Black and white bull beef costings

[RAF]

I could load it on a wagon for £220 . Although I don’t think there are any other alternatives .

 

[gone up the hill]

I could load it on a wagon for £220 . Although I don’t think there are any other alternatives .

If you load it on a wagon for £220 you are giving it away!

At that price i would give it to the cattle.

Apparently some very big units with 1500 head plus of cattle up north cannot find barley for love or money and the little they can get they are paying £280/90 ton delivered in.

 

[RAF]

And there paying it ? Buitlaar put price up 8p kg . Cattle wagon will swallow that up . Who else will take B&W off red farm

 

[Hampton]

Most economical age to buy is 6 to 8 months old at £150

As long as they are a decent size. Otherwise you will never finish them under the age limit

 

[Hampton]

I haven’t looked into a market or anything like that as of yet because I thought I’d get other people’s opinions on the job to see if its worth doing before going into it if you know what I mean. I was thinking along the lines of buying calves and taking them to finish on a barley protein based diet with perhaps a limited input of silage. Thanks

I think buying them as calves is the only way you can realistic do it as someone else hasn’t ballsed them up

 

[cull cows]

And there paying it ? Buitlaar put price up 8p kg . Cattle wagon will swallow that up . Who else will take B&W off red farm

Pickstocks

 

[gone up the hill]

I think buying them as calves is the only way you can realistic do it as someone else hasn’t ballsed them up

Bull job is dead in the water now with the current high price and likely even higher grain prices in the next 12 months.

They will eat two ton of grain so at £350 ton ( after milling/ adding minerals/ protein ) that is £700 head alone!

Add in buying the calve/ rearing it to 12 weeks then the cost of straw/silage/water etc etc it wont stack up!

Grain could easily be £500 ton ex farm by March 2023 unless the fert price drops/Russia can export grain again and that looks very unlikely as things stand!

 

[gone up the hill]

And there paying it ? Buitlaar put price up 8p kg . Cattle wagon will swallow that up . Who else will take B&W off red farm

Yes they are paying it as they have no choice unless they sell everything quickly as stores and keep the sheds empty!

 

[J 1177]

Bull job is dead in the water now with the current high price and likely even higher grain prices in the next 12 months.

They will eat two ton of grain so at £350 ton ( after milling/ adding minerals/ protein ) that is £700 head alone!

Add in buying the calve/ rearing it to 12 weeks then the cost of straw/silage/water etc etc it wont stack up!

Grain could easily be £500 ton ex farm by March 2023 unless the fert price drops/Russia can export grain again and that looks very unlikely as things stand!

If grains £500 ton there wont be a livestock industry of any kind in this country. Ok maybe some hill lamb.

 

[thorpe]

if grains 500 a tonne i wont need to feed cattle.

 

[gone up the hill]

If grains £500 ton there wont be a livestock industry of any kind in this country. Ok maybe some hill lamb.

If Fert ends up £1300/1400 ton ( which looks very likely ) then grain will need to be £500 ton or else arable farmers wont put it on and if they do not then yields will go into freefall and prices will go even higher!

As things stand things look very bleak for the UK livestock industry unless the end prices we receive rise in line with prices of inputs like fert/ feed etc.

 

[Ben B]

We do, but we're also in NZ, land of freedom so the figures will be much different.
We don't worry about fast, cheap is the name of the game for us
Buy at around 270kg and sell in a year at 550-650kg, we cell-graze them on PP with small areas/many moves, they are our "tractors" ie they smash the pasture down
Buy: £400
Sell: £750-950

We also lease them to the dairy boys for £250/hd which can hold them up a bit but means you aren't so dependent on beef prices as they owe you much less. Just need a clear BVD Johnes IBR tb test and off they go.
We don't use fertiliser/lime so to us buying a larger framed animal means less Ca is taken away, making it the least extractive way for us to operate

Moving them several times a day in spring/summer prevents overgrazing pasture and boredom, so they stop wrecking things and just graze - lie down - move on

We figure our land cost (mortgage, rates, etc) comes to about £250/ac all counted so we run a good stocking rate when we have the feed growing and then adjust numbers to suit the season, hence the low-cost approach, this is the only way to stand up again if you take a hiding when you need to sell

We cell graze over winter too, ours ate 1/4 of a round bale each plus deferred pasture

We did our sums on avg cow price at sale time (£2.20/kg cwt) and it rose to £3.02 due to ASF etc, so it was a good exercise this year, some animals grossed £750

It takes a big "change of heart" from the way most people farm beef, not saying this is a perfect system or for UK use - but if they are going to give you a hiding on the grid, you have to afford it somehow

Leasing them out to graze drains and the like?

 

[Kiwi Pete]

Leasing them out to graze drains and the like?

No, for mating heifers, then try to rehome as many as possible before they return.

Things have changed significantly since I posted that,, not so keen on meat production/finishing as we used to be

 

[jackrussell101]

What percentage of global beef is grain fed just out of interest?

Surely beef prices will have to rise given where costs are going.

Cull cows this week are 370p, nearly getting towards what the price of clean is.

 

[Kiwi Pete]

Bull job is dead in the water now with the current high price and likely even higher grain prices in the next 12 months.

They will eat two ton of grain so at £350 ton ( after milling/ adding minerals/ protein ) that is £700 head alone!

Add in buying the calve/ rearing it to 12 weeks then the cost of straw/silage/water etc etc it wont stack up!

Grain could easily be £500 ton ex farm by March 2023 unless the fert price drops/Russia can export grain again and that looks very unlikely as things stand!

Exactly

they will never get everyone driving electric cars while fuel is affordable

they will never get everyone drinking nut juice while milk is affordable

they will never get everyone eating plant- and insect-based protein while farmers undercut their efforts and remain profitable

they will never force people to adopt a centralised bank with programmable digital currency while fiat money exists

This is why all the conversation has been steered onto "The War",, so that people don't realise they (and everyone around them) are fighting a war - and losing it

looking at practically every "public health scare" in modern history, it's all linked to animals

F&M
BSE
"bat flu"

next in line, if you watch mainstream australian media, is japanese encephalitis from mosquitoes, so it's time to jab all the pork industry workers and farmers

just about every "climate crisis" is illogically linked to livestock farming

if you wonder the real reason they do nothing about bTb in your country, join the dots - they want farmers gone

@Goweresque says no, they don't want to get their hands dirty, I still need a little more convincing about that.

 

[Werzle]

Bull job is dead in the water now with the current high price and likely even higher grain prices in the next 12 months.

They will eat two ton of grain so at £350 ton ( after milling/ adding minerals/ protein ) that is £700 head alone!

Add in buying the calve/ rearing it to 12 weeks then the cost of straw/silage/water etc etc it wont stack up!

Grain could easily be £500 ton ex farm by March 2023 unless the fert price drops/Russia can export grain again and that looks very unlikely as things stand!

If the bull job is dead the vets are going to be busy castrating bull calves and beef is going to get even shorter because alot of bulls are ready to kill at 12-14 mths but if they are steered they will be farmed longer and probably not slaughtered until they are 17-21mths. The bull men will also either have to pack up if they can or start competing for short term hfrs and steers which are already in short supply and keenly fought over. Also if breeders take reduced prices for bulls instead of steering them you will see alot more suckler herds culled when they realise it doesnt add up.

 

[Full of bull(s)]

If the bull job is dead the vets are going to be busy castrating bull calves and beef is going to get even shorter because alot of bulls are ready to kill at 12-14 mths but if they are steered they will be farmed longer and probably not slaughtered until they are 17-21mths. The bull men will also either have to pack up if they can or start competing for short term hfrs and steers which are already in short supply and keenly fought over. Also if breeders take reduced prices for bulls instead of steering them you will see alot more suckler herds culled when they realise it doesnt add up.
I don’t want to be pessimistic but I think by this time next year the suckler herd will have been decimated by the combination of farmers age, crippling costs, high cull values and reducing support payments, and can you blame any of them?

 

[topground]

If grains £500 ton there wont be a livestock industry of any kind in this country. Ok maybe some hill lamb.

@J 1177 This suggests all of us keeping cattle rely on feeding grains. Forage efficient native breeds (and Stabilisers) on extensive systems anyone?

 

[J 1177]

@J 1177 This suggests all of us keeping cattle rely on feeding grains. Forage efficient native breeds (and Stabilisers) on extensive systems anyone?

What i was getting at is if barley is £500 a ton a lot of grazing will more than likely ploughed out (not marginal grazing).
Extensive systems arent the norm. I do think the should be tho.

 

[Goweresque]

if you wonder the real reason they do nothing about bTb in your country, join the dots - they want farmers gone

@Goweresque says no, they don't want to get their hands dirty, I still need a little more convincing about that.

There's a difference between 'they [the State] want farmers gone' and 'the corporates will take over farming'. The former is definitely true, they want small individual farmers gone, I think in fact they want farming itself gone, in the main. Hence the push towards tree planting/rewilding etc. Thats the aim - drive as many small farmers off the land as possible, turn vast swathes of the countryside into 'eco-paradises' that will help carbon offset the urban consumption of cheap tat. Import 80% of food requirements from elsewhere. In this scenario there isn't much farming left, so there's nothing for the corporates to take over. Maybe they'll end up owning the areas of rewilding, who knows? But one thing I can guarantee, the corporates won't end up owning hundreds of thousands of acres that they farm commercially. The economics just aren't there to justify the way they operate.