Mart Price Tracker

Albert Johnson

Lime Tree Farm wrote: »

“Face coverings will be mandatory for everyone in any area of the mart premises, as well as strict 2m social distancing. Marts must prevent people from congregating in the mart car park or at entry ways to the mart buildings” https://www.farmersjournal.ie/lockdown-latest-how-marts-will-operate-592494

This must in response to reports of groups crowding around their devices in mart car parks to view online auctions.

I still argue that social distancing around the ringside was better than groups of people standing around the yard or sitting in the cab of a lorry. I'd imagine that most ringsides could accommodate circa 20 individuals in a safe and responsible manner regarding distancing. In a lot of cases this would cater for the number of interested buyers actually present in the mart. The biggest problem is theres a large percentage of mart goers that do little to no business on most visits, there passing the day whilst watching what the neighbours are doing or as during the last week before Xmas simply looking for a complementary calendar out of the office. If you got these people plus the sellers off the premises you'd have a much smaller volume of people to deal with.

The online bidding system is still available to those that wish to use it for whatever reason. Some will find it more convenient where as other particularly older farmer's are reluctant to attend a mart atm but still wish to do business. I've witnessed groups of individuals sitting in the cab of a lorry or some other vantage point while the sale is ongoing and that has to be riskier than being ringside and observing best practice. No doubt I'll be told that the spaces ringside would be reserved for "the boys" and it will descend into the usual them versus us debate about dealer's, tanglers and crooked auctioneers.

bogman_bass

A thought crossed my mind today. With all the talk of Roan heifers are roan Bullocks getting any premium in the mart?

richie123

bogman_bass wrote: »

A thought crossed my mind today. With all the talk of Roan heifers are roan Bullocks getting any premium in the mart?

What's the craic with this roan breed?
Are they making 5 plus euro in the factory ?
Other than lads thinking they're great stock what's the actual reason they're making such good money ?all the makings of a Ponzi scheme or bitcoin.no intrinsic value behind the crazy prices

Bass Reeves

richie123 wrote: »

What's the craic with this roan breed?
Are they making 5 plus euro in the factory ?
Other than lads thinking they're great stock what's the actual reason they're making such good money ?all the makings of a Ponzi scheme or bitcoin.no intrinsic value behind the crazy prices

Roadside field cattle I say. I remember seeing it at marts 10 years ago. Never a fan of shorthorns cattle as there ability to gain weight would be below average. Fellas have a fad for shorthorns breeding in cows in certain parts of the country

Who2

Bass Reeves wrote: »

Roadside field cattle I say. I remember seeing it at marts 10 years ago. Never a fan of shorthorns cattle as there ability to gain weight would be below average. Fellas have a fad for shorthorns breeding in cows in certain parts of the country

Most arent shorthorn, 90%are lm x bb with the roan result.

Albert Johnson

Bass Reeves wrote: »

Roadside field cattle I say. I remember seeing it at marts 10 years ago. Never a fan of shorthorns cattle as there ability to gain weight would be below average. Fellas have a fad for shorthorns breeding in cows in certain parts of the country

The roadside type top quality cattle aren't usually Shorthorn bred though, as Who has stated there usually LM crossed with BB. As for the fad for SH bred cows there better suited to marginal type land than the more continental type cows.

The beef SH type are in a similar league to an AA or proper whitehead cow when it comes to hardiness, mothering ability, longevity ect. You have the added bonus of a coloured calf off a LM or CH bull as opposed to a black or mousy type calf off an AA or whitehead cow and the same bull which makes a big difference if selling as weanlings. Finally there's always custom for a good SH heifer weanling regardless of weight although there hard sourced and the best part of many so called SH is the colour. Granted a SH bull weanling isn't in that great of demand although I believe there's a bonus scheme for SH in the North similar to our AA bonus.

bogman_bass

Albert Johnson wrote: »

The roadside type top quality cattle aren't usually Shorthorn bred though, as Who has stated there usually LM crossed with BB. As for the fad for SH bred cows there better suited to marginal type land than the more continental type cows.

The beef SH type are in a similar league to an AA or proper whitehead cow when it comes to hardiness, mothering ability, longevity ect. You have the added bonus of a coloured calf off a LM or CH bull as opposed to a black or mousy type calf off an AA or whitehead cow and the same bull which makes a big difference if selling as weanlings. Finally there's always custom for a good SH heifer weanling regardless of weight although there hard sourced and the best part of many so called SH is the colour. Granted a SH bull weanling isn't in that great of demand although I believe there's a bonus scheme for SH in the North similar to our AA bonus.

As said already these Roan cattle that are in fashion at the moment have nothing to do with shorthorns.
In a way it’s no different to the golden Charolais. Another animal that is over priced based on its colour

Albert Johnson

bogman_bass wrote: »

As said already these Roan cattle that are in fashion at the moment have nothing to do with shorthorns.
In a way it’s no different to the golden Charolais. Another animal that is over priced based on its colour

In regards to the orange CH they are generally overpriced oftentimes being even dearer than the equivalent quality white CH weanling. The only reason I could give for this apart from the fact that there more pleasing to look at is this. Usually a bright orange coloured CH calf is bred out of a CH or similar continental type cow. This would lead you to believe that the resulting weanling should develop into a larger and more muscular animal than a mousy CH bred out of a smaller AA or more traditional type cow. Obviously this isn't a hard or fast rule and there's as much variation within as across breeds.

The fact that our (Irish) traditional breeds are predominantly darker coloured for example Kerry and Dexter or roan/brindled eg Irish moiled and Droimeann is something that has intrigued me. It's a similar story for much of the UK breeds especially those from more marginal area's eg Welsh Black, AA, Highland, Galloway ect.

It's only when you enter into the better pastures that the lighter coloured breeds become commonplace eg Devon Red, White Park, Lincoln Red, Hereford, Jersey ect. The lighter coloured breeds are again numerous throughout Europe eg CH, Limousine, Parthenaise, Blondes, Simmental ect. I can't think of any beef or dual purpose European breeds that are black although there's a few that are born dark and lighten over time eg Romagnola.

Who2

bogman_bass wrote: »

As said already these Roan cattle that are in fashion at the moment have nothing to do with shorthorns.
In a way it’s no different to the golden Charolais. Another animal that is over priced based on its colour

I used to think that too but I see it here put a pure lm beside a pure ch and then a cross between the two, as soon as you start feeding the orange ch will leave the others sitting. The ch will get into the heaviest weight and take a ball of feeding the lm will get a set weight, the cross gives a nice balanced calf. Put the ch bull to a proper roan and your adding a serious kick of muscle to the colour. If the lm*bb is black you will only get the right colour the odd time. I know it’s different if your feeding on yourself but when I’m selling as a weanlings I have to get everything right to make a profit. I’m very fond of roan heifers , a lot is the look but they do tend to throw the right calf if bred correctly.

patsy_mccabe

Yellow charolais benefit from hybrid vigour. Most cows now have lim breeding. Crossed with a char bull, brings that orange yellow colour. No other cross brings it, so little risk for buyers.

memorystick

Never buy a red with a black nose.

tanko

patsy_mccabe wrote: »

Yellow charolais benefit from hybrid vigour. Most cows now have lim breeding. Crossed with a char bull, brings that orange yellow colour. No other cross brings it, so little risk for buyers.

A Charolais bull on Saler cows will bring golden yellow calves also.

Butcher Boy

memorystick wrote: »

Never buy a red with a black nose.

why?

Who2

tanko wrote: »

A Charolais bull on Saler cows will bring golden yellow calves also.

A nice hairy type calf with good weight gain but can be slightly plainer.

charolais0153

tanko wrote: »

A Charolais bull on Saler cows will bring golden yellow calves also.

They bring them darker , more orange than yellow , not a patch on a limousine cow imo

forgottenhills

Albert Johnson wrote: »

The fact that our (Irish) traditional breeds are predominantly darker coloured for example Kerry and Dexter or roan/brindled eg Irish moiled and Droimeann is something that has intrigued me. It's a similar story for much of the UK breeds especially those from more marginal area's eg Welsh Black, AA, Highland, Galloway ect.

Maybe the traditional Irish cattle breeds were black because of all the cattle raids in days of yore (you could hide the black ones easier at night)? Ireland itself was also traditionally depicted as a black cow in old poems and stories.

tanko

charolais0153 wrote: »

They bring them darker , more orange than yellow , not a patch on a limousine cow imo

Not in my experience, a neighbor of mine has a herd of limousin and Saler cows and a CH bull. The calves are almost all golden yellow, it’s hard to tell which calves are off the Lim cows and which are off the Salers, he has well shaped Saler cows.
The calves off the Saler cows sell just as well also.

orm0nd

Albert Johnson wrote: »

I still argue that social distancing around the ringside was better than groups of people standing around the yard or sitting in the cab of a lorry. I'd imagine that most ringsides could accommodate circa 20 individuals in a safe and responsible manner regarding distancing. In a lot of cases this would cater for the number of interested buyers actually present in the mart. The biggest problem is theres a large percentage of mart goers that do little to no business on most visits, there passing the day whilst watching what the neighbours are doing or as during the last week before Xmas simply looking for a complementary calendar out of the office. If you got these people plus the sellers off the premises you'd have a much smaller volume of people to deal with.

The online bidding system is still available to those that wish to use it for whatever reason. Some will find it more convenient where as other particularly older farmer's are reluctant to attend a mart atm but still wish to do business. I've witnessed groups of individuals sitting in the cab of a lorry or some other vantage point while the sale is ongoing and that has to be riskier than being ringside and observing best practice. No doubt I'll be told that the spaces ringside would be reserved for "the boys" and it will descend into the usual them versus us debate about dealer's, tanglers and crooked auctioneers.

5k new cases to day, fair play to the marts that pulled this week's sales ,

if ringside bidding never opened again it would'nt worry me and I certianly will not be entering any ring

Albert Johnson

orm0nd wrote: »

5k new cases to day, fair play to the marts that pulled this week's sales ,

if ringside bidding never opened again it would'nt worry me and I certianly will not be entering any ring

To be fair the marts successful operated both online and ringside sales for nearly 2 months leading up to Xmas. Everyone concerned put in substantial effort to make this so and I don't believe the presence of ringside buyers has anything do with the recent explosion in case number's. I would still support a closure of marts for another fortnight until we see can any impact be made upon our current situation. As for your views on ringside bidding in the future your entitled to your opinion but I believe ringside buyer's will always be a factor moving forward.

Dunedin

Re colour of cattle. How you explain same cow and same bull bring red calf one year and black calf following year. I’ve had this quite a few times.

The first thing I look for is a live calf and the last thing I look for is a particular colour. I finish all at stock here and I can tell you the colour has no bearing on the price when they’re hanging up.

I used to sell a few springers at home. Lads only wanted red ones. I’ve seen lads leave better black heifers behind and take a red one.

mahoney_j

orm0nd wrote: »

5k new cases to day, fair play to the marts that pulled this week's sales ,

if ringside bidding never opened again it would'nt worry me and I certianly will not be entering any ring

Online sales and bidding are a great thing and I’m saying that as a buyer and seller if I want to purchase and I wanted to physically see a lot I’d be happy to be given a slot it’s a 2 minute in/out job one thing I think marts have to improve on is online sales catalogue ,for the dairy side I’m thinking like the sales catalogue u generate on herd plus ,all the info u need Is there .I rang Newport re there recent sale and no catalogue nor was anyone able to tell me who’s stock was for sale .
Online bidding cuts out all the crap and intimidation that’s allowed at some marts

charolais0153

Dunedin wrote: »

Re colour of cattle. How you explain same cow and same bull bring red calf one year and black calf following year. I’ve had this quite a few times.

The first thing I look for is a live calf and the last thing I look for is a particular colour. I finish all at stock here and I can tell you the colour has no bearing on the price when they’re hanging up.

I used to sell a few springers at home. Lads only wanted red ones. I’ve seen lads leave better black heifers behind and take a red one.

Black is dominant over red which is why when u put a Red Bull on friesican cow u get a black calf, but the resulting calf has a red gene in it but it’s not shown so when u cross again it has a 50:50 chance of being red or black

Bought a serious black lim heifer here this , will have a serious blue calf

memorystick

Butcher Boy wrote: »

why?

Could be a touch of Jr or so I’ve been told.


You never see those Black Whiteheads with the splats of black across their heads anymore.

k mac

memorystick wrote: »

Could be a touch of Jr or so I’ve been told.


You never see those Black Whiteheads with the splats of black across their heads anymore.

If they have the splats of black across their heads does that mean there is jersey in them?

Butcher Boy

memorystick wrote: »

Could be a touch of Jr or so I’ve been told.


You never see those Black Whiteheads with the splats of black across their heads anymore.

Just wondering I bought a real nice red lm incalf heifer off my brother she had a black nose it is all continental cows he keeps where did the black nose come from.

Base price

Butcher Boy wrote: »

Just wondering I bought a real nice red lm incalf heifer off my brother she had a black nose it is all continental cows he keeps where did the black nose come from.

There could be angus or aubrac in the heifer.
Some/if not all dairy farmers with cross bred herds (FRx/JEx) use aubrac as well as hereford and angus ai on cows to try and disguise the Jersey influence in the calves.
Edit to add - piedmontese have black noses too.

memorystick

Black noses matter.

Say my name

Butcher Boy wrote: »

Just wondering I bought a real nice red lm incalf heifer off my brother she had a black nose it is all continental cows he keeps where did the black nose come from.

You can get pedigree limousins with black muzzles.
You can get pedigree limousins with black all over too.

marathon

Have 3 Angus fat cows at approximately 600 kilos what they worth? They 5 years old and average quality

Grueller

marathon wrote: »

Have 3 Angus fat cows at approximately 600 kilos what they worth? They 5 years old and average quality

€950-€1000 I would say but I am not that good at this game.

Who2

marathon wrote: »

Have 3 Angus fat cows at approximately 600 kilos what they worth? They 5 years old and average quality

850-950 depending on quality. culls are only going to go one way over the next while id be guessing.

marathon

Who2 wrote: »

850-950 depending on quality. culls are only going to go one way over the next while id be guessing.

I’m geussing u mean downward in price?

Who2

marathon wrote: »

I’m geussing u mean downward in price?

yes.

marathon

Who2 wrote: »

yes.

Get rid them this week so. Cheers

Base price

One reason to postpone mart sales

https://www.farmersjournal.ie/young-single-but-not-to-mingle-594130

ruwithme

Base price wrote: »

One reason to postpone mart sales

https://www.farmersjournal.ie/young-single-but-not-to-mingle-594130

I've no idea what the youth may or may not have being up too over Christmas,but i do know off a number of long in the tooth folk round our way who done a damn good bit of socialising in each other's homes over a couple of days at Christmas.

Listening to local radio recently & people moralising over the youth gathering. Clearly wasn't only them at it.

DukeCaboom

The two biggest spreaders down here was a contractor who'd a massive Christmas party in the village.
The other was a clown who had a 50th bday party in a marquee he set up at home.

Inexcusable really.

Dozer1

Got text from castleisland mart today new manager in for the new year. Anyone dealt with him before wonder will it bring a return in numbers etc would be great if it came back as a mart

50HX

Dozer1 wrote: »

Got text from castleisland mart today new manager in for the new year. Anyone dealt with him before wonder will it bring a return in numbers etc would be great if it came back as a mart

Is hoperfect so

It was "the"weakling mart one time

It'll be interesting to see if it hits gortatlea

DukeCaboom

50HX wrote: »

Is hoperfect so

It was "the"weakling mart one time

It'll be interesting to see if it hits gortatlea

Pity he didn't get the job after Dick when he knew the run of the place so well.

cute geoge

who is the man ye are on about

DukeCaboom

cute geoge wrote: »

who is the man ye are on about

Neillus mc auliffe from Cordal. He's the manager in Dingle. He used to be an auctioneer in Castleisland years ago.

Murang

DukeCaboom wrote: »

The two biggest spreaders down here was a contractor who'd a massive Christmas party in the village.
The other was a clown who had a 50th bday party in a marquee he set up at home.

Inexcusable really.

They should be charged and fined about 10 grand each that’s the only way to cut out that stupidity

Albert Johnson

Sold 5 bullocks in Castlerea today for an uncle, 4 CHx nd 1 Sim/CHx all spring 19 born.

785kg €1690 (Sim/CHX)
745kg €1610 orange CHx
605kg €1350 white CHx
610kg €1410 orange CHx
585kg €1370 orange CHx

They'd have been bought as weanlings in autumn 2019 and he'd have sold the 2 oldest heaviest bullocks last October but got locked with Tb so only got clear last week. He'd have been feeding lots of nuts all winter but I thought he got on good enough, he's happy himself and I'll buy a few replacements in the coming weeks.

Bass Reeves

Albert Johnson wrote: »

Sold 5 bullocks in Castlerea today for an uncle, 4 CHx nd 1 Sim/CHx all spring 19 born.

785kg €1690 (Sim/CHX)
745kg €1610 orange CHx
605kg €1350 white CHx
610kg €1410 orange CHx
585kg €1370 orange CHx

They'd have been bought as weanlings in autumn 2019 and he'd have sold the 2 oldest heaviest bullocks last October but got locked with Tb so only got clear last week. He'd have been feeding lots of nuts all winter but I thought he got on good enough, he's happy himself and I'll buy a few replacements in the coming weeks.

The first two would probably have made 50ish more in the factory provided he was QA. The third made about 60-70 more than the factory the last two made up on a hundred more than factory price. On balance he about 200 ahead of factory price on the 5, in total

Albert Johnson

Bass Reeves wrote: »

The first two would probably have made 50ish more in the factory provided he was QA. The third made about 60-70 more than the factory the last two made up on a hundred more than factory price. On balance he about 200 ahead of factory price on the 5, in total

He's not QA and the heaviest bullock was the worst fleshed and grading bullock imo, he was a gutty type lad but weighed well. The second bullock was the pick of them, a big long tight sort. He'd carry more weight but probably was fleshed enough. The other 3 were much of a muchness and weighed well but they'd have lots of nuts got.

DBK1

Albert Johnson wrote: »

Sold 5 bullocks in Castlerea today for an uncle, 4 CHx nd 1 Sim/CHx all spring 19 born.

785kg €1690 (Sim/CHX)
745kg €1610 orange CHx
605kg €1350 white CHx
610kg €1410 orange CHx
585kg €1370 orange CHx

They'd have been bought as weanlings in autumn 2019 and he'd have sold the 2 oldest heaviest bullocks last October but got locked with Tb so only got clear last week. He'd have been feeding lots of nuts all winter but I thought he got on good enough, he's happy himself and I'll buy a few replacements in the coming weeks.

For non QA and assuming they were grading R/R+ he definitely surpassed what he would get in the factory. The factory agents buying in the mart would be expecting 58 to 60% killout based on the mart weight for R grades. That would be equal to a 55 to 57% killout on a fresh weight in your yard. On them figures he’s going home with a few hundred more than he would have got in the factory.

That then leads to a few questions; if they were near fit to kill how does that man that bought them get a twist out of them? Is he getting them in as QA even though they probably won’t be in his herd for the required time?

And as a matter of interest where does the non QA meat go to does anyone know? The Bord Bia regulations we all have to meet are to keep the foreign trade happy so you would assume there’s no non QA meat being exported. We are told only to buy meat with the Bord Bia logo in shops here so where does the non QA meat go?

k mac

Jjameson wrote: »

All beef from last 70 days on QA farm is labelled as QA regardless of movements age or grade, this label only really applies then to large British retail, a few European retailers ,our own domestic retail, and of course Mac Donald’s. Bord bia were claiming Chinese buyers of offal and cheap trim but in fairness that would look illogical to all but the most naive of us.

Bord bia inspect producers at similar intervals to the processors and I have never been able to deduce how intrusive they are allowed to be on a scheduled day in such an environment!

All non bord bia labelled beef is terrible stuff that can’t be sold of course...

Am a bit confused by this. Basically if I am quality assured and have cattle with more than 4 movements that I bring to the factory I won' t get the QA bonus as they have too many movements. However the meat from the same cattle can be classed as QA as they spent more than the last 70 days on my QA farm before being slaughtered. I'm praying I have this wrong...or I will be rightly pissed off!!

Bass Reeves

Albert Johnson wrote: »

He's not QA and the heaviest bullock was the worst fleshed and grading bullock imo, he was a gutty type lad but weighed well. The second bullock was the pick of them, a big long tight sort. He'd carry more weight but probably was fleshed enough. The other 3 were much of a muchness and weighed well but they'd have lots of nuts got.

For Non QA cattle he was another 380 ahead and that is if the processor was willing to pay same base for non QA cattle some processor's pay 10-20c lower base.

I not sure if these cattle would KO 58-60% off mart weight. The lighter ones would be 3-/= at best. The Gutty lad might only grade R-/=. He was probably dairy breeding nothing wrong with that as long as they have good weight gain.

O have seldom see a CH that would not carry more weight. However they can often be ok spec wise at 600kgs LW. There is no penalty for FS2+ when an animal is grading R- or better.

Neighbour took a pair of CH bullocks to the mart last September. They weighted 575kgs and were only making 1050. He refused to sell he was looking for 2/kg. He had a few.more as well heifers and Bullocks so fed them outside on 3kgs, silage and grass as long as they had it early December. The two he refused to sell killed around 360 and made 1430 net. The heifers netted about 1260 euro and an AA bullock made nearly 1300 euro. He slaughtered them before Christmas. He has another six to go yet

Albert Johnson

Bass Reeves wrote: »

For Non QA cattle he was another 380 ahead and that is if the processor was willing to pay same base for non QA cattle some processor's pay 10-20c lower base.

I not sure if these cattle would KO 58-60% off mart weight. The lighter ones would be 3-/= at best. The Gutty lad might only grade R-/=. He was probably dairy breeding nothing wrong with that as long as they have good weight gain.

O have seldom see a CH that would not carry more weight. However they can often be ok spec wise at 600kgs LW. There is no penalty for FS2+ when an animal is grading R- or better.

Neighbour took a pair of CH bullocks to the mart last September. They weighted 575kgs and were only making 1050. He refused to sell he was looking for 2/kg. He had a few.more as well heifers and Bullocks so fed them outside on 3kgs, silage and grass as long as they had it early December. The two he refused to sell killed around 360 and made 1430 net. The heifers netted about 1260 euro and an AA bullock made nearly 1300 euro. He slaughtered them before Christmas. He has another six to go yet

I doubt if they'd kill out 58%-60% off mart weight either as they were only about 4 hours in the mart with an hours transport so they'd hardly be emptied out that much. The gutty lad was suckler bred but he was big in the middle and more like a cow than a bullock when it came to confirmation. Maybe I was being overly harsh on him but I'd still consider him the poorest quality of the bunch.

I agree that most CHx would be fit to take more feeding and oftentimes it's fit rather than fat that's the deciding factor. However imo this lad was a right sort of a bullock and I'd reckon you could feed him until June and he'd still be okay fat wise. Tbh I thought he'd have closed nearer to the €1700 given what the first bullock made but I still wasn't complaining.

Without seeing your neighbours bullocks that was poor money in September for them at that weight. I'm assuming they were still under age and had sufficient time left to slaughter? I'd consider €2 a kilo the minimum price for average continental stores at any time and I'd be hoping for another 10 or 15 cents with it.