Beef fattening units

Hfd Cattle

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Hereford
Been a bit of discussion around here recently about 'beef fattening units ' where you 'rent a feeding lot'.usually holding about 40 cattle . You pay a weekly fee and the cattle are fattened and marketed for you . It's a case of all in and all out in a 3 mth period .
Anyone done this or know anything about such a system
 
It’s a big thing in America. They call it retained ownership where a ranch will breed stores and instead of selling them on to a feed lot they send them to finish but still own them. It depends on the value of stores against what it’s going to cost to finish them I suppose?
I shouldn’t be saying this as a store seller but without doing any figures this year it would appear that the finished price would need to lift a bit looking at the price of feed.
 

Tomo23

Member
Livestock Farmer

liammogs

Member
Remember reading about this type of thing a few years ago, few farmers from north Wales we're doing it there biggest benefits where obviously they had more room too keep breeding cows etc but the one thing that stuck with me and made most sense......why haul lorry of this a lorry of that a wagon of straw..... minerals for this etc.....when you send all the cattle on the lorry once and there in the middle of all feed straights/factory waste and the arable farmer takes the muck back aswell for feeding his feed grade wheat
 

Lincolnshire's biggest feedlot are mainly contract finishers.
Wasn’t there one for sale a few years back we used to work for them on their waste side wrg he had a fair collection of tractors also also sent angus/Hereford cattle there sold was his name Paul Rackham ?? Lorry driver said it was quiet impressive sure he said 7000 cattle on site
 

unlacedgecko

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Fife
Wasn’t there one for sale a few years back we used to work for them on their waste side wrg he had a fair collection of tractors also also sent angus/Hereford cattle there sold was his name Paul Rackham ?? Lorry driver said it was quiet impressive sure he said 7000 cattle on site
Dunno about sale. But there was 1 in East Anglia offered for a 5 year FBT a few months ago. Total capacity was 1500hd I think.
 
Makes you think why it isn't a bit more common- you have those larger farms in the East where they have access to land to spread manure, tonnes of straw they would otherwise chop up, grain and veg or spuds coming out of their ears, why not just import some cattle and feed them all winter to keep their teams of guys ticking over?
 

unlacedgecko

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Fife
Makes you think why it isn't a bit more common- you have those larger farms in the East where they have access to land to spread manure, tonnes of straw they would otherwise chop up, grain and veg or spuds coming out of their ears, why not just import some cattle and feed them all winter to keep their teams of guys ticking over?
Large scale livestock units, especially intensive ones, are the devil. #FactoryFarming. The NIMBYs won't stand for it.
 

beardface

Member
Location
East Yorkshire
I suppose the question is, can they finnish your cattle better / quicker / cheaper than you can? I'm sure lots of stock used to move from West to east in "the olden days".

Read a overview of farming in our area (East yorkshire) from early 1900 up to 1920's a while ago. Nearly all cattle were stores to finish and mostly shorthorn. All brought into the area. Finished on grass and barley.
 

beardface

Member
Location
East Yorkshire
Makes you think why it isn't a bit more common- you have those larger farms in the East where they have access to land to spread manure, tonnes of straw they would otherwise chop up, grain and veg or spuds coming out of their ears, why not just import some cattle and feed them all winter to keep their teams of guys ticking over?

I'd hazard a guess that BSE knackered the job and on agents advice they chopped the livestock side and went full throttle arable. Likely no infrastructure left or livestock expertise. Shame as most are realising that mixed farming is the future not the past.
 

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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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