Price of cattle may have gone up but so has every associated cost

Bodacious

People chatting about the great price of cattle but feed, fert,diesel, contractors, plastic, seed, sprays, medicines, etc are also up

Bought tonne of 18-6-12 E445 and a acre mix bag of seed is crazy money @E73.. same sized bag when i was reseeding last harvest were E52???!!

Anyone have a good online site for seed?

just do it

Bodacious wrote: »

People chatting about the great price of cattle but feed, fert,diesel, contractors, plastic, seed, sprays, medicines, etc are also up

Bought tonne of 18-6-12 E445 and a acre mix bag of seed is crazy money @E73.. same sized bag when i was reseeding last harvest were E52???!!
Anyone have a good online site for seed?

Agree with you there Bod. Notice everything you list is reliant on oil in some shape or form.

Birdnuts

Livestock are part of the current commodity bull market which includes most agri inputs unfortunatly:(

Timmaay

Look on the bright side lads, at least we have loads of cheap, low energy grass in Ireland. As the cost of energy rises around the world, it makes our low energy system more and more competitive.

Bodacious

Timmaay wrote: »

Look on the bright side lads, at least we have loads of cheap, low energy grass in Ireland. As the cost of energy rises around the world, it makes our low energy system more and more competitive.

True and the weather is great for this time of year!! Never had them off to grass so early! Dont like still getting ripped off and seed at E73 is way too expensive!

leg wax

Timmaay wrote: »

Look on the bright side lads, at least we have loads of cheap, low energy grass in Ireland. As the cost of energy rises around the world, it makes our low energy system more and more competitive.

grass is not cheap to grow if you are pushing up the stocking rate.

bbam

leg wax wrote: »

grass is not cheap to grow if you are pushing up the stocking rate.

Also being on poorer land that requires constant work is no picnic either.

Pharaoh1

Even the small things like bucket licks have increased hugely in the last say 3 or 4 years. Beef buckets gone from around 12-13 euro up to 18.

The Germinal Top 5 extend mix I bought last Spring has gone from 47.50 up to 65 euro.

Cattle prices will have to be at least maintained to cover these costs.

vanderbadger

bale wrap will probably be a shocking price this summer as well, it was bad enough last year

Muckit

We could be all back to the haybobs and the small squares again!

Tipp Man

leg wax wrote: »

grass is not cheap to grow if you are pushing up the stocking rate.

Sometimes less is more

We find it very hard to justify fertiliser for beef so we don't use any

Less cattle but less costs

Muckit

Tipp Man wrote: »

Sometimes less is more

We find it very hard to justify fertiliser for beef so we don't use any

Less cattle but less costs

When you say no fertiliser, is that bag only... does the land get slurry or FYM?

pakalasa

Anybody ever work our a formulae for the optimum fertiliser to use, based on stocking rate and cattle prices? You would think Teagasc would have something. When do you start to get diminishing returns?

thetangler

pakalasa wrote: »

Anybody ever work our a formulae for the optimum fertiliser to use, based on stocking rate and cattle prices? You would think Teagasc would have something. When do you start to get diminishing returns?

The minute you put on the spreader :D:D

leg wax

pakalasa wrote: »

Anybody ever work our a formulae for the optimum fertiliser to use, based on stocking rate and cattle prices? You would think Teagasc would have something. When do you start to get diminishing returns?

this is what i was trying to find out in a other thread:rolleyes:

Timmaay

pakalasa wrote: »

Anybody ever work our a formulae for the optimum fertiliser to use, based on stocking rate and cattle prices? You would think Teagasc would have something. When do you start to get diminishing returns?

Hmm yeh it is something that I have thought about, but there's no simple answer for it. There's far more variables required then just cattle prices (or milk price for dairy) and the stocking rate, you would have to consider soil type, availability of organic fertiliser, time from last reseeding and then weather variation. If Teagasc did research to try predict the optimum fertiliser, it would only be for a very specific type of farm, and would be meanless to many farmers in Ireland.

And then of course, at the end of the day we are assuming that the price of cattle (or milk) is going to stay constant, no point working out in March that well its worth spreading X amount of nitrogen per Ha to get an extra profit for animals that we have almost zero idea what the price will be for when we sell them at the end of the year.

Tipp Man

Muckit wrote: »

When you say no fertiliser, is that bag only... does the land get slurry or FYM?

No bag used if at all possible

Only slurry or FYM it gets is what comes out their a**e

Major note though we are a summer grazing system - no silage or hay taken

Tipp Man

pakalasa wrote: »

Anybody ever work our a formulae for the optimum fertiliser to use, based on stocking rate and cattle prices? You would think Teagasc would have something. When do you start to get diminishing returns?

As mentioned above there are just so variables and every farm has a different system they try to farm to - but if Teagasc could produce a template that allowed you to enter the relevant variables then it would be a very useful tool

Looking at the Derrypatrick project from afar and reading the journal it seems that they want to push the high stocking rate angle. Not saying its wrong but with the cost of fert not sure its 100% correct either

Muckit

Tipp Man wrote: »

No bag used if at all possible

What kind of weight gain are you getting on them with just summer grazing? What are we talking about ... 7mths?

One sure thing with your system, is the figures are easy add up. Their weight/price are there in black and white on the mart dockets.

Alot to be said for it

pakalasa

On fertiliser cost and diminishing returns - This is really one for the acountants. Your fixed costs are going to stay the same, but your variable costs will rise.
The stocking rate and max fertiliser use are set by the Nitrates Directive, so that simplifies things a bit.

So you need to know how much extra grass it will grow and how much extra cattle you can keep as a result.

Tipp Man

Muckit wrote: »

What kind of weight gain are you getting on them with just summer grazing? What are we talking about ... 7mths?

One sure thing with your system, is the figures are easy add up. Their weight/price are there in black and white on the mart dockets.

Alot to be said for it

could be anything from 180-250kg. We'd be looking for an average of 220 over a couple of hundred cattle and are in the middle of a major reseeding programme after which we'd hope to bring the average closer to 250

Buy as early as possible - sell as late as possible - both of these have a major impact on profits we have found - usually March to November. But last year we were buying right up till end of april - which is much later than usual and much later than we wanted. Keeping the cattle as late as possible also has a major impact - much better demand for cattle in November than October - not always possible though

Transport and Mart/Factory fees are by far the 2 biggest costs, a dose and TB test are the remaining costs

A very simple system (hardly any work whatsoever) which suits us with the cows but we think it could be coming to an end. Getting too hard to get cattle in the numbers we need, cattle are too dear and TB is always a major risk

johngalway

Muckit wrote: »

We could be all back to the haybobs and the small squares again!

What do you mean "back to"?



€2.80 for small square hay now, nice enough hay too, sheep like it.

just do it

pakalasa wrote: »

On fertiliser cost and diminishing returns - This is really one for the acountants. Your fixed costs are going to stay the same, but your variable costs will rise.
The stocking rate and max fertiliser use are set by the Nitrates Directive, so that simplifies things a bit.

The journal profiled two of the better farmers 2 or 3 weeks ago. One has a high input system involving continental beef, the other has a low input system producing angus. There wasn't much of a difference in the gross margin per ha, probably just enough to justify the extra workload with the high input system.

So you need to know how much extra grass it will grow and how much extra cattle you can keep as a result.

Don't forget the extra capital costs for housing extra cattle! Housing is a huge cost and I have to say I like the system Tipp Man is talking about. Just don't tell him, I'd hate for a Tipp man to think he knew better than a banner man;)

pakalasa

I suppose the key is to know your costs for everything. Put them all down on a spreadsheet. Things should become a lot clearer then.:D

leg wax

guys i sent an e-mail to justin mc about our little debate on the fert question and he replied straight away as follows: '' I will do but to be honest most of the BETTER farms that have increased output are actually using less N - it is all about spreading it at the right time and on productive swards and getting full utilisation from productive animals. The BETTER farms have increase output by 30% and yet N usage is down. Overall fert costs have increased but this is due to additional P&K usage.'' Justin

Justin McCarthy
Livestock Editor
Irish Farmers Journal
Irish Farm Centre
Bluebell
Dublin 12

pakalasa

Legs,
Does he know you're the guy that nicknamed The Journal, ...........Da Comic.....:D

limo_100

leg wax wrote: »

guys i sent an e-mail to justin mc about our little debate on the fert question and he replied straight away as follows: '' I will do but to be honest most of the BETTER farms that have increased output are actually using less N - it is all about spreading it at the right time and on productive swards and getting full utilisation from productive animals. The BETTER farms have increase output by 30% and yet N usage is down. Overall fert costs have increased but this is due to additional P&K usage.'' Justin

Justin McCarthy
Livestock Editor
Irish Farmers Journal
Irish Farm Centre
Bluebell
Dublin 12

thats shocking decent of him and he makes a very good point. Did use see the better farm programme videos on the internet?

leg wax

pakalasa wrote: »

Legs,
Does he know you're the guy that nicknamed The Journal, ...........Da Comic.....:D

whoo meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee:eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek: