Beef price tracker 2

ABP are bring out a new scheme. It's inc U16 month bulls but I wonder will it be for all the year. It could be an attempt to encourage autumn calving of suckler's. It's for 18-28 month steers and heifers. Cattle have to be average of 24 months. U16 months bulls word pull your average age down but it's a contract based scheme.

It's trying to jump onto the 100 euro under 24 month slaughter sub promised by the government. It could cause a right glut of cattle October/November. However it could make late summer early autumn cattle very scarce especially U 30 months.

Ya feedlot cattle will struggle. Had not seen the single movement. It's calf/ weanling to slaughter or dairy farmers as stores to slaughter. But the average quoted price f@@ks it unless they stick to quoted prices. This is similar to when AA and HE schemes started there was a national quoted price that disappeared after a few years. The farmer supplier got only the quoted price on these cattle. It's even noticeable now with the HE scheme where mid sized supplier's where they bargain on base price do not get the HE bonuses

4.30 base for bullocks offered here over the weekend - midlands

What factory

I presume you are QA. Are they base prices or flat prices.

In other words they are giving you the AA and HE bonuses without being a member. They must be tight to give 20c on a single AA. I have seen that before when they are tight on breed numbers. I prefer R grade LM than AA. Some AA are poor to grade and weight.

Not sure if I would carry AA stores to the mart. There is still probably 150+ in finishing them in June/July maybe more if you get them out early. It might seem small money but beef is a small margin game. Selling and replacing leaves no margin either.

Got on a little bit better than I hoped. Got 10 cent breed bonus over base price for the whiteheads so €4.45 before grading. Nothing over 4- in fat score, majority were O= so €4.47/kg and weighing from 255-296kgs. The best grade in the whiteheads was an R= at 290kgs and she came in at €4.65/kg

Angus was an R- at 315 kg and €4.75/kg.

Limousines all made U= So €4.73/kg and weighed from 391-431kgs.

Overall very happy as no massive amount of ration used to finish them. The limousines have 400-450kg per head ate since mid October with the whiteheads + Angus only getting 2.5kgs of ration on top of about 6kgs of beet since coming off grass around the 20th November so about 150kgs of ration and about 350kgs of beet.

Also thrown into the mix is genotyping

And the best is that all is:

Feed records, medicine records and vet plan must be available to ABP on request.

Pay peanuts, expect monkeys comes to mind

Running Sucklers to beef and dairy to beef here, so it would suit. It's a measly return on single occupancy or reduced moves on cattle. Refuse to deal with ABP locally on a previous issue.

It will up the level of meal. And help to deal with the high levels of cost in feedlots. Essentially you are contracting cattle to them.

If farmers aren't careful or somewhat united against that type of shite they'll end up even worse than they are now.

It's on the way to supplying them with the vice and putting your balls in it for them...

On a general point of principle the less they know and the less **** meddling in your affairs they can do the better off you are.

Unless we want to end up like chicken producers in the US beholden to the likes of Tyson and Perdue.

That's my opinion....if we had sense we would try not to play ball on their terms.

I'm not stupid enough to believe divide and conquer won't work its just a pity to see it happening.

Next they will be looking to specify the feed you use and what supplier you take it from and comparing every farmer against an efficiency benchmark they dream up with cuts for the vast majority that don't etc .....it always starts off grand until it isn't with that type of **** imo.

You need them but make no mistake they are the enemy particularly when they get organised.

It shouldn't stray much farther than price per kilo with bonuses for certain breeds etc, they get a fair margin and after that stay the **** in your corner and stop meddling in the running of ours.

If you don't like it then drop the price and we drop the supply...if you need more as there's money to be made **** pay for it.

Something had to be done about the Jex cross bull calves. They were a few dealers flogging them at farmers in the last few years. At young ages it was difficult to tell the difference. I know of a dealer who last year had the yard full of 'british fr' bulls has very little since Christmas.

The main difficulty I see in the scheme is the minimum residentiary period. That would not suit a person who finishes short keep cattle.

Is no one on here finishing cattle anymore? Record prices and not a word about it. I Thought this thread would be buzzing. Posted the above 13 days ago and nothing.

Ive a load to go this week. Hard to get an accurate price from the papers etc. But looking like €4.50+ of a base for bullocks and €4.50+ for u grade bulls.

It’s good money in fairness. I wouldn’t like to be giving it though. They still need 150kg on them to come into a little over 410kg dead. It’ll be august at the earliest before he could kill them. Prices would want to remain strong for him. Even at that it is some money to have tied up in stock to make a small margin.