26 March 2013

2 minute read

Europe

This equates to 9,000 more calves born on 2011 levels which analysts believe is down to the higher number of dairy calves registered.

“Dairy-bred female registrations were up two per cent while dairy-bred male registrations were up seven per cent,” said EBLEX Senior Analyst, Debbie Butcher.

“These dairy-bred males had traditionally been finished on intensive cereal-based systems but numbers had declined due to challenging economics. Strengthening beef prices look to have encouraged producers to retain more of these animals, increasingly as steers.”

Similar to 2011, two thirds of calves were registered as non-dairy. However, the trend shows increasing dairy calf numbers as in 2006 75 per cent of calves were non-dairy registered.

Overall, there was a decline in non-dairy calf registrations, as a result of lower year-on-year registrations in the months since March.

“In the first quarter of 2012, non-dairy registrations were 35,000 head higher than in the previous year, with the number of males up 18 per cent, indicating a potentiall upturn in male cattle slaughterings,” said Mrs Butcher.

“However, as the year progressed and registrations dropped back, it became clear that any upturn in male cattle slaughterings in the medium term is likely to be limited.”

Limousins remained the popular breed accounting for over a fifth of all registrations at 559,545 (21.2 per cent). This did however represent a drop of 4.3 per cent on the previous year.

Aberdeen Angus numbers remained a distant second at 257,875 at 9.8 per cent of all breeds although did show a 3 per cent upturn.

Charolais (9.5 per cent) and Simmental (7 per cent) remained third and fourth although both decreased by around 4 per cent.