Beef price tracker 2

@Bass Reeves the way things are at the minute there is a good money for everything, seen 400 -500 Kg AA's 14 month old Bulls in the mart the Tuesday night €3 - €3.10 /kg, it was the exporters and bull men that were buying them, they would only be a good O in my opinion if squeezed as Bullocks, might feed into an R if kept as a bull. The normal rules seem to have gone out the window at the minute, especially when it comes to AA & Hex cattle. I had a pair of nice red LM bullocks out of it 18 months, 420 kgs at €1,120 (test up in two weeks so that could explain it a small bit). It is very hard to make sense of the trade for cattle under 550 kgs at the minute.

Looking for thoughts, have 15no. CHX heifers circa around 500kg on average (couple around 550-580 but couple around 480ish) and wondering weather to finish or sell now giving supposedly good mart prices

they are getting meal since Xmas around 5kg a day and on good silage

All thoughts greatly appreciated

I would reckon that the mart is your best option. I was watching heifers in Carnaross today and ones in the same weight bracket as yours are making up to €3/kg and over irrespective if they are QA or not.

thanks all for the feedback, I'm going to squeeze them as vet is calling tomorrow to dehorn and test a few others.

I'd buy a few of them lmx / chx but can't see much value in southern marts.

Last year was my first time finishing Angus cattle. I had 5 of them in the bunch. The factory charged me €6 a head on them to qualify for the Angus bonus. I have a few more in the bunch this year. Am I right in saying that if I join an Angus group I'll qualify for the Angus bonus any time I send an Angus to the factory after the initial once off payment? I looked on google, and there seems to be at least a couple of groups. Are they all the same?

The 4 day week and the big kill , 35000 has played into the factory's at the moment. Quotes are back today but might not last long

Those shippers seem be mopping up all contential bulls from 280 to 400....so looking at outside that range....as won't last forever and don't want be carrying can when it drops.

only going to kill 4 days next week as well, Beef can be bought cheaper across Europe which is not a good sign for us.

Have the increases stalled or how we looking for this week?

According to the journal they’ll be crying out for them in a few weeks. I think prices are strengthening across the water.

Haven’t bought since before Christmas but Mart prices seem to be out of control.

For the right stock there’s far more available than what’s being quoted. There’s no problem getting €5.60 for O grade hex and €5.70 for angus in a number of factories at the minute even though base price is being quoted at around €5.30.

TBH it's not as much as people think unless the cattle are very plain. I would expect most Hex to grade O+ with an odd R and a sprinkling of O-.

Ignoring the Assuming a 2 to 1/O+ to O- it leaves the figures like this.

5.3. - 0.14+ 0.15 +0.2= 5.51/kg @5.6 it's a base of 5.4/ kg unless a lot of them are overfat. The advantage of a flat price is it takes a little risk out of it. However if there was a sprinkling of R' replacing the some of O- cattle you are at that base. You would not want to be travelling very far an extra 15/ head on transport is about 5c/kg.

On the AA cattle you should definitely have a few R grades and a higher bonus. So it works

5.3-0.08+0.2+0.2=5.62.

Now often the processors pay extra on the AA cattle and bonus of 0.3/kg have been spoken about.

I have seen lads travelling 50-80miles more for them sort of prices, paying 25-30 euro lately for transport instead of being 12-15 or even doing the transport themselves. Cattle being loaded 5-7pm the evening before I stead of loading the following morning.