Beef carcase weights take a tumble

Delayed turnout, a bad autumn in 2023, forage availability and an increasing proportion of beef originating from the dairy herd have all been blamed for a reduction in beef carcase weights for the first five months of 2024.

Many cattle that were finished in the first five months of 2024 took a big hit at grass during the autumn months with some coming in 100-150kg per head lighter.

While some of this lost weight gain was made up through earlier housing and extra meal feeding, many of these cattle never regained the lost weight and as a result were killed lighter than they would have been in other years.

Reduced silage supplies on some farms in spring 2024 also resulted in more meal being fed, leading to earlier slaughter.

All of these factors, combined with the fact that over 60% of our national kill is originating from the dairy herd, means that carcase weights have seen a big drop in 2024.

Weights

Figure 1 outlines the carcase weights of bullocks, heifers, young bulls, cows and bulls from January to May from 2020-2024.

Bullocks saw a decline of 4.6kg in carcase weight on the 2023 figures while heifers saw a 5kg drop. The carcase declines from 2022 to 2023 for the same period was 2.6kg for bullocks and 1.4kg for heifers.

Cows have seen a drop of 3.4kg but over the past five years 21.4kg has been wiped off the average cow carcase. The average cow carcase for the first five months of 2024 came in at 293kg.

The decline in carcase weights is also accompanied by a decline in carcase grades for the first quarter of 2024 whereby the proportion of cull cows grading conformation P increased to 68.1%, from 65.6% for the same period in 2023.

Six per cent of heifers graded conformation P and 9% were O-, which was up slightly from 4.7% (P) and 8.1% (O-) respectively during the same period last year.

Meanwhile, some 13.1% of bullocks graded conformation P, while 16.3% were O-.

This represented a marginal improvement on the first quarter of 2023.

This may be partly attributable to a slight improvement in the number of dairy-beef cross steers, such as Angus crosses and Hereford crosses being finished, as opposed to pure-dairy males.