Spring lamb prices

wrangler

charolais0153 wrote: »

That is absolutely ridiculous, I work for a farmer now that was in the better farm scheme a few years ago, he now has a lot less ewes and a lot less hassle, teagasc system works extremely well above in athenry when you have 20 lads knocking about, and the best facilities known to man, these belcalre and Suffolk ewes are the most Labour intensive ewes possible

3 students, 3 siblings, a father and mother, and himself, 330 ewes should be a doddle, how is that in anyway similar to a lad doing it by himself or with minimal help.
If they had to pay for labour I wonder how the balance sheet would look,
I bet he doesn't have 660 lambs weaned after being reared by the 330 ewes either

Father ran a better farm before he took over, the numbers are there alright, Father is our group coordnator too and my OH has been Chairman on and off so would know how many lambs he sells, Father still does most of the work . Father loads the groups lambs at seven every thurs morning , son never appears.
Siblings have jobs of heir own One student would be there three mths others there for the month of march. I can't see many sheep being there when the father stops. I think the rotation with tillage is a great job there, all fresh reseeds, real good tillage land.

charolais0153

wrangler wrote: »

Father ran a better farm before he took over, the numbers are there alright, Father is our group coordnator too and my OH has been Chairman on and off so would know how many lambs he sells, Father still does most of the work . Father loads the groups lambs at seven every thurs morning , son never appears.
Siblings have jobs of heir own One student would be there three mths others there for the month of march . I can't see many sheep being there when the father stops . I think the rotation with tillage is a great job there, all fresh reseeds, real good tillage land.

Reason I think that the future of lamb is safe enough I'd say

MIKEKC

charolais0153 wrote: »

Reason I think that the future of lamb is safe enough I'd say

Put 70 ewes to ram. Two cycles will be completed on Thursday. 6 not tipped yet. All scotch ewes in good condition. Never on hill. Seems very high. What are my options

razor8

JJayoo wrote: »

The wireless lights are a great job

Any links?

wrangler

razor8 wrote: »

Any links?

https://www.mccabefeeds.com/product/wireless-led-trailer-set?gclid=Cj0KCQiAhs79BRD0ARIsAC6XpaVk34sw6xAZSziB6n8WGnpbfisjkF_lgSMKQ3wI9kgdk23Z8DTEJiQaAhc3EALw_wcB

wrangler

charolais0153 wrote: »

Reason I think that the future of lamb is safe enough I'd say

Too much work, not enough money, same can be said about beef, drystock experiencing a race to the bottom,
Great opportunities for young people now other than farming.

charolais0153

charolais0153 wrote: »

Reason I think that the future of lamb is safe enough I'd say

Store lamb finishers will eventually like beef farmers get sick of working for nothing......lads giving 78 euro for 26 kg ram lambs are lunatics


All these lads buying cull sheep/lambs etc,i see v.few getting into ewes/going lambing next spring

Dickie10

wrangler wrote: »

I wouldn't criticise them for that, sheep were a miserable enterprise when there was 4m ewes in the country, It's grand the way it is.
Sheep are grand the way they are, you're not going to do much better than a ewee rearing two lambs and get them to the factory......... most serious sheep producers are at that stage, Teagasc are at that stage and have plenty projects going on and are finding the same thing, we follow their performance and can equal it without much bother

Aw definitley totally agree, a most sheep men have moved on from it being the half hobby along with the cattle being the main thing, those that are half hearted with sheep tend to be driven out by the hardships of not being set up correct and learning from each and every mistake through education and being organised. nobody throws sheep out in a field and forgets about them nowadays and if they do they wont last long at them, cleaning up a carcass and load of wool pulled around a field. Even the most simple sheep enterprise needs good management. Please God we fly under the radar for some time to come let the factories squirm for lambs. Brexit could well be a boom for us though, simple supply and demand.

I think there may be some things in our favour;
1)sheep are hated by most young farmers
2)dairy men had sheep in early 90s when we had over 5 million ewes that wont ever happen again.
3)most new young farmers are getting in on dairy.
4)irish farmers are addicted to suckler cows so most will plod away at that.
5) sheep farming in some regions of ireland wont be near as profitable as others and not always the obvious, Limerick/clare/north kerry soil types sont seem to suit fattening lambs, cavan,longford , monaghon are similar, even areas near me on kildare-meath border although beautiful looking land can be very light and sandy veins which suffer drought every june/july and lamb thrive suffers. you need to be just lucky if you have a good lamb fattening farm, very finicky , minerals are seriously important to thrive and fattening in lambs.

Thats my very limited experience anyway.

paddysdream

wrangler wrote: »

Don't know whether this is behind a pay wall, but yes the science is there to do it and teagasc developed the belclare.

https://www.farmersjournal.ie/over-850-lambs-born-from-330-ewes-in-co-offaly-265947

Personally I think this is too far, is there a reason to push the ewe and sheep farming any further

Have no knowledge of that particular farm or their circumstances but reading the article(had one free view left so what better reading on a wet Tuesday night than about sheep) its very very hard to see the logic in that system.
Headline figure of 880 lambs reared doesn't equate to anything really.

Any lamb with more than 25% Belcare that I have ever seen is a thing that is a hard finished sheep.Why do store finishers avoid them ?

A farm with 330 ewes needing that much labour is hard to understand. Ok good bit of pet rearing etc but always more than that here last 20 years(ewes not pets) and one labour (idiot) unit here.
Unsure if students etc are paid a good rate but if I sell anything over 1.6/1.7 lambs then that is plenty.Would grieve me to have to hand over perhaps 6 months wages(well 6/7 people for 3 weeks to a month would amount to the same I assume).At 10 euro an hour with 50 hrs a week its 1500 per head for the 3 weeks so x 7 is over 10k or 100 lambs alone gone.maybe I'm just too tight.

Give me a handy Texel/Char./Suff/Chev mongrel any day.
Would the extra lambs justify the costs involved.
Plus you are always on the edge at heavy stocking rate and if things go wrong they go wrong big style.
Whats the point in a huge scan,big lambing percentage when you have to powder feed 200 lambs?Plus how much meal would they consume to finish ?

Before anyone tells me about the wonders of rape ,catch crops etc ,been there done that and I wonder at times.
Grand of a fine backend but get a wet Autumn/Winter and the sheer misery of muck and wet makes it hard going.There are easier ways of turning a pound.

Back to this year.
How are people finding lamb kill out at the moment ?
Have last 25 ram lambs and 30 ewe lambs on ad lib to get rid of them.Decided to actually measure what they eat as very small numbers to meal this year compared to previous ones.
Rams were 36/37 kgs on average apart from 2 runts whilst ewe lambs were 34 kgs with 4 runts.
Bins went in 14 days ago.Intensive lamb ration at approx 300/ton bulk collected.No real deal on price as haven't seen rep. yet.
Put 450 kgs with rams and gone today so that's 18kgs a head or approx 1.3kgs/head/day.
Ewe bin got 250 kgs and also empty today so ate .8 kg/head/day.
Going to weigh tomorrow but ram lambs look almost ready whilst ewe lambs will take another while.Rams have that dead heavy weight that usually ensues a good kill out.
Ewe lambs a wee bit small for ad lib but at this stage just want rid as they hold up another field division.
Harder to get decent response from ewe lambs compared to rams on meal as they usually grow as well as put on condition whilst ram lambs really get going after a few days.

JJayoo

razor8 wrote: »

Any links?

https://www.atkins.ie/farm-shop/vehicle/lighting-accessories/wireless-led-trailer-set-xs130977

99euro at the moment

Lano Lynn

Dickie10 wrote: »

Aw definitley totally agree, a most sheep men have moved on from it being the half hobby along with the cattle being the main thing, those that are half hearted with sheep tend to be driven out by the hardships of not being set up correct and learning from each and every mistake through education and being organised. nobody throws sheep out in a field and forgets about them nowadays and if they do they wont last long at them, cleaning up a carcass and load of wool pulled around a field. Even the most simple sheep enterprise needs good management. Please God we fly under the radar for some time to come let the factories squirm for lambs. Brexit could well be a boom for us though, simple supply and demand.

I think there may be some things in our favour;
1)sheep are hated by most young farmers
2)dairy men had sheep in early 90s when we had over 5 million ewes that wont ever happen again.
3)most new young farmers are getting in on dairy.
4)irish farmers are addicted to suckler cows so most will plod away at that.
5) sheep farming in some regions of ireland wont be near as profitable as others and not always the obvious, Limerick/clare/north kerry soil types sont seem to suit fattening lambs, cavan,longford , monaghon are similar, even areas near me on kildare-meath border although beautiful looking land can be very light and sandy veins which suffer drought every june/july and lamb thrive suffers. you need to be just lucky if you have a good lamb fattening farm, very finicky , minerals are seriously important to thrive and fattening in lambs.

Thats my very limited experience anyway.

in theory brexit could be a help but have a sneaky feeling we will not be so lucky.....for one a lot of our cull ewe ends up in the uk.....wire.... steel....machine spares will go through the roof from simple gouging...

Jjameson

A two titted ewe needs to rear three lambs twice a year it seems!

kk.man

Sold 52kg lambs in mart today they made 126e and got no meal. Lambs are a flying trade for this time of the year.

Sami23

kk.man wrote: »

Sold 52kg lambs in mart today they made 126e and got no meal. Lambs are a flying trade for this time of the year.

When were they born ?

I sold 46kg for €117 last Thursday myself. Were getting a bit of lamb finisher for the last month. Very happy with price.

If only every year was like this year for Lamb Prices we'd be all happy I'd say.

kk.man

Sami23 wrote: »

When were they born ?

I sold 46kg for €117 last Thursday myself. Were getting a bit of lamb finisher for the last month. Very happy with price.

If only every year was like this year for Lamb Prices we'd be all happy I'd say.

I honestly don't know when they were born as I don't lamb anymore. When I buy speckled face ewe lambs they are a few occasions where one or two in the lot are unsuitable for my game. These were bought early autumn. So when ppl on here are thinking I paid more for replacements this year I will now have paid much less if lamb prices keep rising. I spent a good few hours around the sales yard trying to get bargains.

Sami23

kk.man wrote: »

I honestly don't know when they were born as I don't lamb anymore. When I buy speckled face ewe lambs they are a few occasions where one or two in the lot are unsuitable for my game. These were bought early autumn. So when ppl on here are thinking I paid more for replacements this year I will now have paid much less if lamb prices keep rising. I spent a good few hours around the sales yard trying to get bargains.

Oh sorry didn't know they were stores that you had bought in.
On average what did you pay for them

kk.man

Sami23 wrote: »

Oh sorry didn't know they were stores that you had bought in.
On average what did you pay for them

That lot was 90e and maybe 60% speckled. The ones I sold yesterday were charolais. If I was ever in the store game I'd buy these types. They powered on from the day I bought them.

However that's the 1dt draft the drafting from now onwards will require meal. All the good cattle 'aftergrass' will deminish in the next 3 weeks here and the rest of my 'by product' are not of the charolais variety 😢

Young95

Any quotes for the week ?

Tileman

Young95 wrote: »

Any quotes for the week ?

5.60 to 22.5 is what I got yesterday

Kewreeuss

The top price was €127 for a pen of 13 weighing 57 kgs. A pen of 24 weighing 52 kgs sold for €127 and a pen of 20 weighing 50 kgs made €123.

I read this in the paper just now as I was browsing. I don't know how to make sense of it.
Does it mean that a sheep farmer got €127 for 13 lambs who altogether weighed 57 kg? Thats not much per kilo. and the average lamb is under 5 kg.
I don't think I ever saw little lamb for sale in the supermarket.
Have I got it wrong?

White Clover

Kewreeuss wrote: »

The top price was €127 for a pen of 13 weighing 57 kgs. A pen of 24 weighing 52 kgs sold for €127 and a pen of 20 weighing 50 kgs made €123.

I read this in the paper just now as I was browsing. I don't know how to make sense of it.
Does it mean that a sheep farmer got €127 for 13 lambs who altogether weighed 57 kg? Thats not much per kilo. and the average lamb is under 5 kg.
I don't think I ever saw little lamb for sale in the supermarket.
Have I got it wrong?

A group of 13 lambs weighing 57kg liveweight each made €127 each

White Clover

Tileman wrote: »

5.60 to 22.5 is what I got yesterday

Can't be long until its 23 now either. Hopefully the hogget ladies and men do well in the first couple of months of the new year.

Kewreeuss

Thank you for explaining. it doesn't seem like very much for a kilo.

A sheep farmer would need to sell a lot of sheep.

White Clover

Kewreeuss wrote: »

Thank you for explaining. it doesn't seem like very much for a kilo.

A sheep farmer would need to sell a lot of sheep.

As an old neighbour used to say "don't tell me but ask me"
Sheep are good this year compared to other years but you would need to be selling 800 to 1000 lambs at this years price to make the average industrial wage.
A farmer would need to own all the land for that.

Siamsa Sessions

White Clover wrote: »

As an old neighbour used to say "don't tell me but ask me"
Sheep are good this year compared to other years but you would need to be selling 800 to 1000 lambs at this years price to make the average industrial wage.
A farmer would need to own all the land for that.

And that same farmer would need to own a fairly big parcel of ground to produce that many lambs.

Back of a fag box figures:

1000 lambs, weaned at 1.7 (assuming he or she is a good farmer!) = 600 ewes when you factor in mortality. Stocked at 4 ewes/acre = 150 acres. And that's before you have space for a few sheds and a decent handling yard, neither of which come for free.

Siamsa Sessions

Siamsa Sessions wrote: »

And that same farmer would need to own a fairly big parcel of ground to produce that many lambs.

Back of a fag box figures:

1000 lambs, weaned at 1.7 (assuming he or she is a good farmer!) = 600 ewes when you factor in mortality. Stocked at 4 ewes/acre = 150 acres. And that's before you have space for a few sheds and a decent handling yard, neither of which come for free.

You've not allowed for replacements?

But how.much land would yous require to put 1000 store lambs,average keep of 8 weeks through

paddysdream

Kewreeuss wrote: »

Thank you for explaining. it doesn't seem like very much for a kilo.

A sheep farmer would need to sell a lot of sheep.

Think Teagasc figure is approx. 18 euro profit per lamb.
At that figure would it take approx 2200 lambs sold to give average Irish wage of 40k.
That's ballpark 1300/1400 ewes lambing per year (selling little under 1.7 lambs per ewe which I imagine is above average for Ireland esp. for as large a flock as that.
Fair bit of work for 1 labour unit without any return on investment.
All owned land would be approx. 300 acres needed at minimum for above flock so stock,buildings,machinery and land would be 4 million euro looking for a return.

Box09

paddysdream wrote: »

Think Teagasc figure is approx. 18 euro profit per lamb.
At that figure would it take approx 2200 lambs sold to give average Irish wage of 40k.
That's ballpark 1300/1400 ewes lambing per year (selling little under 1.7 lambs per ewe which I imagine is above average for Ireland esp. for as large a flock as that.
Fair bit of work for 1 labour unit without any return on investment.
All owned land would be approx. 300 acres needed at minimum for above flock so stock,buildings,machinery and land would be 4 million euro looking for a return.

I'm not sure of your figures, i think you paint a darker picture. But you are on the right track you would need to sell a serious amount of lambs to get a standard wage. I reckon at least 800 for the average wage in Ireland.

wrangler

paddysdream wrote: »

Think Teagasc figure is approx. 18 euro profit per lamb.
At that figure would it take approx 2200 lambs sold to give average Irish wage of 40k.
That's ballpark 1300/1400 ewes lambing per year (selling little under 1.7 lambs per ewe which I imagine is above average for Ireland esp. for as large a flock as that.
Fair bit of work for 1 labour unit without any return on investment.
All owned land would be approx. 300 acres needed at minimum for above flock so stock,buildings,machinery and land would be 4 million euro looking for a return.

If you thought like that you wouldn't be farming, most farms have BPS , GLAS, ANC, SHEEP WELFARE, ETC. But farming is on its last legs if those subs aren't kept going,
Pretty stupid time for farmers not to have a lobby organisation because they're going to the wall same as farmers.

paddysdream

wrangler wrote: »

If you thought like that you wouldn't be farming, most farms have BPS , GLAS, ANC, SHEEP WELFARE, ETC. But farming is on its last legs if those subs aren't kept going,
Pretty stupid time for farmers not to have a lobby organisation because they're going to the wall same as farmers.

Agree 100%.Have BPS ,GLAS and Sheep Welfare scheme here and without those things would be tight to say the least.
Just pointing out what you would need from market returns alone which some seem to think is the way forward !!!

Far as I can see all the direct supports are much more important than the actual price received for the lamb at times although a good price is also very welcome.