Author Topic: Buying store lambs  (Read 10721 times)

twizzel

  • Joined Apr 2012
Buying store lambs
« on: November 06, 2012, 02:10:07 pm »
Does anyone do this? Lamb prices at market seem to be quite low, not sure whether it's the time of year that's causing it, but last weeks store averages were £55 for large stores, £45 for medium sized and £32 for smalls. Our 6 orphans went into the freezer beginning of Oct and we have our names down with a local farmer for some more in January (they lamb early) and will also have some more from the farmer we got this years' lambs from when they lamb in March.


Contemplating seeing what is at market this week and possibly buying a few smalls, has anyone done this and how long did you keep them for? 

SallyintNorth

  • Joined Feb 2011
  • Cornwall
  • Rarely short of an opinion but I mean well
    • Trelay Cohousing Community
Re: Buying store lambs
« Reply #1 on: November 06, 2012, 02:46:40 pm »
We buy store lambs in years when we have grass to spare and reason to believe the New Year and early spring prices will give us at least £20 more than the cost of buying the store lamb.  (We reckon it costs us about £10 to overwinter a store lamb, not counting any costs for the grass as we have that on hand and no other plans for it.)

Fat prices are around £75 for a good supermarket lamb at the moment, so if you are seeing stores at the prices you are listing, there's profit to be had.  However, if doing it for profit, you need to know a bit about the types of stores on offer and be able to pick ones that are growing slowly at the moment but will make good supermarket types next year.

If it's just for your own freezer, then yes, why not.  Just make sure you get ones that are healthy and will fatten in the timescale you want.  If you're not sure which ones will take until next backend and which will be fat in the New Year, ask one of the auctioneers or drovers for some advice.

Don't listen to the money men - they know the price of everything and the value of nothing

Live in a cohousing community with small farm for our own use.  Dairy cows (rearing their own calves for beef), pigs, sheep for meat and fleece, ducks and hens for eggs, veg and fruit growing

Canadian Sheepfarmer

  • Joined Nov 2009
  • Manitoba, Canada.
Re: Buying store lambs
« Reply #2 on: November 06, 2012, 03:06:46 pm »
Old farmers used to say, 3 ways to bankruptcy: Fast Horses, fun. Fast women, more fun; and buying stores.
 
It is a good job for me that someone does it though, as last month I sold 100 wethers at 65-70lbs. Normally I keep them until January and sell them at 100lbs, but I didn't make enough hay this year to even carry my ewe flock, we had such a terrible drought this summer on the great northern plains. It rained 4 times from May to October, and the rest of the time was brilliant hot summer.
Hay was making $100 a bale, and it was very difficult to source even if you had the money.
 
Buying stores is a gamble, but farmers are the world's oldest, addicted serial gamblers.
 
I was talking to a guy back in the spring seeding wheat just north of me. I suggested that he was going to make some serious money this year due to the high futures price on wheat and canola.
He listed the cost of his inputs. Anhydrous, diesel, wheat seed, the sales price might be promising, but the cost of growing it?
He thought that on the whole he would be better off taking the money and going south to Vegas.
A darn site less dusty...
 
Still, if you have the money and the grass? Good luck to you!  ;)

SallyintNorth

  • Joined Feb 2011
  • Cornwall
  • Rarely short of an opinion but I mean well
    • Trelay Cohousing Community
Re: Buying store lambs
« Reply #3 on: November 06, 2012, 03:19:35 pm »
Wow, you like your lambs BIG in Canada!

The best price for lambs over here is for those which will kill out with good conformation at not more than 21kgs deadweight (ummm... about 47lbs.)  Any bigger and you certainly get less per kilo, you may well get less per head even.

It's all about the European export market and the lamb our supermarkets want to sell. 

We have some hill breeds, and some more commercial types bred on the hill, which at this time of year are just little bunny rabbits but which, by late winter, will be just about perfect for export or supermarket.  Hereabouts we can mostly be sure we can winter our sheep outside (uh-oh, should I not tempt fate like that...  :-\) or there would certainly not be money to be made.

But dairy farmers have grass to spare, and want it cleaned and kept in good order over winter while the herd is housed, and in my neck of the woods we house most of our sucklers too, so again we have grass to clean and take care of over winter.

This year has been such a terrible year for grass, all of us were late getting not much and poor quality forage, so we haven't wanted stores as we've barely enough grass for our own flocks and early lambers.  Hence the poor store price at the moment, there's not so many of us buying.
Don't listen to the money men - they know the price of everything and the value of nothing

Live in a cohousing community with small farm for our own use.  Dairy cows (rearing their own calves for beef), pigs, sheep for meat and fleece, ducks and hens for eggs, veg and fruit growing

twizzel

  • Joined Apr 2012
Re: Buying store lambs
« Reply #4 on: November 06, 2012, 03:33:35 pm »
That's interesting. OH is a beef farmer and the cows have come in for the winter, let out on the occasional good day of weather. Apart from the 6 young heifers that are out in 1 field, everything else is in. We have more straw than last year and a good amount of hay. Silage (more like haylage though) coming out of our ears. 3 free pens and I have a lot of time on my hands now as my work is very seasonal. We're also thinking about buying some young calves in and rearing them as prices drop leading up to Christmas due to people not wanting more work over the festive period.

Our lambs killed out this year between 21kg and 26(!!)kg DW but that said the meat was very good and had just the right amount of fat on it, if a little lean in places.

They would be for our freezer, wouldn't put them back through the market, just the prices seem good and after buying the mother of all chest freezers we still have some space left in it...  :yum:
« Last Edit: November 06, 2012, 03:36:42 pm by twizzel »

Canadian Sheepfarmer

  • Joined Nov 2009
  • Manitoba, Canada.
Re: Buying store lambs
« Reply #5 on: November 06, 2012, 03:54:42 pm »
You should know, Everything's bigger in Canada Sally!  ;) ;) :D
 
Actually, despite being a weak attempt at macho humour, that is a true statement!
 
Pigs, sheep, beef cattle, Holstiens, Labrador dogs, cats, trucks, fields - I could go on...[please don't...]
 
If you really want to know I could give a long dissertation on why the market here wants big lambs, [or thinks that it does ] on the US sheep market, the Cinderella Canadian Sheep Industry, etc etc,but suffice to say, it really is another world over here.
Your post brought back memories...
 
When I lived back in England I had a Bedford TK sheep lorry with 3 decks. If a sheep joined me he saw the world. I never paid in some places, October, when the cows came in, to Candlemass, as long as the sheep didn't get out: RULE ONE, the dairy farmers were glad to have them.
As you say it is very good practise/husbandry to trim off the old grass that cattle have left behind, leaving a short sward that allows light and air into the grass making for a better start next year. Also it breaks up the worm patterns to some extent in both species, cattle and sheep.
The Golden Hoof. The light treading and the little prills of fertilizer! Aaah, what a salesman!
 
The snag is, at Candlemass [early February ] in SW England the grass starts growing again most years, and the sheep nip out the growing shoots. Bad news for the dairy farmer who then wants you gone .  :(

si-mate

  • Joined Aug 2010
  • Kent
Re: Buying store lambs
« Reply #6 on: November 07, 2012, 09:40:35 am »
If I had the money and the grass I would be tempted to buy some suffolk x mule or mule ewe lambs and sell them in September as shearlings.
Buy at £80 sell at £130 +

VSS

  • Joined Jan 2009
  • Pen Llyn
    • Viable Self Sufficiency.co.uk
Re: Buying store lambs
« Reply #7 on: November 07, 2012, 09:51:29 am »
There is something to be said for that - we sell very few ewe lambs as lambs. 90% or more are reared on either as flock replacements or for sale as shearling ewes. We might get £35 for them as stores but they should make £90ish as shearling ewes. Even with the cost of wintering them at £17 per head, it still makes sense.
The SHEEP Book for Smallholders
Available from the Good Life Press

www.viableselfsufficiency.co.uk

SallyintNorth

  • Joined Feb 2011
  • Cornwall
  • Rarely short of an opinion but I mean well
    • Trelay Cohousing Community
Re: Buying store lambs
« Reply #8 on: November 07, 2012, 10:10:14 am »
I'm talking commercial sheep here; things are different in pedigree breeder circles and I haven't any firsthand experience of that.

But with commercial sheep, people tend to buy sheep from producers they know to produce good breeding stock.  So unless you have a reputation for selling breeding stock, I would take care with assuming that because you see shearling gimmers selling for £130, say, then your shearling gimmers will sell for anything like that.

Around here, 'breeding' sheep from unknown producers are likely to fetch only fat price.  Not because they're headed straight for the other ring, but because the buyer isn't risking much as s/he can always recoup the initial outlay should the sheep prove to be not good breeders.

It's not about the face fitting, it's about the proven genetics and stockmanship.

BH's store cattle sell for top prices at the mart he always sells at - the buyers have had them before, know they go on and grow and finish well, and the other buyers see buyers they respect paying top dollar for BH's stock, so they too know they'll be good beasts.

But when we submitted some of our similarly bred good bulling heifers in the breeding ring at the same mart, they fetched less than their less good sisters had the week before in the store ring.  We haven't a reputation for producing breeding stock, see, so they're an unknown quantity - more risk, less price.  (We took the better two home and bred from them ourselves.  Very glad we kept the one - she's turned out a corker   ;D)

So just proceed with a little caution on the 'buy as ewe lambs, sell as gimmers' game; you might find it takes a few seasons to build up a reputation.
Don't listen to the money men - they know the price of everything and the value of nothing

Live in a cohousing community with small farm for our own use.  Dairy cows (rearing their own calves for beef), pigs, sheep for meat and fleece, ducks and hens for eggs, veg and fruit growing

si-mate

  • Joined Aug 2010
  • Kent
Re: Buying store lambs
« Reply #9 on: November 07, 2012, 11:14:49 am »
I'm talking commercial sheep here; things are different in pedigree breeder circles and I haven't any firsthand experience of that.

But with commercial sheep, people tend to buy sheep from producers they know to produce good breeding stock.  So unless you have a reputation for selling breeding stock, I would take care with assuming that because you see shearling gimmers selling for £130, say, then your shearling gimmers will sell for anything like that.

Around here, 'breeding' sheep from unknown producers are likely to fetch only fat price.  Not because they're headed straight for the other ring, but because the buyer isn't risking much as s/he can always recoup the initial outlay should the sheep prove to be not good breeders.

It's not about the face fitting, it's about the proven genetics and stockmanship.

BH's store cattle sell for top prices at the mart he always sells at - the buyers have had them before, know they go on and grow and finish well, and the other buyers see buyers they respect paying top dollar for BH's stock, so they too know they'll be good beasts.

But when we submitted some of our similarly bred good bulling heifers in the breeding ring at the same mart, they fetched less than their less good sisters had the week before in the store ring.  We haven't a reputation for producing breeding stock, see, so they're an unknown quantity - more risk, less price.  (We took the better two home and bred from them ourselves.  Very glad we kept the one - she's turned out a corker   ;D )

So just proceed with a little caution on the 'buy as ewe lambs, sell as gimmers' game; you might find it takes a few seasons to build up a reputation.


Perhaps it's a location thing, but down here I've never witnessed it making much difference at all.

 

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