Beef price tracker 2

When you say middling quality would you mean O grade or R grade? And when you say fat do you mean fat enough to kill?

If you’re not QA’d you got a good price regardless.

If you are QA’d and she was an O grade you got her value, she’d have killed about 250kgs and made €1,200 to €1,220.

if she was an R grade she’d have killed maybe 8 or 10 kgs more and made €1,240 - €1,280.

You got 2.42/kg. At 495kgs it highly unlikely she would an R unless she was mud fat. More than likely she would kill O=/,+ and she might fall back to O- but unlikely.

With one you might have to fight hard or have a very good relationship with a agent to even get a base of 4.5/kg. At O= she make 1150, at O+ 1170.

If she fed back to an O- she be 1120and that is if they paid the AA bonus on her.

You did all right with her. You should be able to buy a nice tidy yearling 230/240 kgs for less than 600 euro. You made your margin that is all you can do

Years ago I saw an article about a large suckker farmer in the UK. His land was very hilly. He use to source FR/BB cows and use a top quality AA bull on them. He used to finish everything. He used have a certain amount of U's in theie calves.

If a lad was using AI on good quality LM heifers he probably get Upgrade AA off them.

Fuel increases I can probably live with but I love your optimism re retaining high fertiliser prices.

Maybe I’m looking at it too short term but on quick calculations my expenses will rise by €8k this year and output at €4.50 base will see increase of €5k. That’s €3k loss at the exact same input. I need beef at €5 base to effectively break even and above that to see increased profit.

I would be fairly confident that beef will see a steady increase but even at €5 which is not break even really as most farmers claim to be bordering loss making at last years input/output, all its doing is increasing the financial risk that farmers are carrying.

hope your right though and not me.

Killed cattle last year on the morning of the test. Didn’t think there was any issue with

I have often killed on morning of test its not a problem

the extra cost is primarily fert increase. Normal year fert bill is €5k and on 60 acres I wouldn’t think excessive. Same amount this year will be €12 k (not that I’ll be shaking same amount 😞😞) not overly concerned about meal increases as I feed very little anyways

Another example is slurry spread. Put out with pipe last two years for €500 - €800 cost for this year for the same amount.

Have invested huge amount in farm over last 5-10 years to make it handier as mainly a one man band here. But nearing a point now that it’s Normal maintenance cost now. Would always be conscious of cost but not feasible for me to reduce to the extent of the cost of increases- harsh reality of farming just now.

the big concern I’d have with rising cattle prices is farmers get accustomed to same and invest in stock/winter finishing/fert/etc and then a sharp price drop comes. Remember it’s not so long ago that beef was €3.40. Imagine trying to pay a merchant bill for fert and meal on the back of something like that.

anyways, not disagreeing with you re costs and all that but just don’t think it’s not as simple as high price increase of inputs is necessarily good for us farmers.

https://www.independent.ie/business/farming/news/calls-for-2000-fertiliser-vouchers-to-be-issued-to-farmers-41394863.html

The vet testing has to account for every animal on the husky on the day and put in a reason for the animal not tested on the day to up load the test results.

What is the 10 and 8 cent bonus about?

I'm still getting a base price 460, breed bonus 20 or 30 qa 20 and work from there on the grid

Any man that allows his cattle leave his yard 26 hours before slaughter doesn’t deserve to be well paid for them. Stupid would be too mild a description to use there.

Also I’ve mentioned I’m from the midlands plenty of times, it wouldn’t be that hard to know what factories are in the midlands, there’s not that many.

I’d say you’re better off away from him. He sounds like a man that doesn’t understand much about cattle and could try say it was your fault for not buying the right cattle or something like that. Leave him to his own devices i’d say.

Also there’s no need to have cattle travelling up and down the country like that in my opinion, that’s doing nothing only driving up your haulier bill and having diesel being burnt for nothing. Lads would be much better off building a relationship with a more local factory and stick with that. I know I keep harping on about it but weighing stock and understanding how they kill and where they kill best based on different breeds and quality is fierce important in a game of such tight margins. The extra 5 or 10 cent a kg that tempts lads to a different factory is sometimes the most costly 10 cent you could have.

To give an example from the 4 factories around here I’d have U grade heifers kill out at 58-60% of their live weight in one, with the best ever being 62%, and the same type of U grade heifers only killing 53-55% in the worst. A 700kg heifer would kill out 420kgs in the best plant, say she comes to €4.80/kg that’s €2,016.

in the worst plant she’d only kill 385kgs, that’s 35kgs less. Divide that 385kgs into the €2,016 and and I’d need to be getting €5.24/kg to come home with the same money, €0.44/kg extra! What good is 5 or 10 cent now.

Agree with a lot your saying about killing cattle, a lot of men don’t ask enough questions about what time cattle are being killed on the day, with bullocks first or heifers after etc, one guy that kills heifers always has his cattle in about one hour before the go to the line and is two hours from the factory. Makes a phone call to a lad in the pens and checks on progress. The same guy will tell you what grade and killout each heifer will do when alive and all down to following his cattle up the line regularly.

Looking back over kill sheets I Think they were making roughly €4.15 plus 20cent plus .12 on the grid. So €4.47 a kg €1881 before deductions.