Beef / Lamb & Pig Price Tracker

[neilo]

Should be heading back to hereford and angus cattle.

If the price is based on marbling I would think that would certainly happen, which is why those breeds dominate everywhere else in the world.

IMF is heritable and can be measured & selected for. The Lims, Blues, Blondes, etc could improve things as regards marbling, but they’d start from a long way behind.

 

[Anymulewilldo]

I don’t know why we don’t all eat Holstein Bullock, pump him full of barley for the last 4 months and he eats beautiful!!

 

[cattleman123]

Shhh! That’s what I’m doing. I’ve 250 lambs that I would have been drawing from (probably average low 40’s already) that have had a hopper in for a fortnight. I’ll start into them again when they’ve started flying again.

There are only 130 or so mid-30s which are away on turnips to look at in April.

Yes always easy to sell hogs in Feb, its late March /April that the problems start always sticky at that time of year...or should i say normally

 

[neilo]

Yes always easy to sell hogs in Feb, its late March /April that the problems start always sticky at that time of year...or should i say normally

Lots of hoggs are traipsing round in muddy turnip fields in February, so lots of people can’t really be drawing them then, mine included. I have to wait until the sun comes out and they’re back onto grass fields.

 

[Gedd]

Should be heading back to hereford and angus cattle.

Hexh have a native store cattle breed sale monthly but the other 3 three weeks have a lot of native in there as well mainly angus and they get some trade

 

[Werzle]

As in a lot of other countries globally, they are paid on marbling/imf as it is critical to eating quality. There’s absolutely no reason the same couldn’t be done here, without the feedlots and growth promoters.

Of course it would mean the end for the lean, big arsed continental breeds, so the NBA and wealthiest breed societies will fight it to the death.

Pretty sure thats the way im heading, breed some big 3/4 bred lim and lim x blue cows and then stick angus bulls on them. That way i will produce a big meat yielding beast with the premium and eating quality of the angus. They should fit the longterm aim of less meat consumption but better quality taste and if it turns out that isnt the case i still have good cows to return to using the charolais.

 

[Werzle]

I think once folks start feeding an they've been through a few tonnes.they'll see bills come in an start selling under finished lambs if there 40kgs just to save a bit.especially the new boys who think its easy this lamb job.

If they have any sense they will sell them back through the store ring

 

[Plain steer]

American beef has the worst reputation on the planet in the public opinion though, between huge feedlots and GM produce coupled with hormone injections etc

It bloody tastes good though

 

[yellowbelly]

Pretty sure thats the way im heading, breed some big 3/4 bred lim and lim x blue cows and then stick angus bulls on them. That way i will produce a big meat yielding beast with the premium and eating quality of the angus.

What if the genetics work the other way round and you get the frame of the Angus (see pic that's regularly posted on here ) coupled with the eating quality of a blue cow

 

[glensman]

What if the genetics work the other way round and you get the frame of the Angus (see pic that's regularly posted on here ) coupled with the eating quality of a blue cow

You've been reading George Bernard Shaw again, haven't you.

 

[Poorbuthappy]

Pretty sure thats the way im heading, breed some big 3/4 bred lim and lim x blue cows and then stick angus bulls on them. That way i will produce a big meat yielding beast with the premium and eating quality of the angus. They should fit the longterm aim of less meat consumption but better quality taste and if it turns out that isnt the case i still have good cows to return to using the charolais.

Worst thing with that is you've got big hungry cows to keep. Like keeping a big continental ewe then putting a highlander ram on it.

 

[muleman]

Pretty sure thats the way im heading, breed some big 3/4 bred lim and lim x blue cows and then stick angus bulls on them. That way i will produce a big meat yielding beast with the premium and eating quality of the angus. They should fit the longterm aim of less meat consumption but better quality taste and if it turns out that isnt the case i still have good cows to return to using the charolais.

Dont be wasting your time....put the lim or blue bull on them now.

 

[livestock 1]

Pretty sure thats the way im heading, breed some big 3/4 bred lim and lim x blue cows and then stick angus bulls on them. That way i will produce a big meat yielding beast with the premium and eating quality of the angus. They should fit the longterm aim of less meat consumption but better quality taste and if it turns out that isnt the case i still have good cows to return to using the charolais.

A few folks have changed from lim to Angus bulls I know of. Probably varied success is the best way to put it.

 

[Werzle]

What if the genetics work the other way round and you get the frame of the Angus (see pic that's regularly posted on here ) coupled with the eating quality of a blue cow

Pic posted on here is a angus out of a jersey cow i reckon, modern angus is some beast and with a possible 30p/kg premium

 

[Werzle]

Dont be wasting your time....put the lim or blue bull on them now.

Just thinking longterm, lim, blue and char beef make the most at the moment but eating quality isnt the best. Interested in producing premium beef for the future without ruining the herd.

 

[livestock 1]

Pic posted on here is a angus out of a jersey cow i reckon, modern angus is some beast and with a possible 30p/kg premium

We sold some Angus bullocks in the stores this summer they were named sires to qualify for Waitrose premium £60 (premium was £60 not the bullocks)

 

[Werzle]

Worst thing with that is you've got big hungry cows to keep. Like keeping a big continental ewe then putting a highlander ram on it.

No premuim on highlanders though unlike the angus and if i had a hill farm or rough grazing i would agree with you .

 

[neilo]

Pretty sure thats the way im heading, breed some big 3/4 bred lim and lim x blue cows and then stick angus bulls on them. That way i will produce a big meat yielding beast with the premium and eating quality of the angus. They should fit the longterm aim of less meat consumption but better quality taste and if it turns out that isnt the case i still have good cows to return to using the charolais.

Unless the grading system changes to reward marbling, I wouldn't bother tbh. Any premium currently only really makes up for the lower carcass yield, and is only what the processors have worked out as 'just enough' to get a supply.

You'll still have to keep a big hungry continental cow, so she might as well be producing an animal to maximise income. Doing it the other way round, with native bred cows, would at least give you economies in the cost of keeping the cow.

We had a neighbour at home, who started his suckler herd from Angus x calves (which may well of been out of his own Jersey dairy cows) that were only worth a fiver at the time. They lived on bugger all, summering on rubbish ridge & furrow grass over the hedge from our (similar) grass keep, but always had some cracking Charollais x calves at foot. They certainly weren't pretty cows (see photo often posted on here), or big cows, but they were producing a decent enough calf at low cost.

 

[Werzle]

Unless the grading system changes to reward marbling, I wouldn't bother tbh. Any premium currently only really makes up for the lower carcass yield, and is only what the processors have worked out as 'just enough' to get a supply.

You'll still have to keep a big hungry continental cow, so she might as well be producing an animal to maximise income. Doing it the other way round, with native bred cows, would at least give you economies in the cost of keeping the cow.

We had a neighbour at home, who started his suckler herd from Angus x calves (which may well of been out of his own Jersey dairy cows) that were only worth a fiver at the time. They lived on bugger all, summering on rubbish ridge & furrow grass over the hedge from our (similar) grass keep, but always had some cracking Charollais x calves at foot. They certainly weren't pretty cows (see photo often posted on here), or big cows, but they were producing a decent enough calf at low cost.

Each to there own. I have a few of those big cows already and they seem to be doing better than the first cross lim and bb cows out of dairy cows currently on a diet of adlib hay and late grazing .

 

[neilo]

Each to there own. I have a few of those big cows already and they seem to be doing better than the first cross lim and bb cows out of dairy cows currently on a diet of adlib hay and late grazing .

The point is that they're eating more for maintenance than a small cow though, so you will be either putting more feed in, or keeping fewer cows to the acre, than you would with wee black rabbits. But yes, you do have to look at them every day...

It's no different to @Agrivator keeping 80-90kg ewes and then putting a wee wheezing ram on them.