Beef / Lamb & Pig Price Tracker

casper74

Member
Location
North Yorkshire
Do you think there's a lot of money in finishing them?

We would sell half as stores, finish other half and breed all our own replacements.

We don't make much/anything on one's we finish. Have tried buying stores to finish in the past and made very little money on them either.

It's not a easy/quick way to make money in my opinion. Hats off to the guys that do it.

A few finishers round here have put on herds of cows and haven't kept them more than a few years.

Sorry to be doom and gloom, but it's a race to the bottom in my opinion.
Margins are tight for finishing cattle, there are times when you think why do I bother, and there are times when you think I wish I had double the amount to sell, I think nowadays you have to be really on top of your job and be as efficient as you can be when feeding them, you have to buy the right animal for where you end up selling them, I think that is becoming very important. It's a huge risk turning up to a live market with a load of dairy bred cattle every week, some weeks they sell really well and other weeks they look badly sold. And likewise going dead with U+ OR E Grade these cattle are worth so much more in a live ring. One of my neighbours who sells 100 / week says it's an addiction is buying and fattening cattle, He's not wrong!!! I'll carry on buying and fattening cattle it's the part of the job I really enjoy, and like most things in farming sometimes you win sometimes you lose.
 

Hfd Cattle

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Hereford
Margins are tight for finishing cattle, there are times when you think why do I bother, and there are times when you think I wish I had double the amount to sell, I think nowadays you have to be really on top of your job and be as efficient as you can be when feeding them, you have to buy the right animal for where you end up selling them, I think that is becoming very important. It's a huge risk turning up to a live market with a load of dairy bred cattle every week, some weeks they sell really well and other weeks they look badly sold. And likewise going dead with U+ OR E Grade these cattle are worth so much more in a live ring. One of my neighbours who sells 100 / week says it's an addiction is buying and fattening cattle, He's not wrong!!! I'll carry on buying and fattening cattle it's the part of the job I really enjoy, and like most things in farming sometimes you win sometimes you lose.
As long as you fattening boys will keep buying them then we suckler boys will keep supplying them .....we will all moan about it but we still do it !
 

Werzle

Member
Location
Midlands
As long as you fattening boys will keep buying them then we suckler boys will keep supplying them .....we will all moan about it but we still do it !
Your correct and there is no better feeling than getting big prices for stores but the less hands a beast goes through the more profit there should be. We all see cattle make more as stores than most of us could get from the slaughterhouse so we arent going to change. Slaughterhouse premium for hombred stock maybe? Only trouble with premiums is they manage to devalue one type and keep the premium product at the average price. If a store animal can be hauled too and from a store market, be deducted £20-30 commission and make the finisher money there should be a good margin if slaughterhouses paid everybody to same
 

Hfd Cattle

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Hereford
Was it @Treg who said something about a bonus on cattle that were sent to slaughter from their holdings of birth happening? It was some time ago it was mentioned but I'm sure someone did.
My concern with that is the amount of beef sired dairybred calves that have to move onto another holding for rearing . A premium with cattle showing no more than three moves would accommodate that .
 

Poorbuthappy

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Devon
My concern with that is the amount of beef sired dairybred calves that have to move onto another holding for rearing . A premium with cattle showing no more than three moves would accommodate that .
Not being funny, but that's commodity stuff. Where's the argument for a premium on that?
The provenance of an animal born, reared and finished on the same holding however...
 

Treg

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Cornwall
Was it @Treg who said something about a bonus on cattle that were sent to slaughter from their holdings of birth happening? It was some time ago it was mentioned but I'm sure someone did.
As @Werzle has just said I think it has been talked about,. M&S maybe talked about it but as far as I remember it's only Mc Donald's who specify number of holdings a animal has been on? Is it 8? Which to me seems to many still.
Though still in the back of my head think M&S may have restricted it to 4 holdings.
 

ImLost

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Not sure
As @Werzle has just said I think it has been talked about,. M&S maybe talked about it but as far as I remember it's only Mc Donald's who specify number of holdings a animal has been on? Is it 8? Which to me seems to many still.
Though still in the back of my head think M&S may have restricted it to 4 holdings.
What happens if its an ex show animal and has multiple movements on the passport to/from shows?
 
yes and is affecting present domestic trade , for cull ewes and especially rams , europe is also opening up to take up the slack as holiday destinations get going , I have watched euro / world prices over the last 24 months and we have been had by the trade as i mentioned by at least 15-20% ,It was heating up last march before this crisis as we caught up with euro pricing (as it did in 2018) , then everything shut !
Aus prices are at record levels and were long before the drought , China is short of protein as african swine flu has run riot and they are buying huge quantities of NZ lamb and cull ewes . I still believe there are other world deals in the pipeline that wont be apparent until the new year , but we will see .
ps : im not the only one that thinks it , 2t breeding sales so far are approx £20+ ahead of last year on the early sales ,
I suspect that week after Eid al Adha, so w/c August 3rd, there will be a concerted effort to pull the prices back and this will also coincide with more lambs being weaned. It will almost certainly drop IMO, just a question of how far given the factors you have outlined. If it stays over £2/kg LW, then there wouldn't be too much hardship.
 

andybk

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Mendips Somerset
I suspect that week after Eid al Adha, so w/c August 3rd, there will be a concerted effort to pull the prices back and this will also coincide with more lambs being weaned. It will almost certainly drop IMO, just a question of how far given the factors you have outlined. If it stays over £2/kg LW, then there wouldn't be too much hardship.
yes i can see that happening , the one bright spot might be uplift in store ewe lamb value given the current 2t prices . anyone buying tidy ewe lambs in the upper 30kg range (suff / mule or tex/ mules ) could get them tup by nov /dec given good grazing , a 2t @120-140 against a lamb in the high 60s / 70s gives a bit of room for maneuver
 

Shebb90

Member
Location
Devon
IMG_20200715_110933.jpg

Sold this char X heifer this morning £320 month old
 

exmoor dave

Member
Location
exmoor, uk
Breeding sale at Exeter good trade. Suffolk mules in strong demand.

I bought a couple pens if Lleyn for £138. Decent sheep but prob up 15 in last years trade.

Sold a couple of rams and pretty happy enough with trade.

Nice to get collared by buyers of rams over last couple years to be asked what I had at home so Worth it for the advertising.

My neighbours are having their dispersal sale next week, so all fingers crossed trade holds up and they have a good day at cutcombe!
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

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Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

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As reported in Independent


quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
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