Livestock Price Reporting

Price reporting, for livestock auctioneers, is one of their biggest promotion tools and it is easy these days to keep an eye on trade for all classes of livestock from anywhere in the United Kingdom on a daily basis by finding market reports in papers or online.

Personally I like to include average prices when I report on sales as it gives an accurate picture of an overall trade. It's easy enough to say the best animal of the day sold for £1300 but what does that tell you about the trade. Not much.

To get to the point I am going to make. I recently read a report from a local livestock centre, who I must say should be commended for their admirable stance on comission rates and also achieving a price of £1305 for the best animal of the day. But nevertheless off I went again, out to get the latest issue of the Farmers Guardian and straight to the Market Prices section with my calculator. :)

The conclusions i came to I found very interesting. Having combined the averages through cattle of all ages it showed that:

Continental Steers in Whitland averaged £104/head more than our nearest competitor and Continental Heifers £108/head more.

Native Sired Steers averaged a huge £135/head more while Native Sired Heifers averaged £100/head more than our nearest competition.

And Friesian Steers on average sold for £262/head more.

Overall store cattle at Whitland averaged £125/head more than their nearest rivals.

Now I'm not naive enough to try and tell you that one week's story is true all year round but I will say that the trade here at Whitland Mart is very consistent and we have buyers for all classes and ages of cattle that make sure that not only the bigger and better animals sell well but every animal. And on this given week I calculated that it would have cost £4 per animal to gain that £125/head and we are only a bypass away. Doesn't sound like a bad deal to me.