Just under 50% of the beef cattle processed at factories approved by the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM) last week were steer cattle.
According to figures released by DAFM, the total number of cattle processed at DAFM-approved plants last week was 34,097 including veal.
Of these cattle, 16,887 head or 49.5% were steers. The high percentage of steer cattle in the national kill over the past few weeks comes as little surprise to many speculators in the cattle trade, for two reasons.
Firstly, the number of bull-beef finishers in Ireland has greatly reduced in recent years due to reduced demand for bull beef.
This has resulted in many farmers opting to castrate their male calves as yearlings, and bring them to beef as steer cattle as opposed to bulls.
Secondly, if we wind the clock back 30-months from today, we were in the early days of March 2019 and calving was in full swing.
This means that these cattle are now approaching the 30-month age bracket and are being presented for slaughter before they cross this age, to avoid payment penalties imposed on ‘overage cattle’.
Weekly beef kill changes (last week versus previous week)
- Young bulls: 1,444 head (+111 head);
- Bulls: 635 head (+69 head);
- Steers: 16,887 head (-150 head);
- Cows: 6,269 head (+68 head);
- Heifers: 8,834 head (+117 head);
- Total: 34,097 head [incl. veal] (+196 head).
Looking at other categories of last week’s cattle kill, there were no major surprises, with little change in numbers processed last week compared to the previous week.
However, while the week-on-week kill has brought little change, the total kill this year has continued to fall further behind last year’s kill.
The overall 2020 kill now stands at over 1.07 million cattle, a total of 73,575 head of cattle behind the number of cattle processed last year to date (including veal).
The current trend on the falling kill numbers is in line with Bord Bia’s prediction from earlier this year, in which it outlined that up to 120,000 fewer cattle would be available for slaughter in 2021.