Prices slip for all stock bar cull cows
Steers Heifers Cull Cows Young Bulls WITH factories restricted to four days killing on account of yesterday’s Bank Holiday, farmers sometimes get concerned that the loss of that one day may have a knock on effect in the number of stock a plant may kill.
The reality is that most plants kill only four days anyway, with some on three, so the effect is minimal, although factory bosses have never been slow to add to farmers’ fears if they thought there might be profit in it.
The trade as of yesterday morning was largely steady, although last week’s base price of €3.85/kg for bullocks has become a little tougher to negotiate in places.
The story with heifers is the same with prices on €3.90-3.95/ kg, but with that €3.95 a shade harder to come by.
Prices for cull cows to appear to be tightening but the pressure here on price is upwards with the poorer P and O grades moving up 5-10c/kg to sit on prices ranging from €2.80/kg for your ordinary P grade to €3.00/kg for a P+, while O’s vary from €2.90 in some of the poorer paying plants to €3.10/ kg elsewhere. The better R grade cow continues to sit on €3.20/kg.
I was interested to hear that the cow trade has also improved at marts with Thomas Potterton of Delvin telling me that his sale last week saw the better quality cow push on again close to €2.00/kg.
One of my regular contributors from the processing side rationalised recent price falls in a very unsettling way. “€3.80 of a base price for bullocks off of grass isn’t that bad. It’s only 10c/kg less than what the winter finisher got between last Christmas and May 1, and they had €300 of meal gone into them at that stage.”
The factories continue to squeeze bull prices, but with tighter supplies, the general run sees under 16 month-olds selling €3.85-3.80/kg on the grid, while those over 16 months but under 24 months are at €3.85380/kg for the U’s, €3.80/kg for the R’s, with O’s on €3.70/kg or as low as €3.60/kg for Friesians in places.
An issue that was brought forcefully to my attention by one specialist bull finisher was the cost of “turning” an animal in what is a very low margin business. Including mart, haulage (twice, from mart and to factory), killing, insurance and clipping charges, costs he claimed these can run to €50-60/hd. Serious money for consideration, as the weanling season begins to crank up.
IFA lambasted the factories for the cuts at a time when the UK price has strengthened with an R3 bullock there worth £3.45/kg or €4.34/kg - almost 13pc higher than here.