Beef / Lamb & Pig Price Tracker

Mc115reed

Member
Livestock Farmer
You bought a load of old mules for £105 ish if I remember correctly.
Just dug invoice out ...
All apart from 7 are running again, straight bags, full mouths, no problems lambing and no feet issues... why buy expensive sheep that will depreciate when they’re worth what I paid for them still as cull sheep too kill tomorrow if I choose??? If I could find 150 straight sheep like that every year from 1/2 farms I’d sooner do that than buying expensive shearlings that depreciate
 

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Just dug invoice out ...
All apart from 7 are running again, straight bags, full mouths, no problems lambing and no feet issues... why buy expensive sheep that will depreciate when they’re worth what I paid for them still as cull sheep too kill tomorrow if I choose??? If I could find 150 straight sheep like that every year from 1/2 farms I’d sooner do that than buying expensive shearlings that depreciate
Many a good tune played on an old fiddle
 

Mc115reed

Member
Livestock Farmer
Many a good tune played on an old fiddle
More than 1 way too skin a cat sorry you might not agree but if I paid £90.68 for them last year.... and then I sold them cull on Monday and got £91.60 and have had 1.6 lambs out of them... I don’t see how there is more money too be made out of a shearling ewe at £180 a head and costs the same money too keep and is still worth £90 as a cull when it has lambing problems or dodgey feet in 12 months time...
 
More than 1 way too skin a cat sorry you might not agree but if I paid £90.68 for them last year.... and then I sold them cull on Monday and got £91.60 and have had 1.6 lambs out of them... I don’t see how there is more money too be made out of a shearling ewe at £180 a head and costs the same money too keep and is still worth £90 as a cull when it has lambing problems or dodgey feet in 12 months time...
I’ve only ever bought shearlings inlamb. Never in the backend. Mainly breed my own. Buy inlamb ewes so I can increase flock and cull poor performance ewes out. That’s my system and I think it’s the best one I’ve tried. I do buy ewes but if I was in the cull pens I would feel I was asking for trouble. Some ewes that don’t carry lambs full term end up there
 

Al R

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
West Wales
Always good to remember why you were culling originally at 6 yo
Many folks try to keep them that extra year and every now and again there’s significant losses
Usually around a fortnight before lambing after they’ve had all the grub and med
We were culling originally at 6 years because the home farm can only carry so many head, 150 ewe lambs coming in every year, 110-120 ewes going out at 6 year old roughly. Extra land, new leys and land in the winter to carry the ewe lambs on has made the difference to being able to carry another 70-100 ewes.
 

Al R

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
West Wales
When dodgy old crusty old duffers of ewes were making-£1 then no harm in chancing them to run on and feed at £140 a tonne barley £60 a tonne no dead stock charges
When those same ewes are £50 upwards at least £10 disposal charge £250 plus for feed barley £200 they need to be gone
Burial pits, those were the days!! It was worth risking ultra cheap stock as there was no disposal charge. I still think we should be able to have them so long as signed off as safe. Surely more environmentally friendly than running lorries around the country picking up dead stock taking them to a central location and then running them up to Cumbria for incineration 🤷🏻‍♂️
 

Estate fencing.

Member
Livestock Farmer
More than 1 way too skin a cat sorry you might not agree but if I paid £90.68 for them last year.... and then I sold them cull on Monday and got £91.60 and have had 1.6 lambs out of them... I don’t see how there is more money too be made out of a shearling ewe at £180 a head and costs the same money too keep and is still worth £90 as a cull when it has lambing problems or dodgey feet in 12 months time...
It will work well for a while, but you have to ask yourself why are people culling them at an age, I would predict you may end up with something a lot more serous than bad feet and a difficult lambing in a couple of years. I wouldn't touch old ewes with a barge pole, why don't you keep back a load of ewe lambs?
 

Ceri

Member
More than 1 way too skin a cat sorry you might not agree but if I paid £90.68 for them last year.... and then I sold them cull on Monday and got £91.60 and have had 1.6 lambs out of them... I don’t see how there is more money too be made out of a shearling ewe at £180 a head and costs the same money too keep and is still worth £90 as a cull when it has lambing problems or dodgey feet in 12 months time...
Because you'll have that shearling for 6/7 years and you only have to buy a few to replenish the flock each year.......
 

Mc115reed

Member
Livestock Farmer
It will work well for a while, but you have to ask yourself why are people culling them at an age, I would predict you may end up with something a lot more serous than bad feet and a difficult lambing in a couple of years. I wouldn't touch old ewes with a barge pole, why don't you keep back a load of ewe lambs?
Rome wasn’t built in a day, I kept back 25 last year and have marked 40 too keep back this year... but sometimes you just need cash flow.... In another year or 2 hopefully I’ll be in a position too stop buying sheep all together and just breed my own... it’s no wonder some sheep farmers struggle too make it pay though with what they spend on sheep when they’ve got all excited about 3 months good lamb trade
 

Werzle

Member
Location
Midlands
All types and sizes of cattle are being fought over, smaller things had started to look value 3 weeks ago but people have woken up to it and they have risen. As said above numbers are dropping in the markets so thats helping trade even more. Finished cattle of all types ,done well are coming to massive money
 

texelburger

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Herefordshire
Burial pits, those were the days!! It was worth risking ultra cheap stock as there was no disposal charge. I still think we should be able to have them so long as signed off as safe. Surely more environmentally friendly than running lorries around the country picking up dead stock taking them to a central location and then running them up to Cumbria for incineration 🤷🏻‍♂️
My late Uncle,former ministry vet,said the same.He reckoned a licenced,marked out area on the farm where there is no land drains and burying to at least 4 feet deep with hydrated lime put on top would of been ok.He said transporting carcasses around the country and seeing putrefying fluid seeping from the back of vehicles wasn't very effective at controlling the potential spread of diseases.
 

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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