The recent gradual decline in the UK cattle herd continues with the final results of the DEFRA June survey recording a fall of 151,900 head. The fall of 2% to 9.74m head reported by the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (AHDB) comprises a reduction across all classes of stock.

Worryingly for long-term supplies in the UK, the suckler herd fell by 2% to approximately 1,527,000 as detailed in Table 1, while the dairy breeding herd reduced marginally by 0.6% to 1,871,000.

The other category comprising the greatest fall is male cattle under two years of age. Male cattle aged one to two years fell 2.2% to just over 1m head while the number of cattle aged under one year reduced 2.9% to just under 1.3m head.

The AHDB report highlights a move to sexed semen in dairy inseminations as contributing to the decline in male cattle numbers. They report the use of sexed semen as doubling in the last five years with the switch intensifying in recent years and now accounting for one in three inseminations.

The AHDB also indicates that the use of beef sexed semen on dairy cows has fallen with farmers reverting to sexed dairy semen. A reason highlighted for the switch is poor beef prices eroding confidence in beef with dairy farmers favouring producing surplus dairy heifers over beef animals.

Suckler herd fall

The suckler herd in each country declined significantly on the previous year. This is in contrast to the dairy herd with Northern Ireland and Scotland recording growth of 0.9% and 0.6% respectively.

Northern Ireland also recorded an increase in numbers of male and female cattle aged over two years on farms on 1 June 2019. This provided a platform for higher throughput in Northern factories in recent months with the kill of 260,612 head running 8,644 head higher.

The number of cattle under two years of age were recorded at a lower level across the four countries, which points to a tightening in factory throughput over the next year.