I find the ICBF slaughter report one the most invaluable tools in scrutinising performance every year. Some might say it’s too late when they're hanging, but I would totally disagree. Business is driven by targets, if there are no targets, what has a person to aim for. This report lets me pin point were my performance has dipped.

It’s very evident that the flaw in our system is the first half of September. You might ask why I pick such a random date.

The first bunch of cattle are usually killed off grass in mid to late August and as predicted they performed satisfactory. This bunch get preferential treatment, they go to grass in early March and are grazed as a separate bunch until slaughter in August.

The next bunch killed in early September always perform below par for several reasons. They are usually two to three weeks later going to grass and they are only receiving concentrates for two weeks before slaughter. They always pull the averages down across the board.

So this is the target for next year, to push the performance of these animals higher. I am against creating another sub-group as this only complicates my grazing system but it might be worth it for a month before slaughter to increase the performance of this particular bunch.

Statistics

The ICBF report also shows another number of interesting statistics. The top five performing animals were from Monaghan, Cavan, Meath, Leitrim and Silgo. Just demonstrating that no longer is it as important for animals to come from poorer land areas for them to thrive. Indeed it’s gone full circle when visiting some marts in the west of Ireland that the animals are “hot” with feeding in a lot of cases.

Even more interesting was the breed variation statistics. Simmental came out on top, followed closely by Limousin, Angus and Charloais. A more alarmingly figure was that 24% of the steers we killed had an “unknown” sire. This really demonstrates the long road suckler farming in Ireland has to come to reach anywhere near its potential. One might suggest this is similar to a potato farmer not knowing what varieties he planted or similarly a sheep farmer not knowing what breed of ram he has.

We were also rewarded for quality, I feel, as 40% of all animals slaughter received additional payment for achieving R= or better with only 6.5% of animals falling outside the grid bonus.

Hopefully these targets can be met and exceeded as we proceed into a new year.