is beef farming worth it anymore ?

fiat 9090

Well-Known Member
whats your views on the whole beef and suckler crisis ?

my personal opinion is that if your not a dairy man your not wanted and thats it, like the prices in the factories and marts are just ridiculous :(
 
sure we know no better, cattle are a hundred €'s wrong for the last 10 days so there are plenty who want to continue
 
whats your views on the whole beef and suckler crisis ?

my personal opinion is that if your not a dairy man your not wanted and thats it, like the prices in the factories and marts are just ridiculous :(

Sheep are the same look in the journal at the quoted prices just as the main crop of lambs are ready. The meat industry hold all the aces I am afraid and just give you the odd win to keep you playing.
 
Are world beef prices wrong at the moment or is it just an Irish thing?

If world prices are down then the factories aren't fully to blame.....?
 
Probably going to get slated for saying this but in a way beef farmers are their own worst enemies, if the factories started giving more in the morning the cost of cattle will rise in the marts and we will be just putting more capital into stock for the same small margains. If it's borrowed money then it's more interest to be paid so the profits will be even smaller, TBH I was making more out of cattle 5 years ago when conti yearlings were €650ish and finished were coming into €1400. now they are costing north of €900 and coming into €1600 if I'm not cut for over weight.
 
my personal opinion is that if your not a dairy man your not wanted and thats it.
:(

How do you make that out?
I don't begrudge it to a beef farmer when he's making a few bob.
I'd like to see the beef thing pick up a bit.

Calves on the bucket were very good value for buying this year. €200 would get you an Angus. You couldn't but make a few bob out of them at that price. Compared to when we were selling friesan bull calves out of the yard here for €300 a pop 2 yrs ago, these are the farmers doing the most complaining that there's no money in beef.
Suckler farmers have had a tough time I'll admit, and I really don't know what the answer to the whole situation is.
What I do see though is farmers buying animals and hoping to turn them in to a few bob in a short space of time, that might work out sometimes, but not all the time. If an animal at the ring under 2 years of age has 4 movements, have 4 people made money out of him? If so, why didn't one of them hold on to him and make a killing out of him?

I'm not sure what % of the blame is on the Irish factories, probably the difference between making and losing a few bob out of cattle. It's obvious these factories have a cartel running and it's not until this blockage is bypassed that a slightly better price for cattle will be received.

Should we be looking at our cost of production? Do many beef farmers actually know what their cost per kilo is? It's easy to stand back and complain about what's happening outside of the farm gate, but we can actually do something inside the farm gate.

I know my cost of production/litre here and it's nothing worthy of a Farmers Journal article by any means, but comparing it to other farmers, I know where I can improve so I can still return a living when milk prices drop, and they will drop.


Machinery to dairy farmers is like razor blades to toddlers.
 
you guys are make it out that there is some farmer along the chain making money if your complaining about the price of the stores, weanlings.

The cost of production for producing a kg of beef even by the most efficient producers is under the beef price. so no matter how you try and square that circle you just cant. Our reps, advisors will hide behind the efficiencies argument which for some holds true but for many doesnt wash.
 
Calves on the bucket were very good value for buying this year. €200 would get you an Angus. You couldn't but make a few bob out of them at that price..

you wouldnt buy many AA calves around the south if you were bidding only up as far as €200, €300 was more readily the price and they are even dearer now
 
I am sick of listening to beef fateners moaning They picked up cattle handy last spring and made a good margin if they sold in time . local lad bought cows in mid april 2014 at their weight eg fr 600kgs €600 on good grass only since sold this week at 2.95 per kg leaving €240 for 80 days grass .Imo its suckler farms that are getting it the worst and no one to pass the cuts onto, they have something to moan about allright though
 
I am sick of listening to beef fateners moaning They picked up cattle handy last spring and made a good margin if they sold in time . local lad bought cows in mid april 2014 at their weight eg fr 600kgs €600 on good grass only since sold this week at 2.95 per kg leaving €240 for 80 days grass .Imo its suckler farms that are getting it the worst and no one to pass the cuts onto, they have something to moan about allright though
Pardon!

I wouldn't see much margin in those when you take feed cost into account and given cows the inevitable mortality.

Also may have been money made in spring but not as much as autumn.

My real bugbear though is the lack of coordination from government etc on the crisis at the moment.

If you want to go down the sick and tired attitude we could say the same in 2009 about milk but I'm not going there.

I can next spring with a big crunch, expect huge scrutiny from banks and other credit over the next few months.
 
I am sick of listening to beef fateners moaning They picked up cattle handy last spring and made a good margin if they sold in time . local lad bought cows in mid april 2014 at their weight eg fr 600kgs €600 on good grass only since sold this week at 2.95 per kg leaving €240 for 80 days grass .Imo its suckler farms that are getting it the worst and no one to pass the cuts onto, they have something to moan about allright though


might sound great but in reality at max the cows were turning a profit of a €1 a day. (now I would be very happy with such a margin). there wasnt many cows bought at a €1 a kilo weighing 600kgs so your buddy done well to pick those. most of these cows were costing €1.25kg this spring. Most cows killed in the past few weeks bought this spring are doing all they can to break even, and I cant see how these lads are surviving as they are constantly overpaying for them.
 
I am sick of listening to beef fateners moaning They picked up cattle handy last spring and made a good margin if they sold in time . local lad bought cows in mid april 2014 at their weight eg fr 600kgs €600 on good grass only since sold this week at 2.95 per kg leaving €240 for 80 days grass .Imo its suckler farms that are getting it the worst and no one to pass the cuts onto, they have something to moan about allright though
That is a nonsense statement, who buys cattle in spring to sell 3 months later, particularly this year marts were dear and beef price falling at the same time, how you square that is beyond me, even if your local lad did make profit on his cows what does he do now to continue, pump his profit back into an overpriced market.
might sound great but in reality at max the cows were turning a profit of a €1 a day. (now I would be very happy with such a margin). there wasnt many cows bought at a €1 a kilo weighing 600kgs so your buddy done well to pick those. most of these cows were costing €1.25kg this spring. Most cows killed in the past few weeks bought this spring are doing all they can to break even, and I cant see how these lads are surviving as they are constantly overpaying for them.

Have to agree, cows were at least €1.20/kg unless they were rubbish, take mart fees, transport, factory deductions and a charge for land etc. out of so called profit to see what you are really making.
 
The cow job is not simple lads.

Go herd some morning and a cow shivering under the ditch with a start. If you cure her she will havd melted and lose her and its takes ten more to cover her.

Youd want to be a fair detail buying to pick up value and to spot one thats not going to thrive or give endless trouble.

A cow at a euro a kilo would be all belly and a big swinging bag from what ive seen.
 
We're you in Ross
I was for my sins..... Didn't get one beast and way overpriced.
The cow job is not simple lads.

Go herd some morning and a cow shivering under the ditch with a start. If you cure her she will havd melted and lose her and its takes ten more to cover her.

Youd want to be a fair detail buying to pick up value and to spot one thats not going to thrive or give endless trouble.

A cow at a euro a kilo would be all belly and a big swinging bag from what ive seen.
Couldn't have put it better myself, I liken it to playing the roulette wheel in Vegas myself.
 
Every farming sector has it's ups and downs, at one point or another one has been up and others down.

The beef situation will stay the same until somebody with some balls puts some proper regulation in place.

There are certainly worse things to be at but I'd like to see a better return for all the work I put in.
 
well in the spring i was between a dairy farmer with 60 cows and a weanling/suckler farmer with about 100 head all together and when he sold his weanlings last week the profit was 10 to 40 cent a head for 600 days (he buys in weanlings and brings them to 500-550kg) and if he had to have been mealing them he would have took a loss on them all.

now for a young lad like me that wouldnt encourage me much to take over the farm.

the odd time id buy and sell maybe 2-3 weanlings at a time and theres far more money at that than keeping them on e.g i bought a ch hefier 315kg on a monday night for 675 and on the tuesday night sold her for 780, not bragging or anything thats just way i see it but im only young lot to learn yet :D

but somebody said buying AA calves for 200 and making money on them ? last year dad was buying red white head hefier for 120-270 and by the time they were feed milk, meal bedded out the odd scour let them lie for 6-7 month and then only sell them out for 350-570 ? you wouldnt want to have a big value on your time
 
That is a nonsense statement, who buys cattle in spring to sell 3 months later, particularly this year marts were dear and beef price falling at the same time, how you square that is beyond me, even if your local lad did make profit on his cows what does he do now to continue, pump his profit back into an overpriced market.


Have to agree, cows were at least €1.20/kg unless they were rubbish, take mart fees, transport, factory deductions and a charge for land etc. out of so called profit to see what you are really making.

Fleshy cows up to 700 kgs with no qa sold in local marts for not much with their weight in spring so ye lads should call down
Smart men only buy short keep cattle and u can never lose taking a profit ,give a few more weeks of bad factory prices and too much fine weather ,over stocked lads will have to off load stock making them cheap for my local lad again
 
Fleshy cows up to 700 kgs with no qa sold in local marts for not much with their weight in spring so ye lads should call down
Smart men only buy short keep cattle and u can never lose taking a profit ,give a few more weeks of bad factory prices and too much fine weather ,over stocked lads will have to off load stock making them cheap for my local lad again

I have no interest in buying cows so won't be calling down to wherever you are. Short keep cattle carry a burden of transport and mart fees, more so if you don't get a decent offer and bring them home again.On the last point cattle approaching 30 months will be factoried, if a month or two short of that they will be mealed if grass is getting scarce, your local lad might pick up a few cheap cattle if he has plenty of time to be in the marts.
 
Every farming sector has it's ups and downs, at one point or another one has been up and others down.

The beef situation will stay the same until somebody with some balls puts some proper regulation in place.

There are certainly worse things to be at but I'd like to see a better return for all the work I put in.
the factories only lent the farmers money last year, they are taking it back now, along with the interest.

LG control's the whole show now im afraid.
 
Smart men only buy short keep cattle and u can never lose taking a profit ,give a few more weeks of bad factory prices and too much fine weather ,over stocked lads will have to off load stock making them cheap for my local lad again

this lad sounds like he is making a fortune :whistling:, I can think of dozens of short keep cattle men that are gone by the way side over the years, some of them would cut your throat to buy a fat animal, didn't get them very far!! I rarely make money on a short keep animal, lads around the ring know the exact price they will make on the hook so you wont be left too many cheap ones
 
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