CHANGES IN MARKET DEMANDS.

Otago Witness, Issue 3765, 11 May 1926, Page 12

CHANGES IN MARKET DEMANDS.

The demand for “baby beef” is a growing one, and, naturally enough perhaps, it is not easy for one accustomed to big four, five, or six-year-old bullocks to visualise and appreciate the fact that New Zealand’s best interests lie in the marketing of her meat in sympathy with the best elements of the trade. This question of early maturity is world-wide. In the United States between 60 per cent, and 70 per cent, of the beef cattle used are corn fed and marketed as baby beef. Smaller families and thriftiness learnt in, or enforced by, the war make butchers and their customers cry for small joints with little waste upon them, while farmers cannot afford to ignore the demand. After all is said and done, it is but common sense to produce an animal of the type most in demand, and to sell it early rather than to pile up flesh and bone upon it for some years before receiving a return proportionate to the outlay through so many seasons. This change in cattle is paralleled in the demand for smaller carcases of sheep. The fat stock shows at Home testify to the modern demand and celerity with which producers in the Old Country have met the new position. Being on the spot and close to millions of their consumers of L»eef, mutton, and lamb, it was imperative that the type demanded should be obtainable. Far away from the markets it is difficult, perhaps, or anyway takes a longer time before producers realise the position. This season in New Zealand the best prices are obtained for the prime light-weight wether and lamb, last season’s demand having gathered strength, and it is not anticipated that the demand will weaken in the near future. It is safe to say that all meat-exporting countries will have to supply earlymaturing stock and relegate some of the long-bodied, horned wonders to the various museums. At the recent Smithfield Show this early maturity movement was very noticeable. The new conditions have been met by British stock breeders, to judge by their present output. It is found as strikingly among the sheep pens, and also among the pigs. In their determination to cut down costs of production and to meet the demands of the customer, The Times says, sheepmen have been fertile in successful expc iuents with new or long-neglected elements. Although the chief breeds of repute for the last generation are far from being eclipsed, they are, as it were, “marking time,” while Oxford and Suffolk and Down rams are being freely used among the long-woolled flocks of north, and crossbreds now feature largely on the n kets. The aim is at bottom the same (says thj Yorkshire Post) that increasingly followed by breedeis of cattle; it is sought to build up types which require less food and labour than the old-fashioned Down flocks, and yet can be marketed as Last as early for the spring lamb trade. The crossbred sheep pens are thus among the most interesting in the show. They offer' a ‘"iking justification of the wisdom of allowing no distinct breed of stock to perish, however definitely its day may seem to be past or it may appear to be worth retaining only in its native district. The sheep of Kerry Hill, on the Welsh border, are a salient example of a breed evolved among special local surroundings which is no v sought eagerly for crossing in distant and diverse counties. Still more noteworthy is the case c the old Wiltshire or “Western Horn” breed, which has. long been merged in Wiltshire itself into the 'lampshire Down flocks, and only survived on a small number of ....ins, cmefly in the Southern Mid lands. This has been revived ' > neet the needs of the time, almost like a breed raised from the dead. The unforeseen changes in market demands and farming methods supply an answer not to be lightly ired those who criticise the variety of British breeds of stock a« excessive and prejudicial. An analysis of the figures shows (says a man on the spot) that young animals can no- be brought to the block at 15 months old weighing eight, nine, and even ten hundredweight. There i~, for instance, a young Sussc beast 1° months old and scaling half a ton plus 181 b at Smithfield Show this week. Correlating weight and age, one sees that this animal has put on an average of 2.71 b each day since birth, this figure, of course, including the weight at birth. Similarly there are eight Red Poll youngsters, the average weight of which is 9661 b, and the average 379 days, which works out at a daily live weight increase from birth of 2Jlb. This is an era of quick business returns, and we may live to see the time when the same influences which have practically extinguished the mature wether in many breeds of sheep at the fat stock shows will apply also to cattle.