Most Of Beef Increase From Dairy Sources

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 31967, 19 April 1969, Page 10

Most Of Beef Increase From Dairy Sources

So-called dairy beef now accounted for more than 60 per cent of New Zealand’s total beef exports and the trend in the future would undoubtedly be that most of the increased beef production in New Zealand would be obtained from dairy breeds or their crosses, Mr M. G. Hollard, senior lecturer in animal science at Lincoln College, said during a panel discussion on beef production in New Zealand held this week at a meeting of the Canterbury branch of the New Zealand Institute of Agriculture Science. .

Mr Hollard. who presided over the discussions, said that the best indication of long-term demand available was the projections of the Food and Agriculture Organisation for the demand fot lean beef, which were mosl favourable, particularly for beef In the 18-months to three-year-old category Already he noted that there had been a 15 per cent increase in production in New Zealand between 1966-67 and 1967-68 and a further increase would undoubtedly occur this year. in the marketing of traditional beef Mr Hollard said that devaluation in New Zealand should have improved market prospects for beef in the United States, Japan, the European Economic Community and in Israel, and in fact the quota for New Zealand beef imports into the United States was at present 4* per cent highor than last year. This would leave about a third of New Zealand's beef production to be sold outside the United States. There was no sign yet of any accumulated unsold surplus of beef from New Zealand sources, and he believed that traditional beef cattle should be increased in number as quickly as possible and in addition there was an urgent need to reduce further the wastage of bobby calves from the dairy industry. On paper it seemed that there could be more than 600.000 suitable calves available for rearing as dairy beef rather than being sold as bobby calves. Currently the bobby calf industry was worth about 89m a year producing about 9000 tons of veal and about 1200 tons of canned jellied veal in addition, but the return from this section of the meat industry was very small compared with the potential return if those calves at present slaughtered at a few days of age were carried through to the 18 to 21months old stage. There had been some opposition. or at least polite disbelief. on the part of some traditional beef cattle

breeders, graziers, grader and butchers in regard to th usefulness of dairy-bre cattle for meat productioi However it was signiflear that this opposition ha never been recorded from th supermarket consumer wh would have difficulty whe peering at a cellophant wrapped cut in determinin whether it came from a trad tional beef-bred animal o from a well-grown Friesia or Friesian cross steer. I any case most of the dair beef was used for manufai taring purposes and it wa the preferred meat for th purpose. In short the bree of cattle was not the arbite of beef quality. A major point in the pn duction of dairy beef wa that the overhead cost of th breeding cow was eliminate! in that the cow was bein run for milk production an obtaining the progeny fc beef production was a bonu Ample evidence had bee accumulated both oversea and in New Zealand to lllu trate the good growth rate i large dairy-beef breeds an the very acceptable carcas weights, dressing percentag and percentage of trim™ cuts that could be obtaine from such animals. In giving the results of e: tensive trials at Massey Un versify, he said it wa obvious that beef anima bred from dairy stock con pared favourably with th traditional beef breeds i the two most importar characteristics of beef cattl —liveweight gain and yiel of lean meat. Experience had shown thi steer beef from dairy breec must be well grown to reac g.a.q. or f.a.q. grading at 2 months of age, but of court such beef could be and wa used for manufacturing pu poses if it could not be gr, ded in this category, and i fact he believed that som carcases which had grade f a q. had been used for mam faeturing purposes Grading on yield of lea meat would result in the fu ther recognition of the mer of beef bred from dairy an mals. Ven young bull beef froi animals less than 20 month of age was not regarded i the United States as bein specially suitable for mam faeturing purposes and h understood that a specii grade was to be introduced I Incorporate animals in th category to enable the bei to be identified and sold i some other market. On the other hand bull bet from older animals, if we grown and well musclei qualified for a substantii premium and there would t much to be said for encourai ing bull beef production management difficulties o the farm could be overcom From limited experience t said that there appeared I be little difficulty in handlin large groups of bulls on farm scale provided potent!; trouble makers were remove early from the grazing mo and provided that no femal stock were close to the bu herd. Some years ago whe enthusiasm for convertin hobby calves to 20-month old beef cattie was first buili ing up. Mr Hollard said thi dairy farmers had experiei ced some difficulty in findin • satisfactory outlet for the:

weaner stock. However, in the. last two years the transfer of dairy calves to graziers had been facilitated by the impro-l ved direct liaison between: dairy farmers and graziers.: by increased interest on the; part of stock firms and sitni- 1 lar organisations in such l stock sales, and in the inau-, guration of special sales fori : dairy - bred weaners at (centres such as Erankton and {Pukekobe, which were developing into really large events. I For example, at Frankton last December some 2500 dairy weaners had been auctioned and 93 per cent sold. .Some 27 per cent were pure ! Friesians and 44 per cent i FriesianJersey cross and they were between three and . seven-months-old. The overall average price! was just under $24. I.arge scale private treaty! arrangements had also be-; come quite common—for. example a Kaikobe grazier! I was currently buying in more [than 200 weaner calves each! | year for conversion into 20-; I months-old beef. Attention was also being: focused on the use of large scale nurse cow programmes) for the rearing of dairy beef) calves from a few days of age' to weaning at 20 weeks. Quite outstanding in this: field was the experimental project operated by the New Zealand Co-operative Dairy Company at Buckland, Pukekohe. Last year some 60 boner Friesian cows, which were reputedly sound and in calf, had been purchased at boner price plus $lO and following calving a total of some 200 purchased calves had been fostered on to the nurse cows. The calves bad been purchased at $lO a head for bulls and $l2 for heifers. One calf was fostered for each estimated one gallon of milk produced by the dam so that some dams were suckling five calves but most nursed three or four. The Friesian dams nursed; an average of 3.5 calves and the Jerseys an average of I three calves, so it could be inj a programme of this kind that the Jersey nurse cow would be a better proposition economically. An additional group of

rs bought-in calves had been hand-fed on skim milk powid der and their growth rate n - compared with the nursed nt calves. At 20 weeks the nurld sed calves averaged about ,c 3501 b liveweight, whereas the 10 bucket-fed calves averaged fD about 3001 b. c- One man had been engaged '8 full time for the first three months of the programme > r looking after the herd of 60 ‘ n odd cows and some 200 to n 250 calves. This meant that T rather more labour was inc" volved than might have been 15 expected, but the checking le for early signs of unthriftl'<l ness and for the rejection of !r calves by nurse cows had taken up a surprisingly large amount of time. The vents ture was continuing. > e in looking at the position d - as a whole in New Zealand, •8 Mr Hollard said he felt that ld it was clear that there was ’ r ample room for beef produciS - tion of all kinds. To augment !n supplies from traditional *’ sources the feasibility of !*• using dairy beef had been >“ well proyen and large num,d bers of dairy-bred animals 5e were currently being bred or reared by beef producers. * d Interest in the Friesian !d breed for this purpose was well illustrated by the de- *■ mand for semen from the “• artificial breeding centres. In » s 1964 only 18 per cent of total ” semen demand was for Frien‘ sian but by last year this ? e figure had increased to more ll * than 40 per cent for the country as a whole and about ** 50 per cent in some areas. Hence It was easy to . believe that within the next five yean the national dairy herd as a whole » n would change in colour to se black and white. ls New Zealand Dairy Board ir . surveys had shown that in ■ a . 1968, some 50,000 calves were in being reared for beef on ]e dairy farms and a further >4 42,000 had been sold to other u . farmers to rear There seemed little doubt that large in Increases In these figures i r . would be recorded this year. •It Under really intensive ,j. management methods such as were used by the most protn ductive dairy farmers some hs 5001 b of beef an acre a year in seemed to be a goal within ig reac h- At 17c per lb this repreu- sented a gross income of SBS je an acre. This did not comal pare at the moment with facto tory supply farming at 4001 b is of butterfat an acre at $26.59c ef a lb yielding a gross of $lO6 in an acre. Still such production of beef on dairy farms was ef already a very useful sideill line with a low labour cond, tent and assuming that buta| terfat prices were likely to fail rather than rise and beef g- prices to rise rather than fall if the relative economics of m these two kinds of animal ,e. production could very quickly je change. to Mr John Acland, of Mount ig Peel Station. Peel Forest, a South Canterbury, said he al believed that there was a ad definite place in New Zeajb land for feeding some grain le to cattle—3lb or 41b a day—ill with silage. The British farmer, he said, knew exactly an the relationship of feed fed ig to cattle to weight gain and is- in determining this in d- Britain he praised the work at of the Beef Recording Asson- ciation.. “If we are to go ig into the use of barley and ir concentrates we must use

! scales and weigh," he com- ' mented. Referring to a man who Iwas using 111 b of barley a ;day in New Zealand. Mr Aclland said he believed that ; this man was probably losing j2s or 20c per lb of beef. If he was going into beef ■cattle production on toothill 'country—because they got some rain there—Mr Acland :said he would go in for the I Hereford-Friesian cross cow, i which was popular on both 'the flatter country and also (the hills in Britain. He favoured this combination also because calves were 'colour marked Mr Acland was critical of the Aberdeen Angus breed in Britain. He said that he had ; not been able to find one commercial herd of blacks and . breed society numbers were I declining. Recalling bis visit to one 'of the leading herds in the [country he said that the cattle were short in the body, dumpy and low set—“of no use to us in New Zealland." All bulls that went to Perth were suckled on Ayrshire cows and he said he ' had seen boxes on one or [two stud properties that were use to hold the cows for mating. He said he could understand the production of the present sort of animals when they brought big money from buyers, but long-term results would show whether breeders were following the right lines and it was his feeling that the decline in the popularity of the breed would continue unless breeders pulled their socks up. Mr Acland told a questioner that he believed that there were better Aberdeen Angus cattle in New Zealand than in Scotland and at Mount Peel where they had 1000 cows they hoped to get into a breeding programme. Mr Acland said the black cattle climbed out well where they

had cattle running to 4000 ft and thrived well.

Mr Aciand said he hoped that in 10 years time there would be performance testing stations in New Zealand. At these stations in Britain Mr Aciand said that at 400 days Aberdeen Angus had been shown to have weights ranging form 6501 b to 12501 b, Hereford* 650 to 1350. and South Devons 700 to 14501 b. The South Devon was a breed that he would be very interested in seeing someone bring out to New Zealand, he said. Of the Charolais, which were not yet old enough for results to be available from performance testing stations, Mr Aciand said he saw their place here rather for crossingl with beef breeds than with Friesians. They were trying this and had calves running l with Aberdeen Angus. Somej were running at up to 3000 ft. With 46 Charolais cross calves they had had no calving difficulties, and at Mount! Peel if they had one such case of trouble they would' have dropped the Charolais! on the spot. At weaning at 200 days he said that the Charolais cross heifers had had an advantage in weight! of 851 b. On a ewe equivalent basis' Mr Aciand said on Mount Peel they were doing about 82 better with cattle than with, sheep, even taking account! of the higher Interest involved in cattle. At Mount Peel he thought 1 that producing 500 to 6001 b of beef to the acre they i were doing “better by a j long chalk” than with sheep and cropping. Speaking later Professor J.| D. Stewart, of Lincoln College. said that Mr Aciand would be comparing cattle with Romney sheep and the picture would be somewhat different if the comparison was made with fine wool! sheep. Mr Aciand expressed opposion to feed lot operations in New Zealand with sheds and tower silos. He told a questioner that when they were debating whether they should have them in the United Kingdom, where they were getting twice as much for their cattle as iiere, then noone here should have them. But later a speaker from the audience suggested that the stage might be close at hand where such an operation i

! based on corn silage would be 'about profitable. Mr A. R. Watson, district manager of Thomas Borthwicks, said that all beef exported now was in the boned-out form and he believd that a big factor in that the price of beef had continued to rise relative to other products compared with 10 years ago had been the , cutting and processing of I beef and the increased flexiI bility that it gave in marketi ing. In the long term Mr Watson said that the estimates of the Food and Agriculture Organisation for beef were pretty good, but short term prospects were dominated by the ' United States quota of 100,000 tons with an annual growth fad or of 4f per cent, and 'while his firm had been | pretty optimistic about the prospects for beef they would feel rather perturbed if production was increased by the ■ order of 15 to 20 per cent as a , result of the substitution of ' beef production for wool and I dairy production. In answering a question Mr Watson" said that they would like to see a gradual ! increase in beef—what they would be perturbed about ' would be a rapid and dramtic increase.

Professor Stewart said he did not think that Mr Watson needed to be too worried about the production of cattle in Canterbury below the 30 inch rainfall mark because there was likely to be a sharp reduction—in the case of the college's Ashley Dene property from 90 to zero for instance—because of drought. Questioned about short term markets for manufacturing beef Mr Watson said he thought that the United Kingdom might be a possible growth market here, and one of the most promising areas might be Japan and other areas where New Zealand sent small volumes of beef. Japan, he said, seemed to have absorbed a growing volume of ewe mutton to the point where she took about all that was available for export. He did not know what prospects there might be of sending more to the United States where prices were pretty high. This would depend on supplies also from other sources.

To a questioner who suggested that butchers got more

cuts out of a compact type of animal than one with poor conformation, Mr Watson said that butcher preference depended on the location of the shop. Some shops in Christchurch would have nothing but Aberdeen Angus, which he thought produced beef with nice looking flesh and eye appeal, but he knew that other shops preferred Friesian beef if they could get it. Mr liollard said this week that there was no published evidence to indicate that beef from dairybred animals was in general any less palatable or nutritious than beef from other sources. in the United States palatabiiity studies on steaks from beefbred and dairy-bred animals of similar age, sex and management had repeatedly shown no consistent difference between the two.

Mr S. D. Walker, a field officer of the New Zealand Sheep and Beef Cattie Survey, said that there was need for more research, performance testing stations, progeny testing and much more advisory work to the farmer. A much greater impact could be made in beef herds if breeders would concentrate on the important factors in selection, he said. In noting that a breeder had culled a ealf because it had too much white down the back, he said that there was no correlation between what was on the calf's back and any economic factor, but he suggested that there was a strong negative correlation in this case with the sort of animals that breeders would buy. In this sort of situation he said he was envious of the approach adopted in the dairy industry. Discussing likely increases in beef cattle numbers, he said that a reasonable maximum rate of increase a year would be about nine or 10 per cent, taking into account a reasonable estimate of calving percentage and that not all females were mated at two years old. But 1975 he suggested that the total beef population in the country might have increased to about 7.5 m to 8m on the basis of the rate of increase between 1980 and 1967, and in Canterbury from 83,000 breeding cows in 1967 to 160,000 and a total of 270,000 beef cattle to more than 500,000.

Mr Walker told a questioner that 225 studs with an average of 40 to 45 breeding cows in three major breeds were under recording in New Zealand.