Beef price tracker 2

When you deal in the same agent and factory they know from experience what type of cattle you keep and how much finish they carry and what market they suit, it’s there game and they have to know what they are getting, shopping around is not a big deal, listening to word of mouth is not much use as most lads talk up there price they got for their cattle, have got flat rate as stated at times in Kcc and kepak. Also the grading machine is not run by the factories it’s independent. It’s amazing to see how cattle kill out for well done to under finished and how the yield off the carcass,

No flat pricing locally for the average Joe. ABP and Dawn plants. Certain supplier that are killing 200+ a year get a bit more. Quoted base this week for local suppliers is 4.85/kg, I got 4.9 base for a single bullock going overag. 4.95 is probably available for a load. Sorry I did not hold him as he was FS 3+ he was a plain ch bullock grading O=.

If you are up in the Midlands and are between 3-4 processors ya you can price around and they will compete. But traveling a serious distance with cattle is not worth a hat of crabs.

Transport is now 25++/ head and you will definitely be loaded the evening before if not late afternoon. I see Sunday loading @ 11am for cattle to go to Slaney for Monday morning.

I have seen lads caught when the market changes. Know a lad locally that was an agent for a midlands plant that is carrying his cattle to Gortalea. He burnt his bridges with the local plants. He was amazed that myself and another lad were always getting the HE bonus all our HE 18 months ago as he could not get it where he was going to at the time.

Between transport and extra DW I would need 14-18 c/ kg to break even if travelling. 5c/ kg above that is 17-18 euro.

I saw it after the strike irregular suppliers struggled to get cattle killed and a large percentage went overrage and as well AA and HE bonuses disappeared for a lot of these lads.

There is 6-8 weeks during the year when you can really bargain but if you are supplying outside these times I do not want it to be costing me 14-18c/kg.

15c/ kg is the AA bonus locally I rang thevAA society and was told that was the standard bonus agreed with ABP. Bugbear but I cannot change it. I seldom have much more than 3-4 of them.

On the other hand I buy cattle out of Kerry at 50-100/ head cheaper than the Midlands so I cannot have it every way. Buying now to hang in 2025. Bought 4 Friesians and two SI last week. The Friesians are middle of the road O- average I would say.

It’s there for anyone that wants it, hard to fathom that there’s men out there killing cattle that don’t understand what a flat price is or how it works. The factory agents must love seeing their names coming up on the phone.

The same ones I told you last night, Keepak in Kilbeggan and 2 different Liffey meats plants. There’s a private Abbatoir offering or also but I’ve never been happy with killout percentages there so I haven’t dealt there for a number of years now.

Maybe but those stores have the hard work done. Go to the mart the wrong day and all your work is for nought. Take it you are stocked at 1.5 times finishing numbers. Now you need to market ( going from the 80 mentioned earlier) 120 cattle, will you haul at buying and selling. Mart fees presentation of stock, will you feed pre sale. There was only a really strong 3-4 week autumn mart sales period this year.

Now I have dry land and can manage early slaughter basically as long as I can keep a silage based winter system and slaughter 80+% before mid September I cannot improve on it I think

Moves are on LHS of the days there is only one lad in the bunch that had more than one move. But ya you are right those are days in herd.

The three single movement friesians were in the rushes for a while before they were found.

You would amazed at how light you can buy cattle and they would not be stunted. If calves are adequately dobe for the first 8-10 weeks they can survive a nice bit of hardship. Often buy poor weight for age cattle and I be more worried about there genetics than they being stunted usually

A haulier/tangler said to me a few years ago that bunches of hungry poorly weighting cattle will very seldom have anything seriously wrong with them. Its the single lad to watch out for. Admittely we buy a nice few singles ourselves. The lad selling those Friesians I bought should definately put the two heavier lads in one lot. Mart was quite same day 20-30 weanlings only about 8-10 light cattle after I got the SI's and the first Friesian there was little competition nobody was coming for one animal. The small lad fell very easy to me.