Making a living from sheep

egbert

Member
Livestock Farmer
The most i ever had was 3000 and that was when the sub payments were good , even then after deducting Labour Charges and some rent the profit was very small , i had no time to do the work myself
3000? Sounds like a punishment for being very wicked in a former life!
 

egbert

Member
Livestock Farmer
The payments rely on you keeping sheep? I didnt know that.
they don't..outside some specific enviro schemes.

but why are there so many?
As described above, with a nominal rent, or land thats paid for, and not counting the unseen costs, they can show a profit.
(on my own figures, if I don't count use of my own land, interest on investment in flock, and the days put to it, the blackface ewes turn about £1250...even in the current market. Or £8.33/ewe)

And there's not much else can do that on marginal land.

Cows? Ha! Now we're talking. Fetch the straight jacket doc, I'll come quietly.
 

Derrick Hughes

Member
Location
Ceredigion
The unsubsidized southern hemisphere is currently enjoying record sheep meat prices.

Prime lamb is making millionaires in Australia.
Is that because they dont send much to the UK and have found new markets outside the EU
"Influence of China in recent years has been a major factor in ensuring good prices for all parts of the lamb and indeed sheep carcase, when compared with even as recently as 10 years ago when prices were in the doldrums'
 
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texas pete

Member
Location
East Mids
Is that because they dont send much to the UK and have found new markets outside the EU
"Influence of China in recent years has been a major factor in ensuring good prices for all parts of the lamb and indeed sheep carcase, when compared with even as recently as 10 years ago when prices were in the doldrums'

I think it's more to do with the fact we are not very good at marketing them, or managing supply.
 

Kiwi Pete

Member
Livestock Farmer
The unsubsidized southern hemisphere is currently enjoying record sheep meat prices.

Prime lamb is making millionaires in Australia.
Every single part of them is sold somewhere, I think that is one of the major advantages of proper humane Halal plants today as there is huge money in smallgoods, pelts, even their sodding spleens are sold to the Middle East (where they apparently grill them and eat them like biscuits)

The small-scale abattoir is up against it to turn a profit on all these little "extra bits" on the carcass and so much of the profit is simply rendered down, especially if Non-Halal slaughtered; IMO one of the most necessary steps in the UK is to revamp many of those horrible little medieval processing plants, and put an end to non-stun Halal once and for all.

Other opinions are available, however I doubt the future of the British red meat industries lie solely in spreading your cheeks for your supermarkets.

You won't have much threat from NZ to be fair, the Govt here is presently aiming to screw NZ farmers several ways at once, which will open up new exporting avenues to the UK - IF, of course, your COP is right. If not then days are numbered.
 

Farmer Roy

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
NSW, Newstralya
Every single part of them is sold somewhere, I think that is one of the major advantages of proper humane Halal plants today as there is huge money in smallgoods, pelts, even their sodding spleens are sold to the Middle East (where they apparently grill them and eat them like biscuits)

The small-scale abattoir is up against it to turn a profit on all these little "extra bits" on the carcass and so much of the profit is simply rendered down, especially if Non-Halal slaughtered; IMO one of the most necessary steps in the UK is to revamp many of those horrible little medieval processing plants, and put an end to non-stun Halal once and for all.

Other opinions are available, however I doubt the future of the British red meat industries lie solely in spreading your cheeks for your supermarkets.

You won't have much threat from NZ to be fair, the Govt here is presently aiming to screw NZ farmers several ways at once, which will open up new exporting avenues to the UK - IF, of course, your COP is right. If not then days are numbered.

Roger Fletcher ( biggest sheep meat processor here ) sends container loads of lambs oesophagi to China, just for a start . . .

As an aside, everyone SHOULD be aware that ASF has wiped out about half of the Chinese pig population.
They are replacing that meat with mostly, imported LAMB & beef, partly because of any perceived health concerns from eating pork.

Savvy marketing & export nations are already taking advantage of this, but sadly, from everything I have read on TFF, the UK idea of marketing is to produce something then expect people to buy it.
 
to put things in perspective the average farm gets say 40k sfp a year, to make that back from sheep at £40/ewe profit they would all need to put on another 1000 sheep more likely 1500 ewes as theyd have rent to cover, what do you think this would do to the price of sheep and pressure on rents? this also assumes everyone has the shed space for another 1500 ewes and will work day and night like a robot so they dont need extra staff
 

Farmer Roy

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
NSW, Newstralya
British supermarkets are (generally) quite difficult to fathom, because they only have to say "JUMP" to get their way they have got quite used to doing so.

They said the shepherd's dogs were noisy and scared the sheep, so they got rid of dogs and shepherds in the yards.
Now they use migrant workers with flappy bags, a typical wet dream about "creating opportunities" whilst also making things work less well than before, and the sheep are probably more stressed if they are used to being worked with dogs :rolleyes:

Unfortunately this has resulted in "their lamb specification" possibly being about the worst point of a sheep's life to eat it - either a "baby lamb" or a proper heavy lamb such as what you guys sell for the big bucks, is where the best eating experience is IMHO.
A juicy wee 15kg lamb off the titty or a decent grass finished hogget thanks!

These constraints also makes lamb production about as unprofitable as possible in the european/Brit system, because it puts pressure on to lamb at strange times of the year and push the hell out of them to grow. Both add unneeded costs.

A big clue is that these past couple of years, the lamb schedule here has been at its lowest, when The Easter Boat was getting filled (bound for the UK) and then rose considerably after that, also the schedule paid better for heavy and light lambs than the 'spec' lambs at particular times.
I'm a numbers type of guy and you don't need a diploma to identify corruption.

So, what do we make of this, where ever we farm?

"Produce exactly what we want, how we want, when we want, and we'll do our best to ream your arse royally - but we will sell your meat" is the clear signal from the "buyer" we have in common.

Even old mutton is paying as well as lamb, FFS you couldn't make it up.

apparently it’s not profitable without subs
 

texas pete

Member
Location
East Mids
Every single part of them is sold somewhere, I think that is one of the major advantages of proper humane Halal plants today as there is huge money in smallgoods, pelts, even their sodding spleens are sold to the Middle East (where they apparently grill them and eat them like biscuits)

The small-scale abattoir is up against it to turn a profit on all these little "extra bits" on the carcass and so much of the profit is simply rendered down, especially if Non-Halal slaughtered; IMO one of the most necessary steps in the UK is to revamp many of those horrible little medieval processing plants, and put an end to non-stun Halal once and for all.

Other opinions are available, however I doubt the future of the British red meat industries lie solely in spreading your cheeks for your supermarkets.

You won't have much threat from NZ to be fair, the Govt here is presently aiming to screw NZ farmers several ways at once, which will open up new exporting avenues to the UK - IF, of course, your COP is right. If not then days are numbered.

These have just hit my email inbox.

Move on, nothing to see here... :bag:

https://www.fwi.co.uk/business/mark...EN-2019-10-UK-PACOM_FWiEmail_Article1ReadMore

https://www.fwi.co.uk/business/paym...EN-2019-09-UK-PACOM_FWiEmail_Article2ReadMore
 

Farmer Roy

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
NSW, Newstralya
Record prices in OZ but most of them died in the drought and the ones that are left will need time and decent food before they make decent money neither of which are very available one suspects.

Ok, Australia is a major world exporter of lamb meat
IF we assume that supply is down due to climatic conditions & agree that prices currently are at historic highs, then I have just ONE question

WHY aren’t UK lamb producers clamouring over each other to fill OUR export markets - especially the recent massive one in China ?
Why ?

reading this thread it seems some are too busy stressing about sub payments or something, rather than taking advantage of the massive worldwide shortage of lamb

yet again, it shows that UK ag, both livestock & grain producers & their industry representatives have NO concept international trade or how to market their produce
 

unlacedgecko

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Fife
Ok, Australia is a major world exporter of lamb meat
IF we assume that supply is down due to climatic conditions & agree that prices currently are at historic highs, then I have just ONE question

WHY aren’t UK lamb producers clamouring over each other to fill OUR export markets - especially the recent massive one in China ?
Why ?

reading this thread it seems some are too busy stressing about sub payments or something, rather than taking advantage of the massive worldwide shortage of lamb

yet again, it shows that UK ag, both livestock & grain producers & their industry representatives have NO concept international trade or how to market their produce

I wouldn't stress about international trade, most have no concept of how to produce lamb for the domestic market either.
 

Farmer Roy

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
NSW, Newstralya
The UK, with its relatively central location & climate, SHOULD be a major world producer & exporter of lamb, rivalling NZ & Australia. You have a massive population on your doorstep, & USED to be a sea faring, trading nation . . .

what’s happened ?

why aren’t you now ?
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

  • 0 %

    Votes: 80 42.3%
  • Up to 25%

    Votes: 66 34.9%
  • 25-50%

    Votes: 30 15.9%
  • 50-75%

    Votes: 3 1.6%
  • 75-100%

    Votes: 3 1.6%
  • 100% I’ve had enough of farming!

    Votes: 7 3.7%

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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