Farmer Focus: Beef and lamb prices must be viewed with caution
James Kimber © Kathy Horniblow We processed our Charolais cross Wagyu heifer this month.
My friend Ben has the patent on the name and he has always been very enthusiastic of the quality. It hasn’t disappointed.
We spent an educational morning with a very knowledgeable butcher cutting it up.
See also:Â How to manage difficult calvings in beef cattle
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He has been round the world studying meat and was eulogising about the quality.
The sirloin steaks came out at £19 each (retail). It has got to be good for anyone to pay that.
Then he put five lamb chops on the scales: retail, £22 – or £4.40 each.
We, as beef and sheep farmers, are doing OK with good prices currently being achieved – but a word of caution on those prices.
The butcher has had to stock New Zealand lamb at half price because his customers couldn’t afford £70 for a leg of British lamb.
I found a website selling Wagyu sirloins at £105 each, yet the supermarkets are full of £8/kg mince.
I am still learning on the new farm. We have weighed cows, calves and youngstock.
And I have been walking the fields, studying soil samples and assessing the buildings.
There are great possibilities, but what is the best to do at the moment?
The commercial ewes have tupped really quickly.
The barley volunteers didn’t last them quite as long as I thought, due to some waste in wet weather, so they are back cleaning up the grazing fields.
I chickened out and left the tups in for two full cycles before removal so the last possible day will be 23 April.
Another first for me this month was a cow with an anticlockwise rotation of the uterus.
There was no dilation and the calf was out of reach, but she was definitely calving.
Two vets came out and we managed to dilate, rotate the calf and deliver it without damaging the cow.
It took too long for the calf, though, and despite a heart beat, we could not get it going.
Being an elite health status herd, we cannot get a foster calf, and the only twins were nearly seven weeks old so not a good fit.
A massive ninth-calving cow is not to be fooled so easily.
I am writing this a few weeks ahead of the beef farming conference at Cirencester, which we’ll be attending with our apprentice, for hopefully a day of questions, debate and an opportunity to learn.