muckymanor
Well-Known Member
All I'm saying is it's very important that everyone from the suckler farmer to the finisher makes a margin and I think you shouldn't be so dismissive of the man that buys your stock. Ultimately the profitability of the beef finisher determines the demand for store cattle and the demand for store cattle determines the price obtained by the man selling.
Within a 5 mile radius of here, four winter finishers that bought over 1500 store cattle in the local marts last Autumn have taken the decision to buy zero cattle this year. The man selling stores in our local marts will no doubt sell his cattle this year, but with reduced competition around the ring the price will be lower that it would be if those four finishers were still in the game.
To be honest, if an ordinary Joe soap stumbled on this thread they would look at what you and I posted and say look at mucky and him making a fortune from his 20 suckler cows. He's ripping barrowsiderand his fellow finishers off, charging extortionate prices for cattle and is the root and cause of barrowsides farm being loss making.
To be fair, I'd like to point out that if you feel that what I posted in previous posts is dismissive of the people buying my cattle then I feel that what you posted is dismissive of the people who breed and produce the cattle that you buy and feed in anticipation of meeting your expenses.
You have other options and you can choose not to buy at all. The man who breeds them doesn't have as many options - only when to sell.
Not having someone to buy weanlings could be a good thing for farmers selling in your area. It could encourage farmers to change their system as it has done in this area. Some have changed as we have to keeping cattle that we breed for longer. Some have gone info rearing dairy replacements. Other have gone into calf to store systems. As I said, selling weanlings has proven to be loss making for many in this area. Again, no offence to anyone, but suckler farmers had to sell at a loss for much of the time so that the next man could make a profit from it. That ship had to run aground at some stage as it isn't or wasn't (in our case) sustainable and just eroded sfp.
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