Dexter Sale at Exeter Livestock Market

[Rob R]

As I always say though, auction prices are the easiest thing to fix - all you need is two bidders and a large lorry. If there's profit to be made on an animal in the ring it would be a good use of society money to send a breed rep to every sale & buy them up to sell on. The breed may as well benefit from turning it's problems into solutions.

We should also have the option to birth notify heifers for registration at a later date - it's only £13.50 but it's a strong pyschological incentive to put heifers to the bull. And £110 to register a bulling heifer is ridiculous.

[Jac]

If there's profit to be made...

We should also have the option to birth notify heifers for registration at a later date - it's only £13.50 but it's a strong pyschological incentive to put heifers to the bull. And £110 to register a bulling heifer is ridiculous.

Well, that's just the thing (with females at least) there isn't (a profit) for the person producing them.

We have got the option to register at a later date but unfortunately it costs more which is a great pity as it is a strong psychological incentive as things stand to register early then put heifers to the bull whether they are suitable to breed from or not.

Offering to put a heifer with the bull only when a sale has been agreed seems a good option then if no buyer is found (for onward breeding) then there is always the option to beef.

[Rob R]

That's the problem with an animal that breeds into it's late teens, and the reason I've only ever sold two heifers.

[Boofarm]

An upset price is a minimum bid that will be accepted by the auctioneer and is set by a breeders' group or breed society for a particular sale and advertised as such. It means the vendor CANNOT sell below that price in the ring, even if s/he should wish to.

Ok - thanks for the explanation - a pointless exercise then, in my view and a pretty sure way of killing off any auction outlet.

[Boofarm]

I don't have a problem with an upset price at sales/auctions but how do you stop the minimum price buyers see when they go onto Preloved etc, we cant govern private sales, if people want £150 for a heifer or £50 for an animal in a commercial mart no one can stop them surely.
Kill heifers, that's what I do, trouble is the breed attracts the type of people who cant think like that.

The breed attracts people who can't think like that about bulls!

It's a pet breed and as such attracts some high prices as a result because people aren't expecting their cows to pay them back. The down side of the pet market is indiscriminate breeding and expectation that every bull is worth keeping entire. The irony is that if you look at actual prices at the auctions, steers tend to make more money than bulls.

Perhaps there should be a campaign in the bulletin/newsletters in 2017 to 'cut the nuts' for better prices?

Just set the registration fee for bulls at £3-500



Cheers
mac

[Robert & Alison Kirk]

How about this for an upset price! Just sold a 30 month old heifer for beef to a local pub/restaurant - £1100! I wanted to bring her into the herd - lovely heifer, but wouldn't hold to the bull.

Robert Kirk
Boram Dexters

[Boofarm]

How about this for an upset price! Just sold a 30 month old heifer for beef to a local pub/restaurant - £1100! I wanted to bring her into the herd - lovely heifer, but wouldn't hold to the bull.

Robert Kirk
Boram Dexters

As long as they are paying for slaughter and process - i.e. the £1100 is nett to you then that would do me.

Would they like any more?

Cheers
mac

[Rob R]

How about this for an upset price! Just sold a 30 month old heifer for beef to a local pub/restaurant - £1100! I wanted to bring her into the herd - lovely heifer, but wouldn't hold to the bull.

Robert Kirk
Boram Dexters

As long as they are paying for slaughter and process - i.e. the £1100 is nett to you then that would do me.

Would they like any more?

Cheers
mac

I bet it would!

I've never found a pub/resturant that would take a whole animal before, plenty that initially say they do, but it turns out they meant the fillet and sirloin.

[Robert & Alison Kirk]

It would be great to supply more to this pub, but every four weeks is fine. They have had 146 Dexters off us since opening 11 years ago! As someone said recently, their customers have eaten a whole herd! We know the beef is the best and the feedback from everyone is fantastic, but we find it's best not to push to get more into this type of establishment - we don't want all our eggs (beef) in one basket.

The pub (run very successfully by two brothers) was sold very quickly at the end of August, but the new company who have taken it on were soon on the phone to ensure we would continue supplying Boram Dexter beef to them.

Robert Kirk

[Jac]

It would be great to supply more to this pub, but every four weeks is fine. They have had 146 Dexters off us since opening 11 years ago! As someone said recently, their customers have eaten a whole herd! We know the beef is the best and the feedback from everyone is fantastic, but we find it's best not to push to get more into this type of establishment - we don't want all our eggs (beef) in one basket.

The pub (run very successfully by two brothers) was sold very quickly at the end of August, but the new company who have taken it on were soon on the phone to ensure we would continue supplying Boram Dexter beef to them.

Robert Kirk

This goes to demonstrate that with hard work behind the scenes over a long period of time a customer base can be built. Unfortunately, you cannot breed 146 Dexters and then hope to find a market for them.

[Jac]

I don't have a problem with an upset price at sales/auctions but how do you stop the minimum price buyers see when they go onto Preloved etc, we cant govern private sales, if people want £150 for a heifer or £50 for an animal in a commercial mart no one can stop them surely.
Kill heifers, that's what I do, trouble is the breed attracts the type of people who cant think like that.

The breed attracts people who can't think like that about bulls!

It's a pet breed and as such attracts some high prices as a result because people aren't expecting their cows to pay them back. The down side of the pet market is indiscriminate breeding and expectation that every bull is worth keeping entire. The irony is that if you look at actual prices at the auctions, steers tend to make more money than bulls.

Perhaps there should be a campaign in the bulletin/newsletters in 2017 to 'cut the nuts' for better prices?

I think there has been a fair bit of indiscriminate breeding going on with the non-pet market.

[Rob R]

I don't have a problem with an upset price at sales/auctions but how do you stop the minimum price buyers see when they go onto Preloved etc, we cant govern private sales, if people want £150 for a heifer or £50 for an animal in a commercial mart no one can stop them surely.
Kill heifers, that's what I do, trouble is the breed attracts the type of people who cant think like that.

The breed attracts people who can't think like that about bulls!

It's a pet breed and as such attracts some high prices as a result because people aren't expecting their cows to pay them back. The down side of the pet market is indiscriminate breeding and expectation that every bull is worth keeping entire. The irony is that if you look at actual prices at the auctions, steers tend to make more money than bulls.

Perhaps there should be a campaign in the bulletin/newsletters in 2017 to 'cut the nuts' for better prices?

I think there has been a fair bit of indiscriminate breeding going on with the non-pet market.

Well those businesses will be doomed to fail very quickly, it's not sustainable unless you have a means of funding it.

[Rob R]

It would be great to supply more to this pub, but every four weeks is fine. They have had 146 Dexters off us since opening 11 years ago! As someone said recently, their customers have eaten a whole herd! We know the beef is the best and the feedback from everyone is fantastic, but we find it's best not to push to get more into this type of establishment - we don't want all our eggs (beef) in one basket.

The pub (run very successfully by two brothers) was sold very quickly at the end of August, but the new company who have taken it on were soon on the phone to ensure we would continue supplying Boram Dexter beef to them.

Robert Kirk

They must have a diverse menu, which is something severely lacking from most eateries these days. It's quite unusual to find a chef with the skills to turn a whole animal into a menu. I think you're right though, because they are so rare it isn't a very big basket, not enough for one herd, never mind a breed.

[Jac]

Well those businesses will be doomed to fail very quickly, it's not sustainable unless you have a means of funding it.

Not necessarily let others fund it for you. Collapse the market for breeding animals and then buy them back even cheaper than they can be bred for but you do have to develop an outlet for beef. Call me cynical but I don't think so....

[Rob R]

Well those businesses will be doomed to fail very quickly, it's not sustainable unless you have a means of funding it.

Not necessarily let others fund it for you. Collapse the market for breeding animals and then buy them back even cheaper than they can be bred for but you do have to develop an outlet for beef.

In order to collapse the market for breeding animals you need to be selling them cheaply, in which case you can't be simultaneously buying them cheaply!

They're all the same animals at the end of the day and people who are buying them for beef should be congratulated as they are the market and are actually doing something to redress the excess of available breeding females.