Factory Prices General thread

Have many people got cattle to go? We have just a few left that are around the 24 months now. They are 650kg+ and have done well for the last 3 weeks at grass.
The crossroads now is the wonder if prices will rise over may, june and july like they have in previous years because of tighter supplies?
Is it worth the gamble to feed them for 100 days with a good finishing nut or do we keep them for 200 days and finish on grass?
Impossible to advise. My gut tells me to try to get them off as soon as possible and have extra grass for feeding other cattle and or extra silage.
 
muckymanor said:
Have many people got cattle to go? We have just a few left that are around the 24 months now. They are 650kg+ and have done well for the last 3 weeks at grass.
The crossroads now is the wonder if prices will rise over may, june and july like they have in previous years because of tighter supplies?
Is it worth the gamble to feed them for 100 days with a good finishing nut or do we keep them for 200 days and finish on grass?
Impossible to advise. My gut tells me to try to get them off as soon as possible and have extra grass for feeding other cattle and or extra silage.
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Would those short keep cattle make good money at the mart? Take the pressure off the grass?
 
marco said:
Would those short keep cattle make good money at the mart? Take the pressure off the grass?
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It could be the best option.
I sold the rest of their bunch back in february. These were just odd ones (BB and SIM) that I was going to push ahead and try to finish.
But if I could get them into good money in the mart, it would work well for me.
I might hold off for another week or 2 until grass starts to come properly.
 
marco said:
Would those short keep cattle make good money at the mart? Take the pressure off the grass?
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Have 6 of them left so booked the lightest 3 for the mart next week. It will help cash flow. Will finish the other 3 in the next 6 weeks.
 
There's a want for beef, the weekly throughput is low, prices are rising slowly, along with no desire to pay higher prices, beef could hit a record price in the next two months, followed by a savage drop as soon as the numbers return.
How much later will the grass cattle be, are cattle out a month later or more?
Prices are up 40c from the lowest price we took last autumn, is there another 20c of a rise left? It'll be needed to cover intensive indoor feeding.
 
ithastopay said:
There's a want for beef, the weekly throughput is low, prices are rising slowly, along with no desire to pay higher prices, beef could hit a record price in the next two months, followed by a savage drop as soon as the numbers return.
How much later will the grass cattle be, are cattle out a month later or more?
Prices are up 40c from the lowest price we took last autumn, is there another 20c of a rise left? It'll be needed to cover intensive indoor feeding.
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Still not covering the extra costs considering this price was 5 months ago, would even another 20c clear their noses? Im not over sure as there were some amount of dear cattle traded last backend. finishers are taking a pasting, but most of them don't even realise as they havn't a clue of their costs, and seem to be happy to be lapdogs.

Grass cattle wont be on for awhile, but allot of forward cattle that would have went to grass 6 weeks ago for a 12 week finish off grass, were left indoors and are currently finishing which i have myself unfortunately. These will probably cover the gap and get the factories out of trouble. Kill number is 33,500 last week (excluding fat exports) so still very high throughput, 4k over last year levels. Not seeing any great bite down here or lift in prices as are talked about in the Findo yesterday.

What is a record beef price?? was it 4.70 for heifers about 4 yrs ago in July???

Just talking about quality assurance yesterday, it really was a master stroke by the factories. took some amount of money out of the beef industry, considering how few cattle hit the spec. due to age,date of trades,under/over fat and moves.
 
Ozzy Scott said:
What is a record beef price?? was it 4.70 for heifers about 4 yrs ago in July???

Just talking about quality assurance yesterday, it really was a master stroke by the factories. took some amount of money out of the beef industry, considering how few cattle hit the spec. due to age,date of trades,under/over fat and moves.
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I know of one man who received 5.00 euro flat price for heifers in June 2013.

For the most part, whether or not a finisher receives the QA bonus is in his own hands. Less than 2% of our kill this year will be non QA.
 
Barrowsider said:
I know of one man who received 5.00 euro flat price for heifers in June 2013.

For the most part, whether or not a finisher receives the QA bonus is in his own hands. Less than 2% of our kill this year will be non QA.
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Just the amount of money and the restrictions on trade QA put on cattle as a industry whole. I would happily forego QA to be able to slaughter cattle whenever I liked, unfortunately this cant be done

Does that mean only 2% of your herd wont receive the 12c bonus? :ohmy: seriously well done, and more so to your factory:Thumbp2:
 
Ozzy Scott said:
Just the amount of money and the restrictions on trade QA put on cattle as a industry whole. I would happily forego QA to be able to slaughter cattle whenever I liked, unfortunately this cant be done

Does that mean only 2% of your herd wont receive the 12c bonus? :ohmy: seriously well done, and more so to your factory:Thumbp2:
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Can you trace whether QA was paid on an animal that you sold?
Moreso, if a factory feedlot buys one of your animals say for a short period of time to finish them, will they claim qa from themselves? ie Do they have to play by their own rules?
 
muckymanor said:
Can you trace whether QA was paid on an animal that you sold?
Moreso, if a factory feedlot buys one of your animals say for a short period of time to finish them, will they claim qa from themselves? ie Do they have to play by their own rules?
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they will use same rules, really makes no odds to them if their cattle dont claim it.

QA seriously distorted the short term cattle trade, removed the competition from marts making it pointless for a farmer with a few beef animals (who wont be able to achieve top price )running them through marts. It was always said to sell live to stay alive in the beef game. It gave the factories serious power, as they now know exactly within a 1000 cattle whats due to turn up each week
 
Ozzy Scott said:
Just the amount of money and the restrictions on trade QA put on cattle as a industry whole. I would happily forego QA to be able to slaughter cattle whenever I liked, unfortunately this cant be done

Does that mean only 2% of your herd wont receive the 12c bonus? :ohmy: seriously well done, and more so to your factory:Thumbp2:
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Yes, we usually have a higher proportion of non-QA bonus animals but quality stock were better value at the time of purchase. We stay away from overage, high movement stock as the discount at purchase rarely compensates for the loss of QA bonus at slaughter. 12c/kg can be the difference of margin and none in a lot of cases.
 
Barrowsider said:
Yes, we usually have a higher proportion of non-QA bonus animals but quality stock were better value at the time of purchase. We stay away from overage, high movement stock as the discount at purchase rarely compensates for the loss of QA bonus at slaughter. 12c/kg can be the difference of margin and none in a lot of cases.
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Is still the way that say you buy an animal of me who is a non QA farmer that if he has no more than 3 owners and you have him for 70 days that you can then claim the QA bonus on him presuming age and other scores are correct at time of slaughter @Barrowsider @Ozzy Scott @Arthur
 
WestCorkBoy said:
Yes but if you were QA some factories will pay me QA bonus after 30 days
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I would keep that to yourself as all the places I ever dealt with, no way would they be so generous. the amount of animals I had here over the years that were sold 60 days before they were 30 months of age was frightening. Seller didnt realise they were lessening their animals value by €40
 
ithastopay said:
There's a want for beef, the weekly throughput is low, prices are rising slowly, along with no desire to pay higher prices, beef could hit a record price in the next two months, followed by a savage drop as soon as the numbers return.
How much later will the grass cattle be, are cattle out a month later or more?
Prices are up 40c from the lowest price we took last autumn, is there another 20c of a rise left? It'll be needed to cover intensive indoor feeding.
Click to expand...

I took 4 bullocks into Rathdowney this night week ago. I rarely kill cattle , but for the last 4 years have kept the best 4 or 5 bullocks , and kill the end of April aged 26-27 months old . I haven't got back the return yet.
While I was in there , a local haulier who draws for the factory landed in with a double of cattle from 1 of the factories own feed lots. To my eyes , they wouldn't have been fit to kill next August. he agreed , and said there was a scarcity at the moment, hence he had brought them , to keep it going.
 
If you ask a price you will be told €4.10 for steers yet I overheard 2 lads in the mart on Monday, one saying he got €1.15. A few stories doing the rounds that they are taking anything they can lay their hands on and to hell with QA and the grid. It's not all about kill numbers as if they are killing under fit cattle the Kg's will be down.
 
ithastopay said:
There's a want for beef, the weekly throughput is low, prices are rising slowly, along with no desire to pay higher prices, beef could hit a record price in the next two months, followed by a savage drop as soon as the numbers return.
How much later will the grass cattle be, are cattle out a month later or more?
Prices are up 40c from the lowest price we took last autumn, is there another 20c of a rise left? It'll be needed to cover intensive indoor feeding.
Click to expand...

Six weeks later for grass fed cattle at least, can't be big numbers now till late June. I'd reckon a lot of those cattle are/were kept in the shed to be finished as they were close to 30 months if left out at grass. Maybe these have washed through the system now.

Factories will also be looking at the cow trade for future summer and autumn supply. Numbers are low around here this year it seems.

jf 850 said:
I took 4 bullocks into Rathdowney this night week ago. I rarely kill cattle , but for the last 4 years have kept the best 4 or 5 bullocks , and kill the end of April aged 26-27 months old . I haven't got back the return yet.
While I was in there , a local haulier who draws for the factory landed in with a double of cattle from 1 of the factories own feed lots. To my eyes , they wouldn't have been fit to kill next August. he agreed , and said there was a scarcity at the moment, hence he had brought them , to keep it going.
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Neighbour was in the factory two weeks ago and had the same comment about underfinished stock but more so from farmers with fodder running out.
 
nashmach said:
Factories will also be looking at the cow trade for future summer and autumn supply. Numbers are low around here this year it seems.
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Serious clear out of cows in these parts. Mohill used to have 20 to 30 dry suckler cows every week on average, but from October to March it was averaging close to 70 and there were 2 big sales in that with in excess of 400 in each.

Whatever about factories, I expect that marts are getting worried about the future. The weanling that they depended on is going out of fashion very fast. If they are not being bred on farms then they won't be sold through marts. The writing has never been as clear on the wall as it has been for the last few months. I know that doesn't impact too much on factories, but reduced numbers of quality cattle coming through the system has to be of some concern to them,
 
I would say there will be a big cull of fr cows as well ,everyone is pig sick at the moment and if we dont get a good few weeks of weather soon the writing is on the wall !!!!
 
Green Grass said:
I would say there will be a big cull of fr cows as well ,everyone is pig sick at the moment and if we dont get a good few weeks of weather soon the writing is on the wall !!!!
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Two local dairy farmers here in the West packed it up and sold all there cows as well and are supposed to be going dry stock farming. Both farmers would be in there sixties with successors not too interested in dairying farming if any successor but that's a whole other can of worms.
 
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