Beef price tracker 2

Actually 20 cent difference is happening every day. I finish 60 to 100 fr bulls every year , all home reared. Last year I got 5.40 flat . My br in law got 5.20 same week, same agent. The difference was fat cover. His were half finished whereas I started feeding mine earlier. Whether I was better off than him at the end of the day is debatable

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.

Where? They paid for a keep and trailer? How much?

If you were tb free would you consider returning them to the mart this time next year as warm stores? It’s a system I’d fancy only for the fear of a reactor.

No, good ground, yes TB not an issue at present. However low cost system at 450 kgs mart weight those Fr will not exceed 900 euro. The Six's and other coloured cattle might sell a bit better but on average I have never seen much money made in a mart.

In twenty years I have sold 15 cattle through the mart ( ten of them in the first year learned from my mistake) IMO it's +50 or -150 in the marts

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

As long as it’s just hunger /parasites and not pneumonia survivors or been nibbling ragwort these type cattle can leave astounding margins. But it takes an element of bravery.

a cattle dealer said to me once “when I was young and knew nothing I could make plenty of money but now that I know plenty I can make none” What he meant by that is the memory of buying a what turns out to be a screw or a casualty lives long in the memory and impedes your likelihood towards perceived risk taking.

So are you changing your system and buying all handy weanings or are you hoping to buy these along with your store cattle and increase the number of cattle you sell annually?

Bulls or bullocks?

I have about 55-60 cattle capable of being slaughtered by end of 2024. We will probably be farming a bit more ground next year. However we have limited shed space and nitrate alowance space and cattle always climb fast in price so we are target part of the expansion by buying weanlings that can be slaughtered in 2025. Aim to be slaughtering 90+ in 2025

Anyone kill this week?