Spring lamb prices

wrangler

sheepfarmer92 wrote: »

Same price as above in navan today

Better than the beef trade at the moment,
Outlook seems to be good too for sheep.

Siamsa Sessions

wrangler wrote: »

Better than the beef trade at the moment,
Outlook seems to be good too for sheep.

The Journal claimed last week that a hard Brexit could reduce supply of lambs from Northern Ireland and "present difficulties" for processors (or some sort of wording like that).

That could only be good for farmers

Or would processors just let throughput fall rather than pay more to farmers? I don't think supermarkets would make their customers pay more for lamb so demand might fall overall?

buffalobilly

I read someplace that without the northern lamb one of the factories would have to close and that would not be so good if sheep stayed the same price that have been for the last year they would be all right

Green farmer

buffalobilly wrote: »

I read someplace that without the northern lamb one of the factories would have to close and that would not be so good if sheep stayed the same price that have been for the last year they would be all right

These things usually work themselves out. Without the excess lambs from England, factories would have to pay us more money for our lamb as they use the imported lamb to flood the markets when the need arises. Other side of that is the demand would reduce as we wouldn’t be selling the lambs back in to the uk supermarkets. But other flip side is there wouldn’t be any uk lambs on the French shelves to compete with ours. Overall, who knows what’s going to happen. Just get on with things and control what we can control and trust the rest will work itself out !!!

arctictree

What prices are ewes making these days? Have a few scanned empty that I need to be rid of.

sheepfarmer92

wrangler wrote: »

Better than the beef trade at the moment,
Outlook seems to be good too for sheep.

Yea the sheep trade is holding up, thank God we didn't buy heifers for finishing this year (because of the drought) I do think if ya like working with with sheep and have a good system they are hard bet as a farm enterprise

memorystick

Will factories be fussy about weights in the Spring? I bought store lambs for the first time so a little clueless about selling. All advice appreciated.

charolais0153

sheepfarmer92 wrote: »

Yea the sheep trade is holding up, thank God we didn't buy heifers for finishing this year (because of the drought) I do think if ya like working with with sheep and have a good system they are hard bet as a farm enterprise

I just cant imagine being fully sheep. Hard enough with 7 ewes/acre in sprimg and autumn. Need a mix in my opinion

Siamsa Sessions

memorystick wrote: »

Will factories be fussy about weights in the Spring? I bought store lambs for the first time so a little clueless about selling. All advice appreciated.

Factories usually pay to a maximum dead-weight of 22kg, perhaps even 23kg. Based on a 45% kill-out, the lambs should be 45-50kg live-weight.

How fussy they are depends on how plentiful lambs/hoggets are! If supplies are scarce, they're less likely to whinge about anything. But who knows if supplies will be scarce or not.

razor8

charolais0153 wrote: »

I just cant imagine being fully sheep. Hard enough with 7 ewes/acre in sprimg and autumn. Need a mix in my opinion

No wonder it is hard. 7 ewes and lambs an acre is massive stocking rate. Won’t be making any fodder at that rate. Isaac Crilly operates at 6/acre but feeds all concentrated & straw. Getting a spring like last year would be torture

Green farmer

razor8 wrote: »

No wonder it is hard. 7 ewes and lambs an acre is massive stocking rate. Won’t be making any fodder at that rate. Isaac Crilly operates at 6/acre but feeds all concentrated & straw. Getting a spring like last year would be torture

I’m struggling to keep them fed on 1/2 that stocking rate, be it on mixed land. You’d want top class land worked right to keep that going i’d imagine.

sheepfarmer92

charolais0153 wrote: »

I just cant imagine being fully sheep. Hard enough with 7 ewes/acre in sprimg and autumn. Need a mix in my opinion

7 ewes an acre must come with huge costs, most we had was 5, dropped back to 4 an acre now and everything is much easier, still have 800 ewes outside here and most will be staying out for lambing once the weather plays ball, but I agree about the mix, we usually summer finish heifers for that reason

Siamsa Sessions

Supposedly better for soil to have different types of grazing animals too. Don’t think the same internal worms affect sheep and cattle either, so alternating them helps “clean” the grass for the other.

charolais0153

razor8 wrote: »

No wonder it is hard. 7 ewes and lambs an acre is massive stocking rate. Won’t be making any fodder at that rate. Isaac Crilly operates at 6/acre but feeds all concentrated & straw. Getting a spring like last year would be torture

Hectare my bad :rolleyes:

razor8

charolais0153 wrote: »

Hectare my bad :rolleyes:

You had us all excited that you had come up with a new magic formula for making farming pay

Burrenfarmer99

Sold 6 today 43kg 106

orm0nd

Burrenfarmer99 wrote: »

Sold 6 today 43kg 106

Ennis?

Was going to go with a couple empty ewe lambs and culls but hadn't them sorted.

kk.man

Got 114 euro for 51kgs last week.

sheepfarmer92

Anyone know what good 2/3yr old in lamb ewes are making scanned in lamb?!

Lambman

Scanned in lamb carrying what? There €40 a head give or take difference on singles and twins. Singles probably €130-140 twins €170-180... cheapest way till buy sheep IMO... bringing in disease would be my only worry.

sheepfarmer92

Lambman wrote: »

Scanned in lamb carrying what? There €40 a head give or take difference on singles and twins. Singles probably €130-140 twins €170-180... cheapest way till buy sheep IMO... bringing in disease would be my only worry.

Well normally see lads selling ewes say scanned 1.8, yea wouldnt be going bear a mart I'd be on the look out if a lad was cutting back, etc buy them off the one farm, better than trying to buy cattle anyway

orm0nd

Lambman wrote: »

Scanned in lamb carrying what? There €40 a head give or take difference on singles and twins. Singles probably €130-140 twins €170-180... cheapest way till buy sheep IMO... bringing in disease would be my only worry.

Partial Clearance sale in Tullow last Tuesday. Remainder next week
Doubles up to 190

Couple of small lots carrying 3s sold as low as 140

Lambman

Agree with u there sheep farmer... your only buying someone else's bother buying in mart. As far as I see any hoggets scanned in lamb being sold in mart around here are hoggets farmers couldn't sell in September. Usually farmers who just run on lambs till sell as hoggets.

paddysdream

Any stir on prices for the coming week?

Being quoted 5:20 to 23kgs which is what they seem to be for the last couple of weeks.

early_riser

paddysdream wrote: »

Any stir on prices for the coming week?

Being quoted 5:20 to 23kgs which is what they seem to be for the last couple of weeks.

Seems to be as good as can be got.. quoted the same for lambs going in the morning

Green farmer

early_riser wrote: »

Seems to be as good as can be got.. quoted the same for lambs going in the morning

Wonder what numbers going through Marts and factories are like ?

ganmo

Green farmer wrote: »

Wonder what numbers going through Marts and factories are like ?

https://www.bordbia.ie/industry/farmers/pricetracking/sheep/Pages/Supply.aspx

2018 was 1% down on 2017
No figures for 2019 yet

Green farmer

ganmo wrote: »

https://www.bordbia.ie/industry/farmers/pricetracking/sheep/Pages/Supply.aspx

2018 was 1% down on 2017
No figures for 2019 yet

I haven’t been in a mart or factory yet this year, just wondering if numbers on the ground are getting scarce. A few days of half empty lairages might help move the price.

Willfarman

Appearently any fat lambs in Carnew last Thursday would be bringing the equivalent of 5.50 kg deadweight I’m informed.

Willfarman

Appearently any fat lambs in Carnew last Thursday would be bringing the equivalent of 5.50 kg deadweight I’m informed.