The home farm
All aspects may not be enjoyable, but the satisfaction achieved from following the lifecycle of an animal or the development of a field of crops is not something that can be easily portrayed.
The fine print of this is farming must pay. As everyone knows, the profit margin is slim and the market is volatile and challenging. It is therefore vital for the success of a farming business to manage inputs and know the intended market.
This was the first year to have more than one or two animals of my own on the farm. The excitement was growing. I spent hours scanning DoneDeal for heifers, which can have its benefits as buying direct from the farm can decrease the likelihood of buying in disease with stock.
There were cattle from all over the country, which shows farmers are implementing modern technology in their businesses – but travelling to places such as Kerry weren’t an option with the commitments to work and football.
A piece of technology that has recently been introduced for farmers is online bidding. This enables farmers to view the sales in the mart directly from their home via a smart device such as a laptop. This is a great invention. For me, not so great! With the wi-fi in my area I’d end up bidding on last week’s cattle, with detrimental effects on any future investments.
This resulted in the trip to the mart.
Living in the midlands has its benefits, when it comes to purchasing animals, the benefit is there are numerous marts within reasonable travelling distance. On the way to the mart I was reminded of purchasing techniques: ‘You don’t HAVE to buy today, you know, we will go in for a look’.
That is the way the first few trips turned out, hit and miss!
I was getting worried as the grazing season was getting on and I was keen to maximise the weight gain from the grass we had stocked up at home. When purchasing the heifers I kept a close eye on the beef price, which was a base of €3.70/kg: this gave me an indication of a price to work off when purchasing heifers. €3.70/kg is paid on each kg of carcass weight.
Before the journey to the mart I went through a few small sums to give me a target purchase price. I was targeting Continental heifers for purchase. From Teagasc figures these heifers have a killout percentage of around 53%. This is what the farmer is paid for. If an animal is 650kg live weight (LW) and has a killout of 53%, the resulting carcass weight will be close to 340kg.
At a base price of €3.70/kg, this heifer will leave behind €1,200. This figure can be misleading as last summer good quality Continental heifers weighing 350kg were making €800 to €1,000, not much of a profit to be made. The purchase has to be right for a farmer to make a living. According to Teagasc figures regarding the highly discussed beef price, for beef to leave a profit margin, farmers need a price of €4/kg.
I was taught a few lessons in the first few visits to the mart as main purchaser. I had never bid on cattle myself – that was always left to my father. This was my turn. I still remember a heifer that was going too high a price so I withdrew my bid, as it turned out the heifer was sold straight after my withdrawal. That heifer will always be “the one that got away” in my first year of purchasing cattle.