Beef / Lamb & Pig Price Tracker

Henarar

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Somerset
They should offer a discount for bulk selling then. You’re charged per lamb with no discount for pen fulls.
when you’re paying £4 per lamb commission you’re entitled to Sell how you want
I spose if someone has thousands of sheep then it shouldn't be much trouble to get a big pen of lambs all looking the same but if you only have a few sheep its much more difficult.
 

Frank-the-Wool

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
East Sussex
Down South we know nothing else than selling finished sheep in pens. Always have and I guess always will. Stores always through the ring. No problem having penful of 100 plus stores though. None of this messing about with options.

It is very fast selling them in pens and will do around a thousand an hour on a good trade.
All lambs are graded and sorted before penning so there are even lambs in each pen. Anything not finished would be marked on the head to go in the stores. Similarly rams.

You don't send anything very poor or lame as Trading Standards will get you!! Probably much stricter down here where there are lots of the AR (Animal Rights) brigade.
 

Anymulewilldo

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Cheshire
Down South we know nothing else than selling finished sheep in pens. Always have and I guess always will. Stores always through the ring. No problem having penful of 100 plus stores though. None of this messing about with options.

It is very fast selling them in pens and will do around a thousand an hour on a good trade.
All lambs are graded and sorted before penning so there are even lambs in each pen. Anything not finished would be marked on the head to go in the stores. Similarly rams.

You don't send anything very poor or lame as Trading Standards will get you!! Probably much stricter down here where there are lots of the AR (Animal Rights) brigade.
I think the only difference is where the labour is required. We used too queue for ages too get onto the docks at Chelford, but everything was graded, weighed and penned before sale. Granted if they’d had more competent staff it would have helped. Was alright when there were 2 graders on. Main thing that slowed it down was farmers stood talking in the grading area!! Ours weren’t that bad as I’d grade and sort ours then Roger would cast his eye over them and tweak any id missed. But they never liked more than 20 in a pen. Which started too get tedious if 3/4 of us all turned up with 200+. It used too throw the whole place into chaos when one feeder used too turn up with 350 a week from March through too mid April! Through fallouts with the main man there we tried Bentham and you unload much faster, but then either you spend time grading them in the pens or as they go up the alley too the ring. Or the auctioneers run them through the shedder (this is easiest and usually he makes a tip top job of grading th out. But if you end up the wrong side of 3/4 artics you’re stuffed for a while!!
And it was always bloody difficult too hide a lean lamb at Chelford!!
So on the finished side I think it’s 6 of 1 and half a dozen of another.
Stores/breeders wise, always better in the ring talking as a buyer. Too many issues can be hidden in a full pen!
 

Anymulewilldo

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Cheshire
Local auctioneer blames all the cross breed tups that's used nowadays for making it harder to get big pens off lambs. At onetime most ewes would be crossed once and tup were pure, now a lot of ewes are crossed twice and cross tups are quite common.
I blame ours on too many different types of ewe, and my lack of ability too stick too 1 type of store lamb when buying! Blackies are so much easier. Big, medium, small pens of up too 50/60. Much easier.
One of the first times we tried Mule wethers at Bentham, Grandad was still pretty hands on then. We sorted 2 pens of texel crosses and we’re left with 82 mules. Hardly a kg difference between them. I started splitting them and he said “leave them as a whole bunch, fill the ring and hold up £30 luck. Best way too sell these” I did as I was told and we topped the section that night! Buyers must have been short of beer money or something!! 😂
 

sherg

Member
Location
shropshire
Never seen fat lambs go through the ring would of thought its harder for the buyers to feel the meat on lambs, Jonathan in that video is as good as anyone at selling fat lambs he can motor through them if the trade is half decent, store lambs at hereford are better now through the ring it used to be a scrap to get to the sheep how nobody was trampled is a miracle
 

andybk

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Mendips Somerset
That's what I've always thought, seems totally random when looking at the likes of bentham sale the buyers run round after them and it's 50/50 if they manage to get their hand on them or not, and lots don't bother !
yea and saves all the arguments in the playpen when space is a bit tight , tend to find at sedge a few clued up buyers are half a row ahead for particular sorts ,
 

Anymulewilldo

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Cheshire
A few sheep or cattle single is not the problem it’s clowns that turn up with 100 head one at a time , selfish barstewards imo .
There’s a fella occasionally turns up in Bentham in the spring from over the east side somewhere. Will sell 60/70 real good hoggs. Proper almost pure texels. The biggest bunch will be a 5 at the end!!! Talk about pulling teeth! They could go through in 10-15’s at a time and make exactly the same money!!
 

Anymulewilldo

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Cheshire
That's what I've always thought, seems totally random when looking at the likes of bentham sale the buyers run round after them and it's 50/50 if they manage to get their hand on them or not, and lots don't bother !
I think a lot of that is if they don’t quite believe the weights?
a good buyer should be able too guesstimate the weight pretty accurately when looking at sheep. It’s when the weights don’t match the lambs they want a feel.
before covid the weighbridge man made a right balls up on a ruck of lambs, think they were up as 41’s?? 🤔 way too fit too be that weight. The buyers said let them out and weigh them again. Came back in as 46’s and sold well.
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

  • 0 %

    Votes: 77 43.5%
  • Up to 25%

    Votes: 62 35.0%
  • 25-50%

    Votes: 28 15.8%
  • 50-75%

    Votes: 3 1.7%
  • 75-100%

    Votes: 3 1.7%
  • 100% I’ve had enough of farming!

    Votes: 4 2.3%

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

  • 1,286
  • 1
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/
Top