Farmer improves lamb choices

Event helps manager in slaughter selection

An Aberdeenshire livestock farmer has improved his knowledge of selecting prime lambs for slaughter after a workshop organised by Quality Meat Scotland earlier this year.

Gary Bruce, who is a product manager for ACT Scotland and finishes 1,200 prime lambs near Ellon, attended one of the Meat the Market workshops at Woodhead Bros in Turriff.

The events, at abattoirs across Scotland, gave farmers advice on improving livestock selection and presentation to ensure meeting market specification.

Attendees were shown how the EUROP grading system works and the handling points of selecting prime lambs, before putting it into practice and receiving a demonstration on grading.

Mr Bruce said the workshop taught him to select lambs ready for slaughter by handling them and assessing fat cover, as opposed to selecting by weight.

“I was previously picking out my lambs for slaughter on what they weighed and although I was fairly accurate at hitting the 21kg carcase specification, I am now able to select them at the correct fat class,” he said.

“With that in mind and by handling the lambs in the correct areas, my carcases are now producing 3L and 3H grades, and there are less going away with 2 or 4L and 4H grades.”

After attending the workshop in February, he said he is more aware of how market specifications differ and how carcases are graded.

He said: “The workshop gave those who attended the chance to have an open discussion with the buyers and find out exactly what kind of carcase they are after.

“We were also able to correlate between a live lamb and the grade it receives by handling some of the lambs in the lairage prior to being slaughtered.

“The group then followed the lambs through the slaughtering process to see how accurate the guessing was and it was then explained to us how the grader came to the different grades.”

Mr Bruce said nearly all farmers at the workshop who handled the live lambs predicted they were too lean, but found out that after being slaughtered and hung up, the carcases hit target at 3L or 3H.

“Hitting market specification is extremely important and it’s my aim to be in the top 5% or even 10% of profitable lamb finishing enterprises to get the maximum return on my investment,” he said.

“This doesn’t mean to get the maximum price per head each time but to try and aim to wedge a bigger gap between the cost of production and the income from lamb sales.”

Mr Bruce buys store lambs, mainly Suffolk crosses, throughout August and September and sends finished lambs direct to slaughter, with 90% sold to Woodhead Bros and the remainder sold to Kepack McIntosh Donald at Portlethen.

Gary Bruce says he gained valuable guidance on the grading of lambs.