Spring lamb prices

memorystick · 03-06-2019 9:33am

How bad are sheep prices now? I sold 40kg mule hoggets for €109 in March. What would they be worth now?

kk.man · 03-06-2019 10:16am

memorystick wrote: »

How bad are sheep prices now? I sold 40kg mule hoggets for €109 in March. What would they be worth now?

I had one weather in a bunch of ewe hoggets that escaped my attention. I brought him to the factory and he made 96 euro!

He graded r3 and was 33kg dw. His comrades were sold in February for 123 euro.

charolais0153 · 03-06-2019 7:57pm

Lambs not being slaughtered in Ballyhaunis tomorrow I think, last day of Ramadan and the lads blessing the meat or something wont work?

Willfarman · 03-06-2019 8:56pm

I had a bit of a sort through on oddments of sheep last week. Sold in mart. 4 early Jan lambs 44kg 111€. Single lamb of same 58 kg 114.50. Their 3 mothers €101. And 2 wethers that I found among the hlast of the hoggets 50kg 94€. No meal eaten by anything but still very poor money for prime stock in particular.

Green farmer · 04-06-2019 2:15pm

Have a trailer of ewe hoggets left over that I never got around to selling. The minute the price was slashed below €4.75 a kilo, I decided not to bother giving them away for nothing. Their now gone to €4.25 so will hold on, shear and hopefully get half decent money for in the autumn. Sad days for the sheep industry. Will leave lots of lads questioning their future in this sector.

Willfarman · 04-06-2019 2:18pm

Check under their tails.. I might know someone with a similar mindset recently that found a couple of ringed rouges amongst the princesses!

Dickie10 · 04-06-2019 11:29pm

they really should have been gone by may 1st

wrangler · 05-06-2019 6:20am

Dickie10 wrote: »

they really should have been gone by may 1st

Agreed, once the new crop of lambs come in numbers the hoggets are really only worth ewe price.

Sheepman2 · 05-06-2019 4:31pm

Green farmer wrote: »

Have a trailer of ewe hoggets left over that I never got around to selling. The minute the price was slashed below €4.75 a kilo, I decided not to bother giving them away for nothing. Their now gone to €4.25 so will hold on, shear and hopefully get half decent money for in the autumn. Sad days for the sheep industry. Will leave lots of lads questioning their future in this sector.

How will it leave them questioning their future, hoggets should have been gone at least a month ago if not 2, why would a factory pay top price for year old meat when spring lambs are coming in.

Willfarman · 05-06-2019 9:34pm

Sheepman2 wrote: »

Green farmer wrote: »

Have a trailer of ewe hoggets left over that I never got around to selling. The minute the price was slashed below €4.75 a kilo, I decided not to bother giving them away for nothing. Their now gone to €4.25 so will hold on, shear and hopefully get half decent money for in the autumn. Sad days for the sheep industry. Will leave lots of lads questioning their future in this sector.

How will it leave them questioning their future, hoggets should have been gone at least a month ago if not 2, why would a factory pay top price for year old meat when spring lambs are coming in.

They cut the hoggets and the lambs in equal measure the bastardized hoors.

Green farmer · 05-06-2019 10:28pm

Willfarman wrote: »

They cut the hoggets and the lambs in equal measure the bastardized hoors.

Absolutely, this isn’t a agruement of hoggets vs springs. This is about the constant messing and unwillingness to pay a fair price for our products.

orm0nd · 06-06-2019 10:27am

I'm no friend of the factories either, but some of blame lies with the farmer.

\Carrying hoggets to almost 30kgs D/W into May and expecting to get top dollar from them, when they should have been on the hook last March.

All this year factories were smiling ear to ear, lambs were coming on stream so fast and farmers failing to draft and giving free meat as a result.

I dont get the Findo but read on Twitter where springs selling at Roscommon mart were blowing €5 to €10 a head on their factory value, (assuming they had a reasonable flesh cover) no doubt the farmer will blame the factory here again.
It's almost 4 hours round trip for us to the factory and a little under 2 to the abbatoir, yet we manage to work it in and do dairying as well.

we have approx. 70% of our 2019 lambs drafted with hopefully 80-85% gone by end of June.

what numbers we will lamb in 2020 remains to be seen, we have been approached by a dairy farmer re contract rearing his heifers, but if we do go that route there will still be some few "white vermin" mixed with the black and whites.

Rant over.

Sami23 · 06-06-2019 10:32am

orm0nd wrote: »

I'm no friend of the factories either, but some of blame lies with the farmer.

\Carrying hoggets to almost 30kgs D/W into May and expecting to get top dollar from them, when they should have been on the hook last March.

All this year factories were smiling ear to ear, lambs were coming on stream so fast and farmers failing to draft and giving free meat as a result.

I dont get the Findo but read on Twitter where springs selling at Roscommon mart were blowing €5 to €10 a head on their factory value, (assuming they had a reasonable flesh cover) no doubt the farmer will blame the factory here again.
It's almost 4 hours round trip for us to the factory and a little under 2 to the abbatoir, yet we manage to work it in and do dairying as well.

we have approx. 70% of our 2019 lambs drafted with hopefully 80-85% gone by end of June.

what numbers we will lamb in 2020 remains to be seen, we have been approached by a dairy farmer re contract rearing his heifers, but if we do go that route there will still be some few "white vermin" mixed with the black and whites.

Rant over.

Great post Ormond which I fully agree with.

Do you mind me asking when your 2019 lambs were born and did you feed much meal to them ?

kk.man · 06-06-2019 10:53am

orm0nd wrote: »

I'm no friend of the factories either, but some of blame lies with the farmer.

\Carrying hoggets to almost 30kgs D/W into May and expecting to get top dollar from them, when they should have been on the hook last March.

All this year factories were smiling ear to ear, lambs were coming on stream so fast and farmers failing to draft and giving free meat as a result.

I dont get the Findo but read on Twitter where springs selling at Roscommon mart were blowing €5 to €10 a head on their factory value, (assuming they had a reasonable flesh cover) no doubt the farmer will blame the factory here again.
It's almost 4 hours round trip for us to the factory and a little under 2 to the abbatoir, yet we manage to work it in and do dairying as well.

we have approx. 70% of our 2019 lambs drafted with hopefully 80-85% gone by end of June.

what numbers we will lamb in 2020 remains to be seen, we have been approached by a dairy farmer re contract rearing his heifers, but if we do go that route there will still be some few "white vermin" mixed with the black and whites.

Rant over.

I see your point but last year was a different story. We had an unreal spring and the 'early' lambers did well the few that is left. Hoggets were sought after because spring lambs weren't coming forward. They were reports of deaths both here and the UK.
Every year is different.

wrangler · 06-06-2019 10:53am

orm0nd wrote: »

I'm no friend of the factories either, but some of blame lies with the farmer.

\Carrying hoggets to almost 30kgs D/W into May and expecting to get top dollar from them, when they should have been on the hook last March.

All this year factories were smiling ear to ear, lambs were coming on stream so fast and farmers failing to draft and giving free meat as a result.

I dont get the Findo but read on Twitter where springs selling at Roscommon mart were blowing €5 to €10 a head on their factory value, (assuming they had a reasonable flesh cover) no doubt the farmer will blame the factory here again.
It's almost 4 hours round trip for us to the factory and a little under 2 to the abbatoir, yet we manage to work it in and do dairying as well.

we have approx. 70% of our 2019 lambs drafted with hopefully 80-85% gone by end of June.

what numbers we will lamb in 2020 remains to be seen, we have been approached by a dairy farmer re contract rearing his heifers, but if we do go that route there will still be some few "white vermin" mixed with the black and whites.

Rant over.

A lot of overweight lambs going from our group as well, they'd be losing a substantial bonus by being overweight as well as not being paid for the extra meat.
It's not easy for processors, uneven supply with a glut in the autumn, supermarkets looking for small cuts, farmers supplying elephants

orm0nd · 06-06-2019 1:12pm

Sami23 wrote: »

Great post Ormond which I fully agree with.

Do you mind me asking when your 2019 lambs were born and did you feed much meal to them ?

we started 20th Jan. but had an unreal burst around 1st Feb. Luckily we hadn't many cows calved and were able to use the calf shed as a back up. This is another factor that will influence lambing 2020. Have a lot of cows calving (hopefully) from 25 Jan next year.

on turn out they were offered fresh grass every 5 to 7 days and meal was introduced from 6 to 8 weeks onwards. havent figures but meal usage well down on previos years.

kk.man wrote: »

I see your point but last year was a different story. We had an unreal spring and the 'early' lambers did well the few that is left. Hoggets were sought after because spring lambs weren't coming forward. They were reports of deaths both here and the UK.
Every year is different.

If you are in early lamb, gear up for it

have housing to hold lambs indoors longer if necessary
fields closed off from mid october onwards and most important use a ram who's offspring are able for hardship ie hampshiredown.... ch and rouge are an utter disaster .. have the teeshirt.

If you think it was bad in KK you should try it here in midwest, at 1 stage we had to disconnect the current from the bottom row of strip wire 'cos it was under water in places

charolais0153 · 06-06-2019 2:45pm

5.70 base and 10c extra for u’s and 10centts extra for lambs lighter than 20kg

Green farmer · 06-06-2019 2:55pm

kk.man wrote: »

I see your point but last year was a different story. We had an unreal spring and the 'early' lambers did well the few that is left. Hoggets were sought after because spring lambs weren't coming forward. They were reports of deaths both here and the UK.
Every year is different.

Yep, factories were more then happy to rely on the hoggets last year. This year all we got were stories of not wanting our produce from February onwards. They closed down the factory lines and sent lads home instead of looking for our lambs. Things only started to lift a week or two before easter. After that it was a fast collapse. I’ve a longer run to the factory then ormond, but made the trips and kept moving most of my stock. None went above 23.5kg’s and many at poor money. At this stage I’ve a few ewe hoggets left, but not many. Hopefully this year, there won’t be any drought and all will be gone by early autumn. But as you correctly said, no two years the same. What leaves me frustrated is when lambs are plentiful the price is weak, but when they were scarce, the price still remained weak. Cannt figure out that one.

Willfarman · 06-06-2019 8:44pm

The only answer is another cut in ewe numbers to put manners on them.

Dickie10 · 06-06-2019 11:08pm

the only thing to put these lads under manners is a hard brexit

Sheepman2 · 09-06-2019 3:27pm

Green farmer wrote: »

Yep, factories were more then happy to rely on the hoggets last year. This year all we got were stories of not wanting our produce from February onwards. They closed down the factory lines and sent lads home instead of looking for our lambs. Things only started to lift a week or two before easter. After that it was a fast collapse. I’ve a longer run to the factory then ormond, but made the trips and kept moving most of my stock. None went above 23.5kg’s and many at poor money. At this stage I’ve a few ewe hoggets left, but not many. Hopefully this year, there won’t be any drought and all will be gone by early autumn. But as you correctly said, no two years the same. What leaves me frustrated is when lambs are plentiful the price is weak, but when they were scarce, the price still remained weak. Cannt figure out that one.

They dont want us to loose the run of ourselves and make a few pound :P
In all fairness, if the factories were fair with us we'd be fair with them and supply inspec lambs, an extra €15-€20 a lamb consistently throughout the year would make it workable for us, and id doubt if itd bankrupt them:rolleyes:

_blaaz · 09-06-2019 3:41pm

Sheepman2 wrote: »

They dont want us to loose the run of ourselves and make a few pound :P
In all fairness, if the factories were fair with us we'd be fair with them and supply inspec lambs, an extra €15-€20 a lamb consistently throughout the year would make it workable for us, and id doubt if itd bankrupt them:rolleyes:

You've stumbled upon the issue...factories arent offering any incentive to produce inspec lambs and cutting like fcuk.to try force the issue....so lads arent bothered putting work into better sheep....only for dept clamping down on dirty animals would lads bother clipping own lambs before sending them in????

But i worked briefly with a lad buying lambs for.factories and amount of poorly finished lambs presented in marts is shocking.....but ended up.being bought up.anyway

At the factory i seen a lorryload of these mystical northern lambs....they are better quality lambs on average and tbh id be hard pressed to condemn someone for buying better quality animals

Green farmer · 09-06-2019 7:24pm

Sheepman2 wrote: »

They dont want us to loose the run of ourselves and make a few pound :P
In all fairness, if the factories were fair with us we'd be fair with them and supply inspec lambs, an extra €15-€20 a lamb consistently throughout the year would make it workable for us, and id doubt if itd bankrupt them:rolleyes:

That’s the issue, what’s the average sheep farmer making a year ? In many cases it’s only a fraction of the industrial wage. Not much fairness in that and a reason why the next generation isn’t “flocking” to join our ranks.

wrangler · 12-06-2019 10:51am

Lashing rain here this morning, I'm just after following an open trailer of lambs......wonder what they'll be like when they hit the factory, there was some amount of spray off the wheels of both the trailer and car going in on top of them

Sami23 · 12-06-2019 10:58am

What are factories paying up to at the moment - 20kg or 21kg ?

orm0nd · 12-06-2019 12:59pm

Sami23 wrote: »

What are factories paying up to at the moment - 20kg or 21kg ?

21 think some are on 20.5

Still loads of overweight lambs going in. For once can't say, I blame them for keeping weight limit low.

wrangler · 12-06-2019 6:05pm

Should be interesting tomorrow, we're looking after the groups lambs at the factory and we're bringing a tag reader with us.....we get a lot of poorly marked sheep and have to read the herd no. to identify the owner, some tags are difficult to read so the reader should be a huge help and will read the tag without catching the sheep.
The reader is only pocket size but we have a big stick reader as well that we could program to give the owners name from the herd no. but don't want to bring it to get stolen/wrecked