Tullamore bulls: ‘the house always wins’

They say hindsight is 20-20 vision. When we sat down to take a look at the bull finishing budget in January we knew we needed €5.50/kg to cover our costs come June. The beef trade looked positive at the time and with numbers set to get tighter as we progressed through 2023, like many others we were positive about going the whole way to the finish with the 2022 crop of bulls on Tullamore Farm. We were wrong.

Weanling prices were cruising high in January and that was the time to take the money and run but like most gamblers we stayed at the table and ended up losing.

There’s a saying in gambling circles, “the house always wins”, and 2023 is another year when the house, or factory, has won. Unfortunately, the might and power of the big house is just too much for the small finisher.

Confidence

Confidence was high after our 2022 sales. We sold the first 15 of our 2021-born bulls on 3 June 2022 to average 390kg at €2,261/head. This translates into a beef price of €5.79/kg. We sold the first 15 of our 2022-born bulls on 22 May to average 385kg at €2,058/head or €5.34/kg.

That’s €206/head less or €3,090 on the load of 15 bulls. Like all suckler farms finishing bulls at under 16 months, we will only sell beef over the next six weeks or so and that’s it for another year.

Table 1 outlines the performance of the first 15 of the 2022-born bulls slaughtered three weeks ago. The bulls were weighed on 22 May just before slaughter. This was a full weight so killout could be factored in at 1% higher due to gut fill which can account for 20-25kg.

The bulls averaged 678kg liveweight, leaving them with an average daily lifetime gain of 1.41kg/day since birth.

The liveweight gain performance when on ad-lib meals was mixed, with weight gains ranging from 1.14kg/day – 2.06/kg/day over the 105-day feeding period.

The group of 15 averaged 1.5kg/day during this feeding period. Carcase weight came in at 385.5kg, with the heaviest at 445kg and the lightest coming in at 319kg. Average grade came in at an R+3-.

Factory returns came in at €2,058.48/head, which translates into an average beef price of €5.34/kg. The cow’s index that each of the bulls are out of has been included along with cow weight.

It’s often argued that you need a big cow to deliver big carcase weights but the data shows that a 670kg cow can still produce a 385kg carcase at 16 months.

There are 27 bulls left on the farm which will be slaughtered in the coming weeks. It’s normally the best performers that are killed first and with further negative sentiment in the beef trade, 2023 won’t be remembered as a good one for finishing under-16-month bulls on Tullamore Farm.