Because by getting rid of your lambs earlier you free up grass/forage that you can feed to any type of livestock you like ie buy in store lambs/have your ewes in better condition =higher lambing %/buy in more ewes/buy in cattle or whatever. By getting rid of your lambs quickly you do have the chance of 2 bites out of 2 cherries in one year. Sorry if I am stating the obvious but this is one of the Forums many annual chestnuts.
Only relevant in a low ground situation,does not apply on a hill or extensive operation producing long keep store lambs which have been very profitable for the last number of years. I see the logic in what you are saying but in this case what might be correct in theory isn’t actually the most profitable in practice.
I take your general point re hill/extensive grazing and certainly this applies to pure Hill lambs. However I would point out that one of our larger clients in the west of Scotland was very pleased that he could take a much larger number of finished lambs to Sterling and therefor a smaller % of stores to Oban over the last couple of seasons. We also have other hill clients saying exactly the same. It is interesting that when we are trying to buy rams out of New Zealand the 2 biggies that the vendors are trying to promote to show their sheep in the best possible light are No 1 lamb survival. No 2 Percentage of lambs sold finished at weaning.
Many of us might be quite grateful for your 'small profit' once we see the effects of Truss's touted Australian Beef and Lamb imports and all the other such deals she promises are in the pipeline.. Not too persuaded by her claims that we will be able to sell our agricultural products in the opposition direction to make up for any loss of our domestic market.My heart agrees with you but my head fears for us all particularly when you see that as things currently stand lowland livestock farmers on average lose money without the current subsidy payments. Small niche operations may well survive and even thrive but if everyone is doing the same thing ie organic or Pasture for life it is no longer niche and again as ever individual farmers will be squeezed by the mighty buying powers of our few customers and remember for most of us the customer is not the housewife.
not much point in the do as many as you can race to the bottom then is there anyway as far as all these imports are concerned I will believe it when I see it and if we do see it it will be nothing we haven't seen before
Aye , wonder why anyone bothers really , shame we can’t switch the cows off for a year.
The processors have a tight grip of the job over there.
I think the drip drip drip of increasing rules and regulations will slowly kill off the family farms. Wether that’s by accident or design I’m not so sure
Morons. Absolute morons. Humanity will look back on this period and wonder how tf we were so utterly clueless.
That's just straight up bull sh1t. We know it, they know it but nobody is calling it out as such.
Agree , it a multipal pronged attack , best bit is when they win they will go Hungary !
On one hand intensively raised cattle are alive for a shorter period but on the other grass reared are in fields which sequester carbon. Has it been proven conclusively which is better for the environment? They need to have their facts right because if they have taken this the wrong way they surely leave themselves open to compensation claims.
I think it’s a question of the slaughterhouse and the feed & fert suppliers running the show as they have the money and contacts to call the odds. The NI farmers need to show the government they are wrong, the NBA soon changed their minds when a large percentage of their membership told them they were wrong.
Intensive beef will involve farmers parting with lots of money, extensive beef will involve parting with little.
I don’t think there’s much argument really is there? Grain finished uses more fossil fuels and ground needs tilled every year, whereas grass is perennial and sequesters carbon. Methane is completely neutral if you know the actual facts.
That's because so many farmers go direct to slaughter instead of going through a market, despite there still being quite a large number of markets over there compared to here.
