Milk Price- Please read Mod note in post #1

Timmaay

blackdog1 wrote: »

Farm with my father and I think if I had to get a job I would put the herd on Oad so he could cope. Scc is 74-120 so it might work but I think it would be better if they were on Oad from calving rather than switching them mid season.

Would switching in say Sept not be a good time? Over their peak and less risk of cows drying themselves off early.

jaymla627

kevthegaff wrote: »

I see labour as the only one we can control, larger numbers per labour unit. Very interested in browneds set up too, as I say if things hit the fan or in later life OAD sounds feasible

Depends on herd profile and breeding, if your starting from a base where yields aren't high and running around 5-5500 litres per cow a year you could probably transition to once a day quiet easily.....
Wouldn't like to see the results in a herd like mine where mature cows are knocking out 40 plus litres at peak and are breed for milk you'd end up destroying them with high scc and blown out udders

kowtow

browned wrote:

Hopefully. Only 9 days breeding and 50% served, that'd be similar to tad levels so too early to say

Well you are beating me.

One day breeding, none served, one hoof and one hand (mine) stuck to rails of parlour with kaymar glue.

On the plus side all scanned and cycling bar one to inject for a cyst.

browned

jaymla627 wrote: »

I reckon it will go the other direction, a good solid herd doing 7500-8000 litres at around 7.5% solids of grass and say around 1.3 ton of nuts would be hard beat I reckon, simply put if I was only sending in 16 litres a cow at the minute even with exceptional solids I simply would have to pack it in as cash coming in simply wouldn't be enough to cover loan payments and all the rest

Fully agree. From your previous posts I think you've a fantastic cow and system in operation and they'll be no fear of you at this price or even a few cent lower. I'm not suggesting oad is the answer to low prices far from it. My original post was in response to the suggestion the good milksolids weren't something worth chasing.

kowtow

mahoney_j wrote:

Personally when I hit say 50 and no successor showing interest ,no mortgage no/little debt I'd def go oad .great lifestyle

Until you start forgetting whether you milked at all...

Ah no wait I knew there was a reason for those whiteboards in the parlour!

browned

kevthegaff wrote: »

I see labour as the only one we can control, larger numbers per labour unit. Very interested in browneds set up too, as I say if things hit the fan or in later life OAD sounds feasible

From a labour point of view. 110 cows 20 bullers and 30 calves. Start at 6am finished at 8.30am. Then spend the day making myself look busy.

browned

jaymla627 wrote: »

Depends on herd profile and breeding, if your starting from a base where yields aren't high and running around 5-5500 litres per cow a year you could probably transition to once a day quiet easily.....
Wouldn't like to see the results in a herd like mine where mature cows are knocking out 40 plus litres at peak and are breed for milk you'd end up destroying them with high scc and blown out udders

The top yielders here are only doing 25litres. Think if you had the genetics and a strong udder you'd manage 30+L in cows easily. Scc wouldn't be a problem unless previously infected Id say. When cows transition properly they actually stay slack all day during grazing and will bag down during the night. This help prevent udder damage

Timmaay

browned wrote: »

From a labour point of view. 110 cows 20 bullers and 30 calves. Start at 6am finished at 8.30am. Then spend the day making myself look busy.

I'm getting nosey now ha, but you said something in a previous post about buying your farm, did you start out fully from scratch? Was the OAD always part of the plan or just a reaction to the current downturn?

browned

Timmaay wrote: »

I'm getting nosey now ha, but you said something in a previous post about buying your farm, did you start out fully from scratch? Was the OAD always part of the plan or just a reaction to the current downturn?

Parents sold up and between us we bought a new farm. They provided 40% of the cash, I got a loan for the rest. Oad was probably in the pipeline Down the line as it's a one man system, parents fully retired, so the thought of calving down 110 on my own wasn't appealing to me. The downturn is a bonus as the conversion costs are reduces at lower prices.

Farmer Ed

browned wrote: »

I seem to recall that I was the one who posted that improving solids would help farmers out financially. I added up all the levies I paid last month and they amounted to 0.371 Cent/litre for me while my solids gave me a 7.91 cents bonus above the average coop supplier. Are you saying i would have been better off focussing on a levy savings of 0.371cent/litre instead of the added value of 7.91cent/litre I got?

you've highlight plenty of ways in which coops are inefficient over the last couple of months. can you put them all together and show the total savings that can be got from implementing them. 7.91 cent/litre is roughly 435 million so if we subtract 21million for levies we'll get 414 million. realistically it should be easy to make up 414 million in savings in one year but how do you make the savings in the following years?

just to clarify im not opposed to increased efficiency across our coops but it would be nice to see someone put a value on it

I'm not disagreeing with you at all. Yes higher solids will give you a higher price per litre. If the amount of litres is too small it may not give you the highest amount of kgs of solid produced per cow. But each to his own and if you can run a profitable operation more luck to you. There's lots of ways of skinning a cat.

The fact still remains milk of 3.6f and 3.3p would have made the equivalent of 63c per litre in today's money, back 27 years ago.
The fact is in real terms the price paid to farmers has been constantly in decline.
Your answer to that is to milk the cow's once a day. And you may well have a point if we could get everyone to do it, maybe it would seriously curtail the overproduction of milk that our processors seem to have no use for other than turn it in powder.

Farmer Ed

browned wrote: »

Parents sold up and between us we bought a new farm. They provided 40% of the cash, I got a loan for the rest. Oad was probably in the pipeline Down the line as it's a one man system, parents fully retired, so the thought of calving down 110 on my own wasn't appealing to me. The downturn is a bonus as the conversion costs are reduces at lower prices.

How could the downturn be a bonus? Surely
You would be making more money if there wasn't a downturn?

Just because a downturn may be viewed as hurting your neighbor more than you, doesn't mean you are making more profit.

browned

Farmer Ed wrote: »

I'm not disagreeing with you at all. Yes higher solids will give you a higher price per litre. If the amount of litres is too small it may not give you the highest amount of kgs of solid produced per cow. But each to his own and if you can run a profitable operation more luck to you. There's lots of ways of skinning a cat.

The fact still remains milk of 3.6f and 3.3p would have made the equivalent of 63c per litre in today's money, back 27 years ago.
The fact is in real terms the price paid to farmers has been constantly in decline.
Your answer to that is to milk the cow's once a day. And you may well have a point if we could get everyone to do it, maybe it would seriously curtail the overproduction of milk that our processors seem to have no use for other than turn it in powder.

Mild yield is running the same as it was last year. Solids are higher and as a result milk price is higher.

Stop avoiding the question ed. you claim there loads of savings to be made at coop level that can boost the price of milk paid to farmer. I agree with you on the point but can you please list the savings.
Mandatory Levies total 21m a year or a savings of 0.371cent/litre for each farmer.

Farmer Ed

browned wrote: »

Mild yield is running the same as it was last year. Solids are higher and as a result milk price is higher.

Stop avoiding the question ed. you claim there loads of savings to be made at coop level that can boost the price of milk paid to farmer. I agree with you on the point but can you please list the savings.
Mandatory Levies total 21m a year or a savings of 0.371cent/litre for each farmer.

In all fairness the bit that is itemised on the milk statement is hardly the full picture.
You don't see the wages of the CEO or how much he had to pay his external advisers itemised on the milk statement. And you certainly don't see how much per litre it is costing you if that advice turns out to be crap. Then you have the states agricultural budget. How much of that gets swallowed up by quangos and never benefits farmers?
The itemised levy's on your milk statement are just the tip of the iceberg.

You don't nessacerily need to be able to put an exact figure on what is missing, before you can say your being robbed.

I'm very impressed that your milk is making more money this year than last year. What it means is you have made a remarkable increase in performance but very little bonus for doing so. The fact is your basic salary is still reduced. I would like to see some of our agri executives and board members take a leaf out of your book.

Buford T. Justice XIX

browned wrote: »

From a labour point of view. 110 cows 20 bullers and 30 calves. Start at 6am finished at 8.30am. Then spend the day making myself look busy.

Relief milking, off farm income sorted :pac:

Buford T. Justice XIX

fepper wrote: »

<br />
<br />
Kerry plc are saying its honoured its leading price,the 0.6l is a hardship payment due to continuing low milk prices

Text i received said 0.6c per Liter paid on all 2015 milk, nothing about hardship in the text.

Oh, and big Joe O'C named in the text so I assume he is the replacement for Stan?

browned

Buford T. Justice V wrote: »

Relief milking, off farm income sorted :pac:

relief labour on dairy farms, Say at busy times. Id often pay a neighbour to help out when I'm bolusing, milk recording or vaccinating the herd. Could easily be an opportunity there especially in within a discussion group.

darragh_haven

browned wrote: »

relief labour on dairy farms, Say at busy times. Id often pay a neighbour to help out when I'm bolusing, milk recording or vaccinating the herd. Could easily be an opportunity there especially in within a discussion group.

Of the OADers that you know, do they all milk early in the morning? Any ine in the middle of the day or evening. I cant see any reason to milk anytime but early in the morning, but i could be missing something

browned

darragh_haven wrote: »

Of the OADers that you know, do they all milk early in the morning? Any ine in the middle of the day or evening. I cant see any reason to milk anytime but early in the morning, but i could be missing something

I honestly don't know. I would assume they all milk in the morning to take advantage of night rate cooling. I say if one was milking oad purely as a lifestyle choice 10am milkings would be appealing.

browned

Farmer Ed wrote: »

In all fairness the bit that is itemised on the milk statement is hardly the full picture.
You don't see the wages of the CEO or how much he had to pay his external advisers itemised on the milk statement. And you certainly don't see how much per litre it is costing you if that advice turns out to be crap. Then you have the states agricultural budget. How much of that gets swallowed up by quangos and never benefits farmers?
The itemised levy's on your milk statement are just the tip of the iceberg.

You don't nessacerily need to be able to put an exact figure on what is missing, before you can say your being robbed.

I'm very impressed that your milk is making more money this year than last year. What it means is you have made a remarkable increase in performance but very little bonus for doing so. The fact is your basic salary is still reduced. I would like to see some of our agri executives and board members take a leaf out of your book.

A ceo on say €500,000 is costing me 0.00009c/l how many do you suggest culling to take us from 23c/l to the 63c/l you think we should be getting?

visatorro

browned wrote: »

I honestly don't know. I would assume they all milk in the morning to take advantage of night rate cooling. I say if one was milking oad purely as a lifestyle choice 10am milkings would be appealing.

How many units browned if you don't mind me asking.? How much ration are you feeding?

whelan2

Had a look at my milk statement from April 2015 , I am down nearly 8k in my cheque this year :eek:

kevthegaff

whelan2 wrote: »

Had a look at my milk statement from April 2015 , I am down nearly 8k in my cheque this year :eek:

U take it through the summer months, we be all under pressure!

browned

visatorro wrote: »

How many units browned if you don't mind me asking.? How much ration are you feeding?

20 units so milked in just over an hour. No ration since April 1st. 127kgs a head of €170/tonne pke so about €21.60 a cow worth of ration fed.

browned

Farmer Ed wrote: »

I'm very impressed that your milk is making more money this year than last year. What it means is you have made a remarkable increase in performance but very little bonus for doing so. The fact is your basic salary is still reduced. I would like to see some of our agri executives and board members take a leaf out of your book.

My volume of milk is roughly the same as last year and my solids are giving me a better milk price so in theory my income is increased. My costs have decreased and my work hour have also decreased. How has my basic salary decreased as a result?

whelan2

browned wrote: »

My volume of milk is roughly the same as last year and my solids are giving me a better milk price so in theory my income is increased. My costs have decreased and my work hour have also decreased. How has my basic salary decreased as a result?

Am interested do you miss milking in the evenings?

kowtow

browned wrote: »

A ceo on say €500,000 is costing me 0.00009c/l how many do you suggest culling to take us from 23c/l to the 63c/l you think we should be getting?

I'm sceptical that co-op savings would make that much difference to milk price but those kind of "because I'm worth it" salaries do tend to exemplify a particular way of working.

Few CEO's paying themselves at that level like to do their own typing, make their own coffee, etc. etc. and on down the chain.

We often looked for high CEO pay when selecting takeover / merger targets, for two reasons - (1) overly high board remuneration is very often an indicator that there is plenty of duplication and fat to strip away in the rest of the target for instant "cost savings" to pay the deal fees and (2) it's often easier to persuade a highly paid CEO to champion a deal because money is clearly a motivating factor.

It's not always the case, but it's a good way to bet.

browned

whelan2 wrote: »

Am interested do you miss milking in the evenings?

Haha not even in the slightest. It make Morning milking are a lot more enjoyable if anything. I actually look forward to milking a lot more now
For me the real benefit is knowing that once all the work is done in the morning I know I can head away for the rest of the day with my oh and not have to worry about coming home for evening milking.

Farmer Ed

browned wrote: »

A ceo on say €500,000 is costing me 0.00009c/l how many do you suggest culling to take us from 23c/l to the 63c/l you think we should be getting?

Again the €500k is just the tip of the iceberg. When that ceo gets so comfortable in his own skin that he can be assured of even bigger bonus if he goes and squanders hundreds of millions of farmers money and he leads farmers in to a financial ambush. The I'm afraid your figure will increase. If general Custard was an Irish ceo. He probably would get a nice bonus for leading his troops in to the battle of little big horn.

coolshannagh28

Looked at milking a good few years ago and the logical thing seemed to be high solids possibly zero grazed with Jerseys, JEX or British Friesian , neighbour of mine seems able to survive on a very basic system milking 20 Jersey cows with a part time job, is this rational ?

browned

Farmer Ed wrote: »

Again the €500k is just the tip of the iceberg. When that ceo gets so comfortable in his own skin that he can be assured of even bigger bonus if he goes and squanders hundreds of millions of farmers money and he leads farmers in to a financial ambush. The I'm afraid your figure will increase. If general Custard was an Irish ceo. He probably would get a nice bonus for leading his troops in to the battle of little big horn.

So you can't produce any figure on potential savings. Fair enough I'll move on, no point on bogging down a thread with fairytales

Farmer Ed

kowtow wrote: »

I'm sceptical that co-op savings would make that much difference to milk price but those kind of "because I'm worth it" salaries do tend to exemplify a particular way of working.

Few CEO's paying themselves at that level like to do their own typing, make their own coffee, etc. etc. and on down the chain.

We often looked for high CEO pay when selecting takeover / merger targets, for two reasons - (1) overly high board remuneration is very often an indicator that there is plenty of duplication and fat to strip away in the rest of the target for instant "cost savings" to pay the deal fees and (2) it's often easier to persuade a highly paid CEO to champion a deal because money is clearly a motivating factor.

It's not always the case, but it's a good way to bet.

And all the most up to date research would back up a lot of the points you have correctly identified. I'm the link below should be compulsory reading for company directors and advisers to remuneration committees.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/susanadams/2014/06/16/the-highest-paid-ceos-are-the-worst-performers-new-study-says/#6b9fb57a293a

alps

whelan2 wrote: »

Had a look at my milk statement from April 2015 , I am down nearly 8k in my cheque this year :eek:

Same here Whelan. ..but you probably had a big lash if milk just after April 1st....

We're back just 5.6c/l , which is not completly head wrecking, but will increase as solids do during the year.

kowtow

coolshannagh28 wrote: »

milking 20 Jersey cows with a part time job, is this rational ?

I suppose the advantage with Jerseys is he could take any off-colour ones to work with him, pop them in the glove compartment, and hop out for a smoke to check on them?

Buford T. Justice XIX

Farmer Ed wrote: »

Again the €500k is just the tip of the iceberg. When that ceo gets so comfortable in his own skin that he can be assured of even bigger bonus if he goes and squanders hundreds of millions of farmers money and he leads farmers in to a financial ambush. The I'm afraid your figure will increase. If general Custard was an Irish ceo. He probably would get a nice bonus for leading his troops in to the battle of little big horn.

Custer.
George Armstrong Custer.

https://www.google.ie/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=11&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwiixMP54uXMAhVjAsAKHQHTDfAQ_B0IgwEwCg&url=%2Fimgres%3Fimgurl%3Dhttps%3A%2F%2Fupload.wikimedia.org%2Fwikipedia%2Fcommons%2F1%2F16%2FCuster_Bvt_MG_Geo_A_1865_LC-BH831-365-crop.jpg%26imgrefurl%3Dhttps%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FGeorge_Armstrong_Custer%26h%3D1846%26w%3D1476%26tbnid%3DN3_TvVkMSx330M%3A%26tbnh%3D186%26tbnw%3D148%26docid%3D78uWmzDGYIUoEM%26itg%3D1%26client%3Dfirefox-b%26usg%3D__ILckywWMzVBLScj5imZWSSpqKmY%3D&usg=AFQjCNF5yuVxRUtAXylbOwC7tP-CYP-rRg&sig2=SksVejpqqPX__idrCPZL5A&bvm=bv.122448493,d.ZGg

Farmer Ed

browned wrote: »

So you can't produce any figure on potential savings. Fair enough I'll move on, no point on bogging down a thread with fairytales

Speaking of faiytales.

Once there was a farmer who had magic cows and he sold his milk to a good fairy. The Less the cow's Milked and the less the good fairy paid him for kgs of milk solids.The milk became even more magic and the farmer made even more money.




Yes I think better move on.

kowtow

Dawg - US COP figures at:

http://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/milk-cost-of-production-estimates.aspx

My calcs were in the back of my head so I may well have missed something, part of them (all national averages) are below. Interesting that they include a cost for lube. Do they supply Glanbia as well?

US $ / cwt sold. all farms q1 2016 (?)

Operating costs:
Feed--
Purchased feed 5.37 5.96 5.90
Homegrown harvested feed 4.78 4.67 4.64
Grazed feed 0.12 0.12 0.12
Total, feed costs 10.27 10.75 10.65
Veterinary and medicine 0.84 0.82 0.81
Bedding and litter 0.24 0.23 0.23
Marketing 0.26 0.26 0.26
Custom services 0.58 0.57 0.56
Fuel, lube, and electricity 0.40 0.37 0.40
Repairs 0.56 0.55 0.54
Other operating costs 0.00 0.00 0.00
Interest on operating capital 0.01 0.01 0.01
Total operating costs 13.15 13.55 13.45

Allocated overhead:
Hired labor 1.62 1.59 1.56
Opportunity cost of unpaid labor 2.43 2.39 2.35
Capital recovery of machinery and equipment 3.85 3.72 3.65
Opportunity cost of land (rental rate) 0.02 0.02 0.02
Taxes and insurance 0.21 0.20 0.19
General farm overhead 0.66 0.65 0.64
Total, allocated overhead 8.79 8.56 8.41

Total costs listed 21.95 22.12 21.86

Farmer Ed

Buford T. Justice V wrote: »

Custer.
George Armstrong Custer.

https://www.google.ie/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=11&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwiixMP54uXMAhVjAsAKHQHTDfAQ_B0IgwEwCg&url=%2Fimgres%3Fimgurl%3Dhttps%3A%2F%2Fupload.wikimedia.org%2Fwikipedia%2Fcommons%2F1%2F16%2FCuster_Bvt_MG_Geo_A_1865_LC-BH831-365-crop.jpg%26imgrefurl%3Dhttps%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FGeorge_Armstrong_Custer%26h%3D1846%26w%3D1476%26tbnid%3DN3_TvVkMSx330M%3A%26tbnh%3D186%26tbnw%3D148%26docid%3D78uWmzDGYIUoEM%26itg%3D1%26client%3Dfirefox-b%26usg%3D__ILckywWMzVBLScj5imZWSSpqKmY%3D&usg=AFQjCNF5yuVxRUtAXylbOwC7tP-CYP-rRg&sig2=SksVejpqqPX__idrCPZL5A&bvm=bv.122448493,d.ZGg

Dam, Thanks for that now it is all making sence to me. I could never figer out why the Indians didn't eat him.

browned

Farmer Ed wrote: »

Speaking of faiytales.

Once there was a farmer who had magic cows and he sold his milk to a good fairy. The Less the cow's Milked and the less the good fairy paid him for kgs of milk solids.The milk became even more magic and the farmer made even more money.




Yes I think better move on.

Seriously can you back up anything you say with figures. Where are all the saving to be found. The price of milk is now 23cent. You say we should be getting 63 cent. Tell us where the missing 40cent is

browned

kowtow wrote: »

Dawg - US COP figures at:

http://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/milk-cost-of-production-estimates.aspx

My calcs were in the back of my head so I may well have missed something, part of them (all national averages) are below. Interesting that they include a cost for lube. Do they supply Glanbia as well?

22 cent/litre costs are frightening when they're considered to be 28c/l here.

kowtow

browned wrote: »

22 cent/litre costs are frightening when they're considered to be 28c/l here.

Sorry, should have put it in the post - those costs are $/cwt sold.

I worked it out at a range of 28-38c EUR / kg yesterday, smaller the farm more expensive roughly speaking, as per my original post.

The size breakdown datasets are from 2015, the one above is the national all farm dataset and is the first 3 months of this year I think.

I didn't look too closely at the figures so may well have missed something significant, a lot on away from the desk at the moment.

Farmer Ed

browned wrote: »

Seriously can you back up anything you say with figures. Where are all the saving to be found. The price of milk is now 23cent. You say we should be getting 63 cent. Tell us where the missing 40cent is

First of all you misquoted me. What I did was simply point out is that at £1 a gallon in 1989 is the equivalent of 63c per litre in today's money. It's not difficult to do the calculation if you feel up to doing it yourself.

I also supplied you with a report on the most up to date research on the best practice in paying company executives and the detrimental effect getting it wrong can have on a company.

Now if you want to get in to an argument that I can't prove the light turns of in the fridge when the door closes? Maybe it's time we agree to disagree on this one.

Please don't let me disturb you from your fiddle playing as the industry burns.

browned

Farmer Ed wrote: »

First of all you misquoted me. What I did was simply point out is that at £1 a gallon in 1989 is the equivalent of 63c per litre in today's money. It's not difficult to do the calculation if you feel up to doing it yourself.

I also supplied you with a report on the most up to date research on the best practice in paying company executives and the detrimental effect getting it wrong can have on a company.

Now if you want to get in to an argument that I can't prove the light turns of in the fridge when the door closes? Maybe it's time we agree to disagree on this one.

Please don't let me disturb you from your fiddle playing as the industry burns.

You've mistaken my musical instrument ed. Its not a fiddle but the world's smallest violin.

Water John

I think the all the levies and over pay of management would not make a massive diif to the cheque each month, but is more symptomatic of how everyone is sucking off the farmer.
The sad part in some cases its done by fellow farmers on quangos and farmers as directors allowing it happen.

The overall savage trend is the problem.
The diff between the price paid to the primary producer of all farm products and the price the consumer ultimately pays have been diverging over the last 20/30 years.

The downturn in this cycle is best explempified by the figures from DG 2015 Accounts. Rise of 185M litres in supply. Return to farmers down €61M.

Maybe indeed all milk producers in Ireland should go the the 'Browned' route.

browned

bf 4.42
pr 3.70
scc 235
base 23.79
coop av 25.66
price 32.79

Milked out

browned wrote: »

bf 4.42
pr 3.70
scc 235
base 23.79
coop av 25.66
price 32.79

Fixed price schemes included?

browned

Milked out wrote: »

Fixed price schemes included?

not sure with the coop averages but theyre included in my price

caseman

browned wrote: »

bf 4.42
pr 3.70
scc 235
base 23.79
coop av 25.66
price 32.79

Would you have 500 euro left after common costs not many cows doing that this year.
As the year moves ón the price gap will probaly get bigger with your higher solids.

Milked out

browned wrote: »

Milked out wrote: »

Fixed price schemes included?

not sure with the coop averages but theyre included in my price

What price did the portion of your milk not in fixed price get? If your statement breaks it down that way? Seeing as I'll be looking at the bare 22c for April I can say I'm a small bit jealous......

mf240

browned wrote: »

bf 4.42
pr 3.70
scc 235
base 23.79
coop av 25.66
price 32.79

At 16 litres that works out the same as 22 litres at base price.

mahoney_j

Just looked at April 14v April 15 v April 16 price and makes for depressing viewing .only upside for me is more milk been produced and at higher solids (slightly )wrote a few cheques to clear vet account ,for boluses ,tractor service as well as clearing a chunk of trading account with coop and bill with feed merchant .also once my annual loans kick in this month my full April cheque and more are gone with no wage left for myself .this is deliberate on my behalf as deals were done for prompt payement and leaving things more manageable for summer .feed bill be getting smaller and no big first cut silage to pay for .
A lot say there's nothing out of cattle but I for one am damn glad to have them in a year like this .offfloaded fr Bulls and Herefords in Feb ,fr breeding Bulls over last month and whilst prices in marts strong I've some Hereford and Belgian blue heifers to shift next Tuesday