Why deadweight

Optimus

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
North of Perth
With the abattoirs currently trying to pull prices back and the live selling buoyant why do so many drive past a livestock market to go to an abattoir ?
Is it due to costs or habit ......
Selling cattle live up here your no better off by the time you take off commission an haulage.if I was south of Edinburgh I would be sending some down to Darlington or thirsk.can't understand why they aren't stowed out with cattle every week.after seeing their prices each week.
 

Al R

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
West Wales
All dead or all sold to 1 person direct like cull ewes.
Scab, distance, time, corruption, poor prices to name a few things.

last Year I failed to fit 25 lambs on a lorry going DW. I scanned the tags and took them straight to mart, declaring as they were being sold that they couldn’t fit on the lorry but they were all fit to kill ( All 38-42kg ) £21/head difference between the ones that went direct and the ones I took to the mart plus I wasted 6 hours being there 🤦🏻‍♂️I realised after it would have been quicker for me to have taken the lambs passed the mart and straight to slaughterhouse and been £525 better off.


Those of you with good marts not far away don’t realise how lucky you are!
 

digger64

Member
I really don't get this at all.
I've just picked lambs for tomorrow. All the ugly ones will go deadweight, all the best are going lw. Someone else was saying the same on here recently. The ugly stuff will sell better dw so why would anyone do what you're suggesting?
weight and spec
 

digger64

Member
Selling cattle live up here your no better off by the time you take off commission an haulage.if I was south of Edinburgh I would be sending some down to Darlington or thirsk.can't understand why they aren't stowed out with cattle every week.after seeing their prices each week.
some people read the bottom line as well as the top
 

Hilly

Member
Selling cattle live up here your no better off by the time you take off commission an haulage.if I was south of Edinburgh I would be sending some down to Darlington or thirsk.can't understand why they aren't stowed out with cattle every week.after seeing their prices each week.
You should see the cattle very fancy types
 

Sid

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
South Molton
In the market you display your livestock for a multitude of buyers who each have different specs and requirements.

In the abattoir your livestock have to hit their requirements and spec. Anything outside of that , weight or grade, expect a deduction.
 

Werzle

Member
Location
Midlands
Some liveweight sellers have to go liveweight they have no choice (location)----
Some liveweight sellers get penalised for having black heads
Some liveweight sellers get penalised for having woolly fleeces
Some liveweight sellers get penalised for not having woolly fleeces
etc


Horses for courses , live and let live ---& most importantly enjoy it :)
Some have to sell liveweight because the market own the cattle!

Trouble is a deadweight seller will try the liveweight market once or twice a year and not be happy and vice-versa.
As said before a fair few deadweight men only use the live sales for an overage or out of spec beast because they know the slaughterhouse will hammer them. Great many of the big feeding men need to know what there cattle are going to come too, they cannot do that going through the live ring. Horses for courses
 

Werzle

Member
Location
Midlands
In the market you display your livestock for a multitude of buyers who each have different specs and requirements.

In the abattoir your livestock have to hit their requirements and spec. Anything outside of that , weight or grade, expect a deduction.
Sending the right cattle to right abattoir is key. Great many go dead because they dont want others to know what they are earning or losing too
 

Hampton

Member
BASIS
Location
Shropshire
With the abattoirs currently trying to pull prices back and the live selling buoyant why do so many drive past a livestock market to go to an abattoir ?
Is it due to costs or habit ......
All my best suckler cattle (at worst 3/4 lim, at best pure) go live.
All of the dairy bred fat cattle bought in as weanlings go on the dead. The live hasn’t caught up on these cattle yet down here.
 
For a long time I've sold cows live and most of the time I've been happy, but Ie've sent cows deadwight several times in the past 4 or 5 years partly because I've heard folks on TFF talk about how great it is and partly because someone I know works in procurement now, but I have been disappointed pretty much every time with the top line, I've gone back to live and not been disappointed since.
Our nearest mart is 35 miles away, if I had one more local it would be a no brainer.
 
I think the biggest plus for deadweight to me is that you get paid for what goes on the hook, weight and grade, NOT for what some buyer thinks they will be or what he thinks he can get away with. I tend to market my bigger lots of fat lambs deadweight through a farmers' co-operative through the peak season and remove the risk of getting shafted/catching a bad trade at the mart. Smaller lots either end of the season go to St Boswells. I would have to say that I've been disappointed more often there than with a deadweight line.

Buyers: Their wage/fancy car has to come from somewhere. A buyer at Boswells said to me that on that day hoggs without 'protection' i.e. someone standing with them and presumably about to pay luck money, were averaging £20 less!

Swings and roundabouts, I wouldn't want to be without the live mart and like to support it but I'm not about to short change myself!
 

sheepwise

Member
Location
SW Scotland
It's all about supply and demand. Just now selling dead is a bit like an auction anyway with finishers touting stock between different abattoirs to get the best price. There will be plenty stock at the moment getting paid well over bid price. From experience I would say if you have a good supply relationship with an abattoir then they will be fair with you. I'm with @Northeastfarmer and like the option of both systems but on the prime cattle front live markets are really just a niche for supplying top quality to the local butchers and wholesalers.
 

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