How do you read cattle and sheep factory qoutes????

easymoney!

How do you read cattle and sheep factory qoutes like you get say 2.50c a kg for a cull ewe how does this work like theres a fat cull and a thin cull so how does it work and how do you make out what there worth dead weight etc
i dont get it all,,, all help welcomed!!!

ps. i am buying cull and feeding ewes at the moment for feeding they are the cheapest and any good ewes i keep for breeding all suggestions welcome please ???
thanks

razor8

for fat culls ewes factories usually pay up to 45kg dead weight, for lighter thinner ewe factories would be paying back to €1.90 a kg

so 45 * 2.5=€112.50
a thin ewe would unlikely reach this weight but if it did this would work out at €85

Highland

The price is always per kg carcase weight upto what ever limit the factory are paying. As you can only weigh the animals alive you will need to guestimate the killout %. the following might help you as a guide, but its only a guide and there are huge variations between individual batches and individual animals

Boners (very thin) <35%
average body condition will kill around 40 - 42%
and very well fleshed ewes could kill in the high 40's and even in individual cases exceptional animals could kill into the 50's

It obviously also depends on how the animals are weighed (i.e. with a wet fleece, full vs empty belly, morning or evening) - the recommendations are to weigh animals full - not fasted. You will get big differences between individual animals (as high as 10%) despite the fact that you may feel they are of similar condition. much of this will be down to variations in gut fill at the time of weighing. Therefore its good to go with average figures.

I would do my budgets for around 42% and hope for the best - best of luck, hope it works out for you

supersean1999

if your going to keep some for breeding and going to sell them, make sure u scan them for selling .will add value especially if u have good fat ewes u might have lots of twins,