Mart Price Tracker

I say marts problem is firstly the amount of time it takes to get sales completed. If a lad is in the box he says yea or nay on the spot. Auctioneer has a chance to get them into a price he is happy with to complete the sale. A few weeks ago I had two out of three lots thrown up as seller was unhappy, I got to bring home 3 cattle instead of 10. I stopped bidding with 20 lots to go.

Finally lads that keep pushing cattle to the limit will be withdrawing up 50 + of there sales.

That’s why there’s no problem with the home bidder. Only doing what he’d have the auctioneer doing if he was beside him, tell him what he had to get to let them off and push as far as he dare with with phantom bids.

It’s up to the buyer to stop Bass! And if the seller is the highest bidder then that’s that at least you know where you stand and don’t have to wait for phone calls.

A friend of mine, stood in the box and gave the thumbs up for sale for his cattle, turned around and was walking away happy when the auctioneer says “hey sure these are yours as well”. My friend then put on his glasses,(he’s blind as a bat) and realised he’d sold another mans cattle for him before his own come in!

I was in the office when he was rang. He was pulling two more lots as well that made a nice bit more per Kg than mine. I was dropping out on one lot as it was as there was a runtish bullock in the lot. I have gone another 20 on the other bunch but it was immaterial when he pulled the four lots.

What I was p!ssed off over was the I could have bought a lot or two between than and the end of the mart

What breed of a bull do you mainly go for?

Sold 6 bullocks Monday.Weighed them saturday before and all weighed from 610kg to 695kg.All weighed average 55kg lighter on mart scales.Home scales is checked with 25kg bags and works perfect.50kg at 2.50/2.60euro/kg is a big loss per animal.

I expected 25 or 30kg weight loss but does over 50kg seem excessive?

So the bullock weighing 695 on Saturday made only 640 on Monday ? How long between loading on trailer / truck and mart scales ? Weight loss does seem excessive

Hard to beat the charolais, by your photos your producing top quality stock

interesting.....is there a way to reduce the weight loss? bar the obvious sell close to you and deliver near the sale time (which isn't always possible)

like would a feed of nuts or a bit hay before they goo be a good idea, does hay take a bit longer to pass through the digestive system.......

How long was it between when they stopped eating at urs and stood on the scales in the mart

AFAIK a lot of scales weight in 2kg increments. It a common mistake in checking scales accuracy. You would want to put on 150-200kgs in weight to check it accuracy.

A 2% weight difference is 14kgs at 700kgs. Put the bags up one by one and check the weight after every bag. Generally you will see no inaccuracies until 100kgs or more. If you do see inaccuracies at 50kgs usually your scales is well out

Your own weight would be more accurate but you need the exact same clothing and shoes on. However your own bathroom scales may be inaccurate.

Ah they had a long day out so , thanks

As Bass said above have a look in the trailer when she’s getting out and see what’s on the floor. If you were to gather all that and weigh it how much would it be? And what you see on the floor of the trailer is solids, the urine had to come out as well. An animal that size would let out a few litres of urine every time they go. Each litre weighs 1kg. When they’re standing in the pens they’ll be at the same thing as well.

Allow a bit of weight loss due to stress, sweating etc. and 24kgs on that size of animal isn’t excessive.

It’s all about understanding that and allowing for it when calculating the price you think your animals are worth based on mart weight.

That is the equivalent of 24litres of water. I would think it is very little. Most lads have no idea of the difference between fresh weight and mart weight. Did you ever watch the amount of liquid that comes out of a slurry tank in a truck. Most of the weight is lost in the truck spin. Especially if it's s distance.

A lot of the dealers I know would put the cattle in the night before and give them their fill of hay / haylage as its would be dryer and and the cattle would drink more. It probably helps them retain a few kgs but overall it wouldn't be that much. Once you move cattle at all in a trailer they will loose a few kgs (would guess 20 kgs handy enough) plus there can be a difference of circa 20 kgs between the scales in some marts. I know of 1 mart cattle always seem to weigh a bit heavier when they come from it than others.