Beef / Lamb & Pig Price Tracker

Poorbuthappy

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Devon
How many years have you sold sheep for? How many years have you sold hoggs for?
Ive sold them for 31 years both hoggs and lambs and that’s both every year. I was selling sheep long before that too before I was in business myself so nearer 40 years.
There was a good year around that time as I remember sorting a batch of 400 in the auction race and I couldn’t believe the prices. Tups and odds and ends were making near around £80/£90 no decent sorts in amongst but well fed. Remember you are quoting £150s for hoggs but I don’t remember seeing numbers of Beltex hoggs in numbers and of weight back then. Did you?
I’m assuming stores weren’t exiting then or I wouldn’t have had as many hoggs. What’s your point?
And what’s your point in moaning about a lift in sheep prices?
Im intrigued in where you are heading with this and I actually really want to know.
Missed the boat springs to mind
£100 in 1992 is worth £208 now
So even if lambs/hoggs were £50 in April 1992 that only makes them £104 now
I can’t help you any more
You can’t fix thick
Chill my friend.
I've been sheep farming all my life and I'm 51. Only been selling my own since 99 so obviously I know nothing.
My point is simply you have to compare like with like. Its easy to pick top prices, but I simply asked if you were comparing top prices then with average now?

Good prices are welcome, but I'm in the camp that struggles to see our customers keen to buy lamb when it gets to £150+ and think they will look elsewhere, so making it hard to maintain prices much in excess of that.
Happy to be proved wrong🙂
 

lloyd

Member
Location
Herefordshire
I sold some lambs for over £130 12days ago
and thought it a nice trade but they were bl**dy
good lambs .I've got some more I could take Monday
but I would hazard a guess they would be £15-£20
quid back so will hold but I really dont get what all this excitement
with sheep is about other than it might have been a
complete disaster with no deal.
Time some got in the real world as money has been devalued
much more than the fake inflation figures suggest.
I was watching a program the other day with a women explaining
how she was restructuring her finances and had to be careful with
her food shop .In the background of her living room was a 65inch
£2k TV my sympathy was lost.
 

Smith31

Member
Personally I don’t think they will be as dear as people think they will be. In my eyes theres a happy medium for everyone, if they get too dear processors will shut the doors and look else where to source it as people look at other things because it’s too expensive. We should all know how some companys price them selves out of the market, Let’s not do that with our own product. If folk can’t make things pay at £5/kg think it’s time they step aside and let those who can take over. Let’s remember what happend the last time they got to silly prices, Don’t think the next back end was that rosey as they all recouped there losses.

Good post, there is a festival starting around April so prices should firm up.

Longterm, it's anyones guess, most farmers I know are either getting into sheep or increasing numbers. With the right set up -300 ewes is a part time job, the returns will always be there, as there is a large demand from the home market.

The ones moaning on here have been doing so for years, always crying bankruptcy but they are still producing, must be a genetic thing with them. They are never grateful for the excellent lifestyle we get to lead via farming, which would be seen as a luxury for most, pay little notice to them.
 

lloyd

Member
Location
Herefordshire
Good post, there is a festival starting around April so prices should firm up.

Longterm, it's anyones guess, most farmers I know are either getting into sheep or increasing numbers. With the right set up -300 ewes is a part time job, the returns will always be there, as there is a large demand from the home market.

The ones moaning on here have been doing so for years, always crying bankruptcy but they are still producing, must be a genetic thing with them. They are never grateful for the excellent lifestyle we get to lead via farming, which would be seen as a luxury for most, pay little notice to them.

Well of course you've been having an excellent life style as your
further up the chain. :ROFLMAO:
 

Shebb90

Member
Location
Devon
Good post, there is a festival starting around April so prices should firm up.

Longterm, it's anyones guess, most farmers I know are either getting into sheep or increasing numbers. With the right set up -300 ewes is a part time job, the returns will always be there, as there is a large demand from the home market.

The ones moaning on here have been doing so for years, always crying bankruptcy but they are still producing, must be a genetic thing with them. They are never grateful for the excellent lifestyle we get to lead via farming, which would be seen as a luxury for most, pay little notice to them.
Not sure I would say most people would say I have a excellent lifestyle....most of my non farming friends would say I am nuts doing the hours I do for the margin I do it for. I do have a lovely place to live tho in the country with plenty of space I will agree with that but most still wouldn't swap tho.
 

Anymulewilldo

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Cheshire
Exactly,they will freely admit they have had the cream for the last two years but the last couple of months and going forward till new season starts they will be back to evens,so swings and roundabouts I guess.
They will still moan that us thicko’s who won’t sign up are having a better do than them at the moment.

It’s the whole idea of a “contract”! It’s exactly the same as forward selling your wheat last year at £160 and watching your neighbours selling theirs now at £208. Some years you win, some you don’t! You signs the paper, you can’t moan about it afterwards.
 

Al R

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
West Wales
Not sure I would say most people would say I have a excellent lifestyle....most of my non farming friends would say I am nuts doing the hours I do for the margin I do it for. I do have a lovely place to live tho in the country with plenty of space I will agree with that but most still wouldn't swap tho.
Same, I try and keep away from the non farming types, yes in good weather it can be lovely working outside but when you get days like Tuesday and your changing waterproof and full sets of clothes multiple times a day it isn’t fun
 

J 1177

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Durham, UK
agree , but thats the failure of the CAP , supposedly to subsidise cheap food production for the masses , which has essentially given the green light for supermarkets etc to pay what they think they can get away with . they know our COP , Larry goodman didnt build an empire on just taking a margin , the whole supply chain is being manipulated by clever frs
Spot on
 

primmiemoo

Member
Location
Devon
Being everso young in the 1990s, I'm not certain when that little cheque on top of the market price for lamb stopped coming. Was it the year IACS came in?

Lambs were doing well in the early part of the decade, and so were store cattle. £1000 apiece for homebred single suckle forwards, no less.
 

Werzle

Member
Location
Midlands
I sold some lambs for over £130 12days ago
and thought it a nice trade but they were bl**dy
good lambs .I've got some more I could take Monday
but I would hazard a guess they would be £15-£20
quid back so will hold but I really dont get what all this excitement
with sheep is about other than it might have been a
complete disaster with no deal.
Time some got in the real world as money has been devalued
much more than the fake inflation figures suggest.
I was watching a program the other day with a women explaining
how she was restructuring her finances and had to be careful with
her food shop .In the background of her living room was a 65inch
£2k TV my sympathy was lost.
On the other hand farmers moaning about prices when there farm is worth millions, and there are new tractors in the background doesnt look good either. Just for balance! The tractors and the tv are probably on finance
 

Shebb90

Member
Location
Devon
On the other hand farmers moaning about prices when there farm is worth millions, and there are new tractors in the background doesnt look good either. Just for balance! The tractors and the tv are probably on finance
Hate it when people say yes but your worth millions cos you got a farm. What stupid thing to say I my eyes yes your not wrong but that doesn't pay the bills. If I tell people I owe money that do you think they say don't worry about paying....
And tractors are part of the job things wear out and need changing.
 

lloyd

Member
Location
Herefordshire
On the other hand farmers moaning about prices when there farm is worth millions, and there are new tractors in the background doesnt look good either. Just for balance! The tractors and the tv are probably on finance

Except for farmers with multiple new tractors and multi million
pound farms dont tend to be sheep farmers.
Red meat is more affordable as a percentage of peoples wages than it has been
for years .If they want mainly factory farmed ,soya hungry, bland chicken then that
option is available too.
 
Good post, there is a festival starting around April so prices should firm up.

Longterm, it's anyones guess, most farmers I know are either getting into sheep or increasing numbers. With the right set up -300 ewes is a part time job, the returns will always be there, as there is a large demand from the home market.

The ones moaning on here have been doing so for years, always crying bankruptcy but they are still producing, must be a genetic thing with them. They are never grateful for the excellent lifestyle we get to lead via farming, which would be seen as a luxury for most, pay little notice to them.
I can’t like this enough
 

lloyd

Member
Location
Herefordshire
I agree with you both but in the eyes of the general public nobody is forcing us to farm and we are sat on assets worth millions. Many of the GP just think why not sell it and do something else, many bank managers think the same when farmers are moaning to them.

I think a lot would sell their children first and
are less interested in capital wealth unless they
are borrowing against it.
:)
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

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  • 100% I’ve had enough of farming!

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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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