Cattle slaughter down in Australia in Q1
The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) has released official livestock slaughter figures for the first quarter of 2022.
In the course of the quarter, 1.3 million head of cattle went to slaughter in Australia, a fall of 5.8% compared to the same quarter last year.
Red meat industry organisation Meat and Livestock Australia (MLA) pointed out that average cattle carcase weights for the quarter were up by 3.4% year on year at 324.4 kilos per head. MLA said there were three main reasons for this increase in weight.
It said high cattle prices gave farmers and feedlots an incentive to keep cattle for longer, meaning the cattle had a longer time feeding before going to slaughter. It also said improved weather conditions in key regions such as southern Queensland and New South Wales had provided farmers with “abundant feed”.
Finally, it said the proportion of cattle going to feedlots before slaughter was higher. In the first quarter of 2022, the proportion of feedlot cattle going to slaughter was 55%.
