Beef / Lamb & Pig Price Tracker

[Estate fencing.]

Those lambs are your work...unless they are your hobby...
Makes me laugh when people will lamb them for 6 weeks working 24 hours a day...care for them for 4-12 months...finish them...then just want rid of them at the final stage and think spending half a day at the mart to sell them is a waste of a day...achieving your very best price is the most important part of the business unless you get more for them deadweight but once Larry has full control we will be all in the shite

I do my 500 ewes in evening and weekends because I’m try to get going on my own so I have to earn Income else where to support my family. What good is being stood in market to be shafted by the buyers!

 

[yellowbelly]

How by standing at a Fatstock Mart half the day do you achieve a better price?

By seeking out buyers who've had your lambs before, making sure they know what they are, and where they are, seeing what they want (so you can 'tweak' yours in the future), making sure the auctioneer doesn't p!ss them away..............and most of all putting a base line in the market for deadweight so that the big processors don't control the job even more than they do now.

 

[Henarar]

I’m not luck enough to have a family farm. The 500 ewes I have are just part of my income and by sending them dead weight I get £5 head more for them and don’t have to spend half a day standing in a market. Maybe the industry would be a hell of a lot more efficient if I where like the pig and poultry.

and what is so good about efficient in this contest from the farmers point of view ?
yes efficient would be good from the processors/supermarkets point of view they could look at your accounts and make sure your not making more than a penny, if your lucky they will give you pocket money

 

[neilo]

I meant the selling live part

I’ve been converted to selling mostly dw for the last 2 years, after being shown lots of ram customers’ grading sheets. I reckon I have averaged around a fiver a head more dw than I have live, even after paying haulage to the abattoir vs taking my own to mart. That’s not with any special contracts or poor lambs by any means, 1/3 of my lambs graded as E last year, half U and the rest R (including maternal whethers).

I get the whole ‘live to thrive’ argument, and remember getting shafted in 2001 well, hence selling everything live until 2 years ago, but I can’t afford a fiver a lamb to pay towards the auctioneers’ Range Rovers, or the lamb buyers’ new Mercs.

 

[Henarar]

I’ve been converted to selling mostly dw for the last 2 years, after being shown lots of ram customers’ grading sheets. I reckon I have averaged around a fiver a head more dw than I have live, even after paying haulage to the abattoir vs taking my own to mart. That’s not with any special contracts or poor lambs by any means, 1/3 of my lambs graded as E last year, half U and the rest R (including maternal whethers).

I get the whole ‘live to thrive’ argument, and remember getting shafted in 2001 well, hence selling everything live until 2 years ago, but I can’t afford a fiver a lamb to pay towards the auctioneers’ Range Rovers, or the lamb buyers’ new Mercs.

and when all the markets, small slaughter houses and competition is gone and there are only a few buyers left do you think you will still get your five quid or will those buggers get together over a pint to work out just how hard they can screw you ?

 

[Poorbuthappy]

and when all the markets, small slaughter houses and competition is gone and there are only a few buyers left do you think you will still get your five quid or will those buggers get together over a pint to work out just how hard they can screw you ?

Hahaha, I thought that's what they did at market!

But, whilst I mostly go dw, the choice is the key, and long may it continue.

 

[Henarar]

Hahaha, I thought that's what they did at market!

But, whilst I mostly go dw, the choice is the key, and long may it continue.

oh I agree some fat markets don't work because there are to few buyers, see where I am coming from ?

 

[Henarar]

we sell surplus lambs and cull ewes at the liveweight collection centre, not sure where that fits in to this argument

 

[Northeastfarmer]

I’ve been converted to selling mostly dw for the last 2 years, after being shown lots of ram customers’ grading sheets. I reckon I have averaged around a fiver a head more dw than I have live, even after paying haulage to the abattoir vs taking my own to mart. That’s not with any special contracts or poor lambs by any means, 1/3 of my lambs graded as E last year, half U and the rest R (including maternal whethers).

I get the whole ‘live to thrive’ argument, and remember getting shafted in 2001 well, hence selling everything live until 2 years ago, but I can’t afford a fiver a lamb to pay towards the auctioneers’ Range Rovers, or the lamb buyers’ new Mercs.

Yes the buyers have mercs but Larry has rolls Royce’s and Ferrari’s

 

[Woolless]

we sell surplus lambs and cull ewes at the liveweight collection centre, not sure where that fits in to this argument

Is there much competition for your stock at the collection centre??

 

[Henarar]

Is there much competition for your stock at the collection centre??

Not as such but you get a price before you go so you have a choice

 

[Woolless]

I’ve been converted to selling mostly dw for the last 2 years, after being shown lots of ram customers’ grading sheets. I reckon I have averaged around a fiver a head more dw than I have live, even after paying haulage to the abattoir vs taking my own to mart. That’s not with any special contracts or poor lambs by any means, 1/3 of my lambs graded as E last year, half U and the rest R (including maternal whethers).

I get the whole ‘live to thrive’ argument, and remember getting shafted in 2001 well, hence selling everything live until 2 years ago, but I can’t afford a fiver a lamb to pay towards the auctioneers’ Range Rovers, or the lamb buyers’ new Mercs.

This is exactly it. I sell most of mine deadweight but through a farmers' co-operative and there's no doubt that they come to more money that way with less hassle. Smaller and out of season lots go through the mart and I wouldn't like to see it go, that's for sure.

 

[neilo]

Not as such but you get a price before you go so you have a choice

They quote you a price per kg before you take them presumably? Much like dw then, take it or leave it, but you get to pay a middle man?

I fail to see how selling that way is supporting competition in the live marts, any more than selling dw. Surely the operating company/market is just doing exactly the same as any other dw selling agent, of which there are many around the country.

 

[Estate fencing.]

Not as such but you get a price before you go so you have a choice

Why is that different to dead weigh? But you still waste time taking them. I draw lambs on a Sunday, ring up 3 abattoirs to see who payed the highest price on the Monday and book them in to be picked up Thursday. If they are paying less than the others then they don’t get them do they, so there is still competition.

 

[Plain steer]

Which abattoirs do you use out of interest

 

[capfits]

Looked at this thread and guess what?
no actual prices just opinion about dead versus live.
Stick to topic and put the other stuff elsewhere please.

 

[hally]

We sell both ways and find it pretty simple, the better lambs are better live and the plainer sorts are better dead but there is not a huge difference either way. All day in an auction is a pain but we find the deadweight guys always seem to pick on a couple of lambs and grade them badly no matter how well you sort them

 

[sheepwise]

This is exactly it. I sell most of mine deadweight but through a farmers' co-operative and there's no doubt that they come to more money that way with less hassle. Smaller and out of season lots go through the mart and I wouldn't like to see it go, that's for sure.

Farmstock?

 

[Northeastfarmer]

Looked at this thread and guess what?
no actual prices just opinion about dead versus live.
Stick to topic and put the other stuff elsewhere please.

Says the man who to my knowledge has made zero input into this thread

 

[andybk]

I get the whole ‘live to thrive’ argument, and remember getting shafted in 2001 well, hence selling everything live until 2 years ago, but I can’t afford a fiver a lamb to pay towards the auctioneers’ Range Rovers, or the lamb buyers’ new Mercs.

problem is , its the live buyers/ sellers that set the price that the grid is based on , and its based on the average so thats all the good stuff and crap hill stuff , i agree with what your saying and we sold dead for many years , grading sheets are very useful , but left to their own devices we will all get hung out to dry . we really all need a new transparent system of selling lambs .