store lambs the end is nigh

4course · Feb 18, 2017

just had the first couple of batches away and with the best will in the world am only seeing a margin between buying and selling price of £20 and this on the first lots that have finished on grass and arable cover crops so little attributable feed cost , am now giving some thought to the future and with the great possibility of increases in imported lamb in the next years/ loss of export and the supermarkets control cant at this stage see us rushing to buy store lambs next year at anything like last seasons average and we thought we had done well compared to some store prices,and this does not bode well for the uk sheep industry

GTB · Feb 18, 2017

4course said:
just had the first couple of batches away and with the best will in the world am only seeing a margin between buying and selling price of £20 and this on the first lots that have finished on grass and arable cover crops so little attributable feed cost , am now giving some thought to the future and with the great possibility of increases in imported lamb in the next years/ loss of export and the supermarkets control cant at this stage see us rushing to buy store lambs next year at anything like last seasons average and we thought we had done well compared to some store prices,and this does not bode well for the uk sheep industry

I wouldn't be complaining too much if the lambs have broken even or better. It could get a lot worse.

S J H · Feb 18, 2017

My thinking was the pound would drop like a stone when Teresa triggered article 50, but when she announced the 'hard brexit' the opposite happened.

neilo · Feb 18, 2017

The price will sky rocket in a month or two. I have a neighbour that is still buying continental lambs out of the fat, and putting them out on turnips. He must be hoping for £90-100 lambs at Easter.

KennyO · Feb 18, 2017

4course said:
just had the first couple of batches away and with the best will in the world am only seeing a margin between buying and selling price of £20 and this on the first lots that have finished on grass and arable cover crops so little attributable feed cost , am now giving some thought to the future and with the great possibility of increases in imported lamb in the next years/ loss of export and the supermarkets control cant at this stage see us rushing to buy store lambs next year at anything like last seasons average and we thought we had done well compared to some store prices,and this does not bode well for the uk sheep industry

You did better than us. We struggled to lift them £10. (sold end Dec and mid Feb)

kmo · Feb 18, 2017

4course said:
am only seeing a margin between buying and selling price of £20

Still a better margin than finishing store cattle.

wr. · Feb 18, 2017

neilo said:
The price will sky rocket in a month or two. I have a neighbour that is still buying continental lambs out of the fat, and putting them out on turnips. He must be hoping for £90-100 lambs at Easter.

Brave man.
I hope he'll come out of them well.

Kiwi Pete · Feb 18, 2017

What's the rough numbers for your stores usually ? Just to get an idea of what you guys all get. Margin seems about the same at current exchange rate, never enough!!

Woolless · Feb 18, 2017

What I've heard is that a lot of stores head south onto blackgrass land, areas in schemes etc and the buyers don't need to make a fortune, as long as they graze the stuff down and wash their face.

Grassman · Feb 18, 2017

Buy the cheaper scraggy store lambs. Keep till easter or longer and there will be a good margin.
Whether you make money is another matter!

CopperBeech · Feb 18, 2017

Buy them right, turn them over quick as you can, make a small margin, and keep them rolling. £20 a head, 10,000 lambs . . . . . £200,000.

Could be a lot worse. . . . .

Store lambs will always be a numbers game. . . . .

GTB · Feb 18, 2017

CopperBeech said:
Buy them right, turn them over quick as you can, make a small margin, and keep them rolling. £20 a head, 10,000 lambs . . . . . £200,000.

He's not making £20 a lamb though, there's only £20 between purchase price and sale price...

CopperBeech said:
Could be a lot worse. . . . .

Yes he could be losing £20

CopperBeech said:
Store lambs will always be a numbers game. . . . .

Yes but not many have sufficient grazing to graze sufficient numbers to make it worthwhile.

CopperBeech · Feb 18, 2017

@GTB

No, true. But that kind of income. . . . if you do it right, you've got to be making something. Even £5 a head would be £50,000, which isn't to be sniffed at.

And yes, i'm sure many people lose money!

And your final point is the answer . . . . . if you don't have the ground, the scale, the fodder, to do it properly . . . . . there isn't much point.

I see a lot of folk buying a couple of hundred stores to run around on crap winter grazing and then they make no money . . . . . . .

Makes no sense to me. That kind of ground you'd make more tacking it out to welshies. . .

beefandsleep · Feb 18, 2017

You must be young. They are never going to make a fortune every year and we have had some very good years with them recently. They haven't lost you any money so you've done well on a bad trade. Next year build a bit more margin into them when your buying, I.e stop bidding £10 sooner. If you can't buy them for that then it's time to say not this year.

Y Fan Wen · Feb 18, 2017

beefandsleep said:
You must be young. They are never going to make a fortune every year and we have had some very good years with them recently. They haven't lost you any money so you've done well on a bad trade. Next year build a bit more margin into them when your buying, I.e stop bidding £10 sooner. If you can't buy them for that then it's time to say not this year.

Especially when the wintering tack price only goes in one direction.

yellowbelly · Feb 18, 2017

beefandsleep said:
You must be young. They are never going to make a fortune every year

It's always been a tricky game, good years and bad years. Seen plenty of times, when selling springers in May, and hoggs have been £40 or £50 a piece

It's not got that bad - yet

Lovegoodstock · Feb 18, 2017

Agree with @CopperBeech in a numbers game, then @kmo said better than finishing store cattle. Real shame but think traditional farming with 6 farmers in a village with 100 sheep and 20 sucklers have long gone. Store buyers keep saying cant do it at current prices, as @CopperBeech says maybe a 5 quid profit on finishing a store lamb, if you do 200, 1k profit and you value this as a part of your business is not a lot. Yes big boys will have a lot of losses, lorry costs, huge tack bills to pay, but they do spread the costs far easier and better. If they make 6 quid profit on 20000, a winters return looks significant. Can easy work the other way granted, but the feeding of sore cattle I think is even more applicable than the sheep job, and can only see it turning more and more like this?

neilo · Feb 18, 2017

yellowbelly said:
It's always been a tricky game, good years and bad years. Seen plenty of times, when selling springers in May, and hoggs have been £40 or £50 a piece
It's not got that bad - yet

I remember chatting to one of the big store lamb finishers in Banbury market (so 20+ years ago) once. He was doing about 20,000 a year IIRC. He reckoned he'd made nothing at all that year, 'but last year' he said, 'they bought me that', winking and pointing to his new Merc parked in the car park. I seem to remember hoggets being £35-40 a head then in March/April that year, so about what they'd been paying for stores, but at least there was £20/hd variable premium on top of that.

Magnificent Earwig · Feb 18, 2017

That wasn't BG by any chance?

neilo · Feb 18, 2017

Magnificent Earwig said:
That wasn't BG by any chance?

It probably was.

Used to take up all the pens sorting hogs out, so you were buggered if you unloaded behind them.

store lambs the end is nigh

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