Double bonus as dairy and beef are sexed up

The appliance of science is helping to not only improve the genetics of the country’s dairy herd, but also to enhance the quality of beef produced by this sector.

The growth in the use of sexed semen to produce replacement cows for the dairy has allowed milk producers to focus on producing heifers from their best cows – while those of lower genetic merit can be sired by a beef bull to produce calves which have frames better suited to meat production.

An analysis of calf registration figures by the meat promotion body Quality Meat Scotland this week showed that this meant that while the size of the national dairy herd had remained constant, the number of dairy-sired calves being born had fallen by 3.5 per cent, with all the reduction being in male calves.

However, despite a continued fall in the size of the suckler beef herd, the number of beef-sired calf registrations had actually increased on the year.

According to director of economics with QMS, Stuart Ashworth, this pattern was not unique and had been repeated in both England and Wales where the use of sexed semen had led to a decline in dairy-sired male calves of 11 per cent between 2018 and 2019 – while female dairy calf registrations were broadly unchanged.

He said that this adoption of science had contributed to the fact that around 34,000 head of cattle entering the beef market had now changed from being pure dairy breeds to having 50 per cent beef genetics over the past year.

Ashworth said that the calf registration figures also showed that farmers were adopting practices to make their beef enterprises more efficient, with the proportion of male cattle in the 18-24 per cent on British farms dropping by 25 over the past year, indicating that they had reached slaughter weight at an earlier age: “Indeed, the average age prime male cattle are slaughtered at in the UK has fallen by around a fortnight in the past five years.”

Looking at calf registrations in Scotland during 2019, he said that at 552,700 head, the figure was close to that of 2018, but 2.5 per cent lower than in 2017. And with the majority of cattle being finished in 2020 likely to come from the 2018-born crop he said that this indicated that supplies would be tighter.

“Economic theory tells us that tighter supplies support prices – but the caveat to that is that demand must remain firm domestically and internationally and access to international markets must be open with minimal constraints,” said Ashworth.

“In this context, the demand side of the equation for beef from Scotland remains sensitive to consumer opinion and international trade arrangements.”

Meanwhile the registration figures also showed a continuing trend towards native breed sires which now account for around 28 per cent of all registrations, up from 20 per cent a decade ago.

Aberdeen Angus dominated the native breeds accounting for 19 per cent of all Scottish calf registrations, up from 14 per cent ten years ago.