Mart Price Tracker

You buy mine, I'll buy yours, the remainder look like great value to the average punter then...

Looking at them most of them weren't star rated.. so I would guess alot of them would be for showing & beef.

I showed up 4/5 stars for any the would potentially prove 4/5 star when BDGP tested.. same as any other female animal for and ICBF herd but most of them has no potential stars showing so assume they were 3 star or less.

Simple heifer enough too.

I wonder how is the weanling trade at the moment.

Did you rob the shirt off that poor mans back aswell?

Some steal

That's the reality of suckling. DBK1 would be in as bad a way financially if he overpaid. For someone to make money on cattle, the unfortunate truth is that others in the chain must lose.

They are worth what they are bid to. An R+ bullock 350 kgs DW ( about 660 LW) would make 1700 euro at present.

If you squeeze them weanlings it will be 13-15 months minimum before they hit that weight.

We are after a bad year for lads finishing. Cattle killing 20-40 kgs lighter than normal. To carry those cattle for that period of time will cost 550 ish eur0 provided you can keep the ration below 200 kgs ,( unlikely)

€1,000 is probably what they should be making for the man rearing them to have something out of it but unfortunately that doesn’t mean they’re worth that.

To any man buying them to keep to factory they are only worth what the factories decide to pay. At the moment at €4.60 per kg and dropping, the future doesn’t look promising for finishers so all we can do is keep our costs as low as possible.

As Grueller said, and it’s something I’ve said here before also, with beef stock theres only room for one person to make money on an animal, everyone else has to lose out. It’s one of the reasons I can’t understand lads complaining about the 4 movements rule on animals. There should be no more than 1 or maybe at maximum 2 movements on any animal, otherwise they just can’t make money. Every movement is costing €50 plus per head when it’s worked out so an animal with 4 movements has €200 already taken from them, it’s impossible to make money at that carry on.

Bought a couple of animals at a sale on Saturday. They're still not in my herd. Would it normally take this long to process?

First of all you profit is what is left between what you pay for replacements, what you costs are and what the factory price is.

Any benifit in the higher price bas been more than negated by extra costs. I actually made more money last year

While those on wetter farms have done well this year lads on dryer farms were cruified by the drought.

Costs have absolutely exploded even worse than I taught. I have spread the same amount of fertilizer that added 65/ animal to the costs. Ration is 100/ ton more expensive than last year and I have used more of it and I am not finished yet. I have calculated that it will end up averaging 100/ head compared to about 50 last year.

DW has plummeted this year in me. About 25 kgs/ head or about 125 euro/ head.

So the price is up. The base price has been running about 10% ahead of last year until 2 weeks ago. That is about 45c/kg. However my Friesian's have graded poorer because of the lower DW so the gap is about 5-7%. So prices are better at about 30-35c/kg or about 110 euro/head.

I probably started buying stores too early and had too many bought by mid July. However the bog they grazed for 3 weeks in August is never grazed by heavy cattle.

Gortnalea or any mart may seem great. In general except for late May and June finished cattle make 150-200 less than factory prices. The lads that can sell them straight into the factory are cleaning up. Lads have not been finishing cows this year's as they have send them straight form the mart to the factory.

Best game in town would be buying in the mart and selling straight to the factory but processors will only allow certain finishers to do it. I LOL when you mention that.

I have said it many times here that is he finisher only takes his margin after costs. The smaller finisher like myself is getting anything from 10-40+c/kg less than the bigger finishers depending on time of year. In theory you can travel but transport any distance is 25/head or 7-8c/kg. Weight loss will be an extra 2% or 9c/kg. I need 20c/kg to start seeing a margin at that extra price I be getting about 15 euro/head extra.

The lads buying the younger store are probably going to try to sell this time next year or the following spring. any movement into and out of a mart costs 50 euro minimum now even if you use your own transport. Buying commission is 10.50 I presume sellers is higher than that. That leaves 25-27 euro to cover sellers and buyers transport. An animal that is moved three time through marts has a 150 euro gone outside the general farming system. Factory stops another 10.50. Give that the average animal is tested 3 times that another 15 euro.

Just as an aside while beef base prices have gone up 10%, milk prices to producers have risen by 40-50%. Extra costs are probably similar in both system's

How would u consider him a friend if he's buying u bad quality cattle and charging u for the privilege

I'd be telling that lad where to go. Buy your cattle elsewhere in future. I wouldn't worry about hurting his feelings as he has no respect or loyalty to you.