone has to spend the time feeding them too.

Not running your prices down or anything I'd be happy to get them too.
I do all the milking and calf rearing here in my own, I wouldn't have the time to keep bulls past 3 weeks never mind 5.
I'd say we only averaged 30-40 € for calves this year

Ah you know I was only codding.

Trouble is though when these questions start being asked about bull calves. Is that where does it end?

Not a fortune teller but I tell ya where it'll end.

It'll end up in lads seeing calves only a nuisance in a place. And cutting corners and trying to save as much as they can on them.
Lads won't bother feeding them biestings, will under feed them, won't bother with bedding, out the door as quick as they can into the Mart with poor done calves that nobody wants and then forced to bring them home again and introduce disease pressure to their precious heifer calves. .or worse they somehow all mysteriously all die the same day from pneumonia (as far as the dept is concerned).
All for the sake of spending a few pittance on the few bull calves you'd have.

Life's not all about money. I get a great sense of achievement when I have my bull calves well done and know they won't just drop off dead from malnourishment or from being too young on some lorry or trailer or wherever they may go.
Maybe in this cold world now sentiment has no value. But it still does with me.

Sacrolyte wrote: »

Fr bull calves will be scarce next year. You heard it here first.

They’ll be scare alright, lads will have the knacker on speed-dial instead of hoping they’ll get them away at the whim of the shippers for 30-40 euro at 3 weeks plus of age

Mooooo wrote: »

I know of no one who treats the bulls any different from heifers in the first weeks. Not feeding biestings or bedding etc will have problems b4 they leave at all which is more work. Most of us may have regular buyers and they won't be regular if they had issues with calves. I received the same cheque value this year for 7 calves as I did for one last year. It is just the way the market was/ is. Got 120 2 weeks ago then for fr bulls due to an extra buyer. Will find out later what today's batch made

Go the Mart though and there's some desperate bred and fed calves brought out.

Waste product to some farmers. The Mart is seen as a garbage disposal system.

jaymla627 wrote: »

They’ll be scare alright, lads will have the knacker on speed-dial instead of hoping they’ll get them away at the whim of the shippers for 30-40 euro at 3 weeks plus of age

What will be the implications for disposing of them to the knacker, will there be farm inspections due to higher deaths?

jaymla627 wrote: »

Would be using extreme Holstein here with maintance figures in the minus 20-30 range, you’d want to be foolhardy to try and fatten the resultant bull calves , literally eat you out of house and home before you’d get them near a factory

Maintenance figure is associated with liveweight? Negative being bigger. I think freedom mentioned before having good success finishing similar stock?

whelan2 wrote: »

jaymla627 wrote: »

They’ll be scare alright, lads will have the knacker on speed-dial instead of hoping they’ll get them away at the whim of the shippers for 30-40 euro at 3 weeks plus of age

What will be the implications for disposing of them to the knacker, will there be farm inspections due to higher deaths?

Dairy farmers will have to decide invidually if they want to protect there industry. It not for the beef industry to be seen as a dumping ground. Last year about 10k calves were slaughtered. Most were slaughtered at 2-3 weeks with little or no money going to the farmer to cover costs. These were mostly Jex calves. The market was able to handle them. What if the number jumps to 50-60 k next year will the market be able to handle that. Will processors charge a surcharge of 20-30 euro for every calf processed. Will milk processors be happy with that. How long before a larger farm gets caught on camera mistreating claves being loaded onto a bobby calf wagon or a processor get caught mishandling under nourished calves.

The dairy industry need to decide what it's priority's​ are and believe it or not that is in the hands of individual farmers hands. We are only a year or two away from AA calves following Friesian. I bought a bunch of AA store bulls 340kgs last autumn. To say I am disappointed in there progress is an understatement. They are suckler bred. I paid 470 for them I bought some Friesian 390 kgs over six weeks later. They are flying ahead of the AA who I made bullock's of. They were both about the same price landed in the yard. There was 8 of them two are very light but the whole lot will struggle to hit much with 280DW before 30 months IMO.

I will not be bidding on AA's from now on as they are too hard to judge

jaymla627 wrote: »

we are at the moment it’s not the red line issue we are been told it is

Farming in Ireland is at a crossroad
There’s lots who want to see it fall, vegans & even some of the public

Whether you believe it or not Our image is not great to allot outside of the farming community
They’ve the view we’re always whinging about having no money but drive around in big shiny new jeeps and tractors

Lots have quoted they can’t wait for cheap Brazilian beef to come in as the farmers are getting too much grants

Don’t get them started on our pollution of water, carbon in the air & stink from slurry

Bobby calf would be the final nail

jaymla627 wrote: »

In your above scenario, given tightening nitrate allowances and carbon taxes down the line, lads would simply have to cut herd sizes in half and dramatically cut output to cater for rearing their bull calves our pay beef farmers to contract rear them, all of which will add 4 cent plus onto what it will cost to produce a litre of milk, zero issue if co-ops will compensate dairy farmers but if they still expect milk at 30 odd cent a litre, and lots of it, there would be civil war in co-ops

Or else breed calves that have an economic beef value. Nobody expects 100% of calves to have an economic value however if the bobby calf number hit much above 1-2%% ( that is about 30k+ calves) I can see it staring to be an issue. If the numbers start to hit 10-15% in the region of 150-200k calves there will be huge issues for the dairy industry IMO. It would be very easy to hit that number by the dairy industry getting careless and a poor beef price as at present. If your prediction is right next year such calf numbers could hit 50k+. When you start to talk about numbers like that it gets hairy.

This is mainly a dairy industry issue not a beef industry issue. As well it may only be the farmers producing these calves that get hit. The government could put a levy on slaughtered calves to prevent it or even the EU or some processors could stop collecting milk from producers who slaughter a large percentage of calves. Such producer's would then have to find another milk processors and I am sure there would be some processors willing to process it but the milk price could be 3-10c/L below the industry norm. The government,the PLC's and the Co-op's will do what ever it takes to keep the show on the road.

Mooooo wrote: »

Talking of the the beef and dairy industry being totally separate issues isn't correct either. It could be argued many beef farmers are supplementing Larry et al with the off farm job as much as anything else. Dont mean to start a back and forth between beef and dairy farmers but i don't think it is as straight forward as ye say. I sent the strongest fr bulls I had to bandon yday. Due to tb restrictions my calves can't go for export. 30 euro was all they made, as exporters didn't bid. Its the way the market is at the minute for the calves. All these calves were from big cow's. Dairy stock will always be apart of the beef industry.

Ya we blame the part time lad again. IMO there are a number of things to blame. But top of the list is the amount of ration and straights used in the finishing system. Nearly every idiot finishing cattle is throwing feed in with loaders and feed wagons. It harder to finish cattle off grass now labour wise than out of a shed. Teagasc started it by advising lads that it was more efficient to winter finish with neatly all ration and straw than with conventional silage and ration. Hey pesto8 you only needed a shed and a nitrates exemption to finish cattle. Most lads at this are handling large credit and numbers as well as machinery. Off course these are efficient operators just like efficient dairy farmers. It easier to think these lads are being bankrupted by the small lad with a job

Sacrolyte wrote: »

Fr bull calves will be scarce next year. You heard it here first.

I agree, imo there will be even more Jersey and Kiwi straws used for the first rotation this year, then back too FR/FRx/JE/JEx mop up bulls, then easy calving/short gestation/xunts of beef bred bulls thereafter.

New entrants are choosing crossbred genetics, as are many established FR/HO herds that are trying to expand and that doesn't included the already established crossbred herds of which there are numerous.

I read an article during the week (I think it was in the Indo) and it said that Jersey and Kiwi genetics are now embedded within the Irish dairy herd.

I know feck all about modern dairying techniques but most traditional dairy farmers around here have been using Jersey/Kiwi straws on some of their cows for the last few years.
The die is cast and it seems to me that crossbred cows are the future of dairying in Ireland as they are so popular.

Base price wrote: »

Ya we blame the part time lad again - TBF these are the same lads (or their agents) that are in the marts year on year outbidding exporters for FR bull calves - why wouldn't you blame them.

Teagasc started it by advising lads that it was more efficient to winter finish with neatly all ration and straw than with conventional silage and ration - I will stand correct but I think that can be laid at the door of the original KK clubs criteria.

There are loads of lads out bidding exporters for calves and weanlings. They are not necessarily part time lads. In our discussion group the lad that pays most for calves is an ex dairy farmer. In general it is Friesian that are exported as calves so in a way if you want to buy them you may have to pay 5-10 euro more/ head than an exporters.
However the biggest issue is the polish them off brigade these are lads that will not let any animal they house back out to grass. In there hands is the present crisis to do with winter feeding. There was 10k bulls more than normal slaughtered last winter. I have absolutely no sympathy for lads that dived into them stupid is what stupid dose.
While the KK club started the ration and straw feeding it was for bulls for the Italian market. Over the last 8-10 years it was promoted by Teagasc and IFJ as the way to finish cattle rather than silage and ration faster throughput higher gain etc. All very good if you make the same profit all the time. However as profit/ head declined and in the bull game turned into loss/ head it magnified the loss into stupid money.
I wonder how many lads that applauded the bold Henry's speech at the meeting in Laois were feeding cattle as above. There are a fair few specialist finishers up that direction that have a few sheds and grow grain, beet and spuds. If you lost 20-30 k feeding bulls last winter assuming you were not an idiot and factored in extra cost and a profit margin of 100/ head you need to be handling 2-300 bulls.
Most lads finishing bullock's and heifers are hit as well but losses should not be as bad. With prices back 25-40c/kg over the winter assuming DW of 330 kgs total a small profit may still have been possible provided they have factored in an profit of 100/ head off last year prices and factored in extra ration costs.
But then that is common sense it tends to be a bit uncommon

Willfarman wrote: »

A wet spring and milk price of less than 20 cent
is all that will cure their belligerence!

Don't think we are gonna see 20c/l anyday soon, however if we were it would be the solids of that little je who would add 6 or 7c/l and let many lads stay afloat.