Realistic store cattle prices - Price of store cattle

justmalc · Post by **justmalc** » Tue Jul 10, 2007 4:58 pm

There seems to have been very little adjustment in the prices quoted for young Dexter steers since the removal of the subsidies attached to individual animals some time ago.

As a result I am finding it hard to justify buying in stores despite having a ready market for Dexter beef.

Sellers are still expecting in excess of £150 for a freshly weaned steer at about 8 months of age or quote the £1 a kilo figure which seems to be chanted like a mantra by anyone with anything to sell regardless of current condition or likely finishing weight.

I believe that a figure no higher than £100 is more realistic for a typical Dexter steer of 8-10 months old.

Sylvia · Post by **Sylvia** » Tue Jul 10, 2007 6:37 pm

£20 stud fee or cost of keeping bull/s; £30+ for dehorning and castration by vet; feed for the mother for 18 - 20 months plus extra if kept in during winter months say 2 big bales = £24, or if small bales a lot more than that. Any medication required say £10+. No allowance made for the labour costs of twice a day checking, feeding through winter and mucking out barn as necessary. No allowance made for straw bought in for bedding. No allowance made for cost of buying or keeping in good repair barns, fields and fencing. No allowance for rent if fields rented. No allowance made for cost of TB test to move steer.

I think if even a small allowance is made for the above things the person selling you 10 month old steers is going to be out of pocket even if you collect them yourself. If it is not possible to cover costs there is no point in breeding for beef. I appreciate the costs involved in slaughter etc are significant and it is usual for the end seller to cream off all the profits but breeders are not in it for the sake of charity.

Broomcroft · Post by **Broomcroft** » Tue Jul 10, 2007 8:26 pm

justmalc - If you need to buy at less than £1 a kilo, but have a ready market, that suggests to me that maybe you're selling Prices are too low? Prices are all over the place, but £8-9 and more / kilo (average for the whole animal) sold direct, is quite normal. What do you do? if you want to tell us?

Penny · Post by **Penny** » Wed Jul 11, 2007 6:56 am

Absolutely agree with Sylvia and Clive. Costs of producing good quality stock worth fattening are high, and for a breeder to supply for less than £1/kg ( apart from exceptional cases) means that the breeder would have no financial incentive to carry on. Prices are low for breeding stock too, so if we want people to continue producing fattening stock for our DExter beef businesses, then it is up to us to market it well enough to command a price that makes it affordable to pay the breeder a decent price too.
Marketing Dexter beef to get it into the public eye, so that demand continues to grow and therefore prices go up, is extremely important, and one of the reasons behind the Dexterbeefonline website. Clive and Caroline Taylor are also doing an excellent job by entering the ITV contest.
Fair Trade for all Dexter breeders, I say!

Martin · Post by **Martin** » Wed Jul 11, 2007 8:01 am

Average prices as quoted by MLC for last week,

Liveweight steers average price £1.106 per kilo hefers £1.1419 per kilo
Deadweight steers from £1.947 to £2.188 per kilo heifers from £1.855 to £2.205.
Premium mince £4.43
Braising steak £6.79
Rump £10.50
Sirloin £15.03
Topside £7.56
Fillet £25.67
All above per kilo.
Traditionally store prices fluctuate depending on how much grass is about in the spring and summer and how much space finishers have in sheds for winter (most finishers need to fill sheds to make the job viable) and local competition around the sale ring. I have sold store cattle at Ashford market that made 10% more per kilo than finished cattle on the same day because a couple of farmers wanted them, as they say 'they grow into money'.
I will be looking for store Dexters in the next few months, (if I ever get my hay cut) and I expect to pay £1 per kilo and I expect to make a profit, and yes I have done my sums and there is money to be made at those prices.
Martin. Medway Valley Dexters.

Broomcroft · Post by **Broomcroft** » Wed Jul 11, 2007 8:38 am

One of the problems with Dexter stores coming from a smallholding especially, is that they have often been fed. So if you're doing grass-fed like us, the animal can go backwards for a time, so you've paid out for a load of fat that comes off! So the price has to take into account all sorts of factors.

justmalc · Post by **justmalc** » Wed Jul 11, 2007 3:07 pm

We are currently achieving about £6.55 a kilo sold in freezer packs but will shortly be starting both farmers markets, supply to a local butcher and are looking at the economics of a farm shop.

We currently run about 70 head of Dexters (as well as 450 commercial breeding ewes, 60 Herdwick ewes, 220 commercial suckler cows, and 100+ Gloucester Old Spots all reared utdoors on 700+ acres of grass. The biggest problems we have are that bought in steers often carry ring worm (which we have stamped out - using Ringvac - as we are beginning to show cattle) and, regardless of whether the steer is beef or dairy type, sellers yell £1 a kilo whether it is a bag of bones or a promising steer.

The other problem is that many breeders have one or two stores for sale so we end up travelling round the countyside picking up odd cattle which we have been assured are suitable for beef. Some Dexters, of a dairy type, will never make good beef animals.

We are trying to build up our own numbers. This has been helped by 11 of our last 15 calves being heifers - although this means that we need to buy more steers.

Broomcroft · Post by **Broomcroft** » Wed Jul 11, 2007 3:27 pm

£6.55 a kilo average sold direct is (in my view) a very low price. We aim at £8.00 minimum and I know many who charge quite a lot more. Our packaging is basic but done well. Clink film, then boxed. People charging higher prices generally seem to do vacuum packing. I would aim a lot higher price-wise, it's a premium product and even at £8.00 that's not expensive. Is it?

Broomcroft · Post by **Broomcroft** » Thu Jul 12, 2007 6:38 am

PS. I am going to put average prices on the Dexter Beef Online info site. These are averages of those in the public domain plus my own and a few others who have given permission. They will be on by tomorrow.

The site is at: DBOinfo.

justmalc · Post by **justmalc** » Thu Jul 12, 2007 8:10 am

Clive,

Thanks that will be useful.

We are aware that our price may be a bit low but we have a waiting list for beef and, as we have only had Dexters for three years, we want to build up a customer base at this stage. Our price was set following an earlier round of correspondence on this site and reflected the average at that time.

I got interrupted during my last post. I was explaining our stock numbers to illustrate that while Dexters were added because I like them, they have to hold their own on a commercial basis if we are to continue and/or expand as currently planned.

Sylvia's post illustrates an important point in that she costs in the figure of £20 for the vet bill for castrating and de-horning steer calves. Many Dexter owners keep cattle as a hobby and, when such jobs arise, call in the vet. On a commercial farm both these tasks are carried out "in house" at a far lower cost than £20. There is a disparity between people keeping Dexters as a hobby and those attempting to do so on a commercial basis. The price of store cattle often illustrates this disparity with sellers often expecting compensation for care lavished on their pets. I don't want to offend anyone with these comments but there are different approaches to keeping Dexters. How many of us currently show a profit?

Saffy · Post by **Saffy** » Thu Jul 12, 2007 8:36 am

Hi Justmalc,

I have been out of cattle for a few years and am about to become a "dexter hobbyist" as I miss cows!

I am interested in your comment about castrating the bull calves.

We used to use a bloodless castrater here, (called a burdizzo or something like that, ) and I use rubber rings on my lambs.

What are the laws and guidelines these days covering age up to which I am allowed to use each of these forms of castration on calves that I breed?

Also laws and guidelines for de- horning would be good. do I need to buy a smaller de- horning iron?

Stephanie

Sylvia · Post by **Sylvia** » Thu Jul 12, 2007 8:36 am

I appreciate with 700+ acres you would consider 120 acres a 'hobby farm', and you would be quite right because we are making a consistent loss, but we have 30+ breeding Dexters (over 70 head at present) and are trying to make them commercial. I would not consider the care we give out animals lavish, simply what is required to keep them in good condition. I happen to think the vet is the best person to do dehorning/castrating, but what other things on my list would the commercial farmer not do?

Broomcroft · Post by **Broomcroft** » Thu Jul 12, 2007 2:24 pm

We usually rubber ring males in the first few days and dehorn in the first month by a local farmer because I've never done it and don't want my calves to be used as practice. Cost is £6 total and done very well.

The only way to make Dexters pay is get the price you need for your beef. If your costs are £6.50 a kilo and you sell for £7.00, that's 50p profit. If you sell for £8.00 that's a 300% increase in your net margin. £9.00 should be in site for well presented beef. We do £8.00/kilo for boxes of about 10 kilos no problem (Have I already said that?).

Miles the famous butcher, owned by TBMM, sells fillet from traditional breeds, which probably include Dexters, at over £38.00 a kilo. We should aim high, as Alison has said elsewhere, but as justmalc points out, you need to get a customer base and if that means free samples, lower prices to start with, so be it. That's what we did. I would suggest you still publish a higher price but give a special discount. People don't liek price increases, that way you avoid it.

And the best marketing anyone can do, I think, is get your customers to tell their friends.

Rob R · Post by **Rob R** » Thu Jul 12, 2007 4:47 pm

The worst marketing you can do is set a low price too, as it gives the impression that your product is only as good as the average. A couple of years ago we were selling half lambs at £45/half, one person tells another & I have soon run out of lamb & have no hoggs growing on for the following year. The next year the price went up to £60/half, because I know it is that good, something you just don't have in the 'average' lamb so you can't compare mine with, say, a Texel x at the local market (having said that I saw lamb chops at Somerfield for £12-99/kg the other week, I felt cheap).

As for beef we have been turning people away, one of the reasons we also have the Highlands now, but selling at what I consider to be a low price of £6-60 to £6-80 per kg by the side or quarter, expecting to yield a net margin (excluding labour) of £100/animal. Packaging is minimal so we have to take it as it comes, but when we get that sorted I'm looking for a baseline of £8-00/kg. The overheads of running a retail interface (even on a small scale with the labour involved) are significant, so it's important to compare yourself with the retailer rather than the farmer knocking them out to a few locals with no additional outlay.

Anyway I've headed off on a tangent now, oh yes, steers- I offer £1/kg liveweight, can offer a bit more if they warrant it but if they don't then I don't want them. And it's all very well satisfying the demand, but it would be easier just raising the price (making use of the inverse price/demand correlation) than travelling across the countryside for one or two animals, eating into the farm profits. And like Clive says, buying in steers of known provenance as far as feeding goes is always tricky- I'm sure some of the 'grass fed' steers out there have seen their fair share of concentrates (or their mothers have), so it's better in a quality market to ensure your supply with a known & reliable source.

Broomcroft · Post by **Broomcroft** » Thu Jul 12, 2007 7:30 pm

Hi

I have now posted the average selling prices for Dexter Beef. They are an average of what is in the public domain and ours. You can find them on the Stats page of DBOinfo.

I haven't shown details and I think these prices are also now out of date and need uplifting. Ours have gone up a little since this was produced in February 2007.